Genius Wizard Takes Medicine [EN]: Chapter 106

As always, people are overly interested in gossiping about others’ lives.

Although Lennox had only overheard conversations while helping Aris prepare for her class, he already knew her background and the type of magic she wielded.

He even knew that she, a mere second-year undergraduate, was already being courted by various research labs.

“……..”

Just as Lennox recognized her, Sheila seemed to recognize him, her face subtly twisting.

He silently offered her the towel, and she quickly reached for it, but Lennox pulled his hand back and took a step back.

Sheila’s expression immediately soured.

“What are you doing?”

Instead of answering, Lennox quietly pointed behind her.

As the towel fell, it seemed the contents of her pocket had also spilled out, scattering various items on the floor behind her.

“………”

Sheila turned around with an indifferent face and quickly picked up her belongings, but Lennox noticed the tips of her ears were tinged red.

A cracked phone screen, a lip gloss without a lid, and an earphone with only one side working.

Judging by the items she was picking up, she seemed to have a rather clumsy personality, contrary to her composed outward appearance.

He grabbed her as she turned away, forgetting even the towel she had initially dropped, and turned her around, but she spoke first from behind Lennox.

“I overheard your conversation with the professor.”

“Yes?”

“That you can’t use magic at all.”

Lennox silently turned his head at Sheila’s gaze, who was looking up at him with a slightly awkward expression.

‘I had a conversation with Aris about magic… recently.’

He had been spending more time talking with her while helping her prepare for her lectures, and it seemed she had overheard their conversation by chance.

While he was quietly recalling the memory, Sheila continued.

“You should be careful.”

“……..”

“If people find out that the assistant professor isn’t a mage, many will naturally start to target you.”

Lennox chuckled lightly at the unexpected words.

It was a sentiment he never expected to hear from that cold expression.

“Are you worried about me right now?”

“…I’m not particularly interested in Professor Richelene’s lab, but others will be different.”

“I see.”

Lennox said with a smirk.

“But those who need to know probably already know. Especially those who don’t want me here.”

“…Huh?”

Hiding it is only good for a day or two. If you don’t use magic while interacting with students at the university, it will stand out.

Moreover, when Aris registered Lennox as an assistant professor in the department, she would have registered him as a non-mage, so the rumors would have already spread among the gossipy staff.

In that situation, if others deliberately started digging into Lennox’s background, the fact that he was pretending to be a normal person without magic would quickly be revealed.

A flimsy disguise that could collapse at any moment.

That was the reality of his third identity, Evan Bailon.

Sheila looked at Lennox with a somewhat displeased expression, then slightly turned her head and said,

“My sister wasn’t talented in magic, so she couldn’t adapt to this life and ran away.”

“……..”

“Of course, it’s your business, but… I don’t want to see someone like that twice.”

“You don’t have to worry too much.”

Lennox replied with a smirk.

“Even if I can’t use magic, there are plenty of things I can do.”

“………”

“Besides, who knows, maybe I’ll awaken my magic while hanging out with the students here?”

Every time he encountered such unexpected kindness, he realized once again how important his meeting with Aris had been for him.

Kindness without a clear transaction or vested interest was something that was difficult for Lennox to understand, yet difficult to ignore.

So, in order to maintain this life in the light, he had to be able to take care of himself.

Dealing with such dark emotions and schemes was something Lennox was very familiar with.

Sheila looked at Lennox with an expression that said she couldn’t understand him, then turned her body away,

and Lennox silently shook the towel she had forgotten.

“Priscilla, you forgot your towel.”

“………”

Now that he looked at her, she seemed to be not only clumsy but also forgetful.

Trouble.

“Lennox, I heard there are a lot of inquiries about you coming into the department.”

“……..”

He had heard from Sheila that there was a sign, but he never thought that Aris would have already noticed such a thing.

In a way, it was only natural.

Aris Richelene was neither incompetent nor oblivious.

She was even less likely to be the kind of person who would recognize a problem and then ignore it.

The deep scent of wood from the wooden furniture. Lush greenery breathing life into the spacious office.

All sorts of books packed tightly on the wide bookshelves, and an endless pile of documents of unknown origin on the desk.

“Haa…”

In the midst of it all, Aris sighed deeply with a troubled expression.

“It’s my fault.”

“What do you mean?”

“When I brought you to my lab, I didn’t consider the repercussions… It’s my mistake that I didn’t think the reaction would be this intense.”

“Hmm…”

He had no intention of denying her words, but Lennox didn’t think she would have considered such a thing from the beginning.

She was the kind of person who looked at people purely for their essence, to the point that she would recommend research based solely on his abilities, even though she thought he had no magic.

She was the kind of person who approached things with good intentions, so it would have been difficult for her to consider the negative feelings of other students.

“I’ve notified the administration, and they will issue a blanket announcement to the students. In particular, they have decided to issue disciplinary action, including expulsion, for anyone who harms a non-mage in any way.”

“…That’s a very bold move.”

“Your abilities and talents shouldn’t be wasted on useless things. It’s my responsibility to protect my researchers from that.”

Aris’s eyes gleamed coldly.

“Furthermore, I will make sure to set a clear example so that this doesn’t happen again.”

“……..”

She was basically a good person, but she was by no means docile or meek.

Rather, as a high-level mage, it was only natural that she would show a rather ruthless attitude when she considered someone an enemy.

However, as soon as Lennox heard Aris’s words, he shook his head.

“I’m sorry, but if you step in, the public opinion will only get worse.”

“…Huh?”

Even though Aris had scouted Lennox because of his theoretical research abilities, there were a few things he had to do as an assistant professor.

Helping her prepare for classes, collecting and organizing data for related experiments or samples, and explaining them before class.

At least as long as he was part of the university framework, it was inevitable that he would interact with the students.

The announcement through the administration would be helpful, but if Aris directly and openly protected Lennox, it would be easy to create resentment even among those who had no feelings for him.

It would be much more reasonable to leave him alone for now and identify the students who didn’t like Lennox as time went on.

Aris quickly understood what Lennox was saying and nodded.

“Indeed… You’re saying you’ll find a practical solution while considering my reputation. I didn’t misjudge you.”

She seemed somewhat moved by Lennox’s thoughtfulness, but it wasn’t that difficult.

It was just that she couldn’t see the students in a bad light, so it was a difficult idea for her to come up with.

“Yes. If you could just provide me with a self-defense artifact as you mentioned, it shouldn’t be too difficult.”

…And get a decent artifact from her in the process.

In the end, Lennox was only able to leave her study after receiving a very satisfactory confirmation from Aris.

Today, Aris’s lecture is scheduled in Lecture Hall 3.

There were a few items that Lennox needed to prepare because a magic demonstration was required, but he had already memorized the manual, so there shouldn’t be any major problems.

Just as he was about to enter the lecture hall with the gem catalyst loaded on the cart, someone suddenly called out to Lennox from the side.

“Assistant Professor Bailon.”

A female student he had seen in the lecture hall was giving him an awkward smile.

Her name was… maybe Beira. She didn’t have any particular characteristics, so he could barely remember her name.

“Do you need something?”

“Yes. It seems that the demonstration equipment to be used in today’s lecture isn’t working properly. I would like to ask you to check it out.”

“……..”

Just from those words, it was obvious that she wanted to play a trick.

Lennox chuckled, and the polite smile on her lips twitched.

However, perhaps because she was conscious of the other students in the lecture hall, Beira maintained her initial attitude until the end and slowly turned around to guide him.

Following the fluttering hem of her blouse, a large piece of equipment the size of a bed, located under the wide blackboard inside the lecture hall, came into view.

The body emitted a pure white metallic sheen, with matte black joints. The blue magical light emanating from the glass that revealed the interior.

As he had studied the manual beforehand, Lennox roughly knew what this equipment was.

This equipment was a product of magical engineering that Aris Richelene had procured to explain the principles of elemental magic. It had the function of visualizing the process of splitting and combining the injected magic so that it could be seen with the naked eye.

It was surprising that Aris was so knowledgeable in magical engineering that she could design and build such complex and advanced equipment herself, but what was more impressive was her thoughtfulness in going to such lengths for her students.

It was only natural that there were so many students who admired her and wanted to join her lab.

Other students were already crowded in front of the equipment, trying their best to get it to work.

It seemed that the students had messed with it before the lecture and caused a problem. If they left it like this, someone would have to take responsibility and pay the cost or face disciplinary action.

It was only natural that the attention would be focused on the assistant professor who had appeared.

Lennox, after confirming Priscilla standing with her arms crossed slightly away from the students, turned his eyes to the equipment.

“Are you saying you want me to check this equipment?”

“Yes.”

Lennox, looking at Beira’s smiling face, quietly fell into thought.

‘She didn’t break the equipment herself.’

In this world where magic is developed, leaving traces like that would only be a bad move that would tighten her own noose.

It was more accurate to see it as a clever attempt to naturally involve Lennox in a situation that would end with the student’s responsibility and share the blame.

‘Is she trying to achieve what she wants by taking advantage of the situation? How mage-like.’

The problem was that he didn’t know the extent of the problem with the equipment…

‘This should be fine.’

Lennox briefly gauged the distance from Aris and immediately drew upon his magic.

Lennox’s magic manipulation ability, honed through countless battles, was already sharper than a blade and more subtle than sound.

Of course, Beira and the other students didn’t notice that Lennox was drawing upon magic right in front of them.

Crackle…!!

He extended his magic to the equipment, circled it once, and delved into the internal circuits, examining the problem as it was.

The time it took for Lennox to grasp the state of the equipment, combining his understanding of magical engineering and his magic manipulation ability, was only 2 seconds.

He didn’t know any of the specific parts or names of the equipment, but he could instantly realize what function was malfunctioning.

As it was a device that Aris had designed herself, its internal environment was designed to be very precise and sensitive.

When she operated the device herself, she would have used her excellent magic manipulation ability, so there would have been no problem, but it seemed that the students had caused an accident while messing with it out of curiosity.

“Do you know where the problem is?”

“The conversion circuit that changes the movement so that it can be seen with the naked eye during the magic injection process is tangled. It seems that a mistake occurred in the process of pouring in more magic than the injectable capacity.”

“……..Huh?”

Beira’s answer came somewhat late.

And the faces of the other students looking at him with bewildered expressions.

Only after seeing Sheila’s slightly bewildered expression in the distance did Lennox realize his mistake and inwardly clicked his tongue.

‘I should have at least pretended to touch the equipment. I made a mistake.’

He had been so engrossed in the process of looking at the internal design of the equipment that he had temporarily forgotten the surrounding situation.

It was the same in his battles with mages, but sometimes Lennox’s own curiosity or inquisitiveness would come out before his reason.

Lennox, who had quickly turned his head, continued to speak slowly.

“It may not look like there’s any problem on the outside, but if you listen carefully to the sound coming from the equipment, you can tell what the problem is.”