Genius Wizard Takes Medicine [EN]: Chapter 11

Unrelenting insomnia. His body felt weary every single day.

The sleeping pills and cigarettes he took daily would eventually build up a tolerance, and Lenok would end up searching for even stronger drugs. But for the moment, his expression seemed utterly peaceful.

Another day passed like this.

In the megacity of Balkan, it was the day Lenok first started earning money.

#

Time flowed quickly.

Lenok, having confirmed that the side effects of the newly purchased cigarettes were much less than the previous ones, rested well for several days.

There were many things he could do while resting. Now that he could manipulate magic, he could research it while lying in bed. His rapidly increasing talent was enough to make him devote time to magic.

As he continued to research magic, his casting time gradually shortened, and the number of spells he could use increased.

By combining a few new variations of the lightning magic he already knew, he could create new spells. Lenok, completely immersed in the fun he couldn’t even attempt in the original WORLD game, stabilized his body while researching magic without anyone disturbing him.

When he felt his energy returning to some extent, he would stop resting and go back to work.

He would go to Jenny’s bar and repeatedly pick off wanted criminals.

She might have chosen this job simply to test Lenok’s abilities, but from Lenok’s perspective, who was desperate for every penny, it was a pretty good income.

Tracking wasn’t too difficult with just the wanted criminal’s bloodstains, and subduing them was even easier.

There weren’t many jobs that guaranteed the same reward as the first one with Taylor, but it was still a considerable income for a day’s work.

From the third wanted criminal he captured, Jenny seemed to subtly try to assign Lenok other tasks, but Lenok continued to focus on chasing bounties.

Before starting work, he would smoke a cigarette and hand over the captured wanted criminal to Joden.

He would receive the bounty and return to the hotel, collapsing and sleeping like the dead. After resting for about three days and researching magic, he would go back to work when his body stabilized.

As he continued to repeat this process, Lenok was able to amass nearly ten million cell.

In the process, it seemed that the name ‘Ban’ had become known in various places, but as long as he wasn’t directly involved, it didn’t matter.

Rather, Lenok thought that being known as a capable bounty hunter wasn’t a bad thing.

One day, a month after he started researching magic and earning money.

“………”

Lenok opened his eyes, his face directly exposed to the sunlight coming through the window.

He grabbed his throbbing head and sat up.

The two cigarettes he had smoked in a row yesterday while chasing a wanted criminal were still bothering him.

He took a full container of water from the water dispenser and drank it all, then washed his sweat-soaked body.

Lenok had become so accustomed to this life that he could find the towel hanging on the rack with his eyes closed.

After showering, Lenok’s gaze turned to a corner of the hotel room. The ten million cell in bounty money that Lenok had earned by capturing wanted criminals was piled up there.

Hundreds of 10,000 and 100,000 cell bills. It was a lot of money, but it was definitely not appropriate to pile it up in the corner of the room and ask for room cleaning.

Because of that, Lenok hadn’t been able to change his bed sheets for over a week.

It was a bit unsettling, but it was better than openly showing ten million cell to a complete stranger, wasn’t it?

“I need to make a bank account…”

There was no other way to store the money except by creating an account, but it was absurd for Lenok, who didn’t even have a proper identity, to go to a commercial bank.

There was an anonymous bank in District 49 for people in similar situations as Lenok, but Lenok had long given up on it due to the exorbitant fees that even beggars would despise.

In the end, there was only one option Lenok could choose.

Buy a new identity with money. Buy the identity of a missing person and completely rewrite all the information.

The cost required to contact and trade with a forger who sells fake IDs was 20 million cell.

Jenny said that if it wasn’t for her arrangement, it would have cost ten million cell more, so he owed her quite a bit.

Especially since Lenok had recently realized how inconvenient it was to not have a family register, he was planning to create a new identity as soon as he had the funds.

After lying down for half a day due to the aftereffects of the drugs that hadn’t completely worn off, Lenok finally got up and struggled to put on his clothes and went outside.

“Hoo…!”

Without a cigarette in his hand, even walking out of the hotel was incredibly difficult.

His weak body would sweat profusely just from being in the sun for a long time, and walking for a long time would raise his body temperature and cause headaches.

Lenok himself couldn’t understand how he had endured three days in the factory and escaped.

His hand instinctively reached for the cigarette butt he had put in his pocket, but even touching it on a day he wasn’t working was not only a waste of money but also a way to ruin his body.

Even though he had obtained drugs with fewer side effects, it didn’t mean that it wouldn’t put a strain on Lenok’s weak body.

With shaky steps, he found a small market that had opened near a residential area.

Despite the intense heat of midday, it was full of people setting up tents and buying and selling all sorts of fresh ingredients.

The reason he chose to visit such a local market instead of buying things at a mart or store was, of course, the price.

Although the freshness and storage conditions might be a bit lower, most of the ingredients were directly sourced or produced by the sellers.

Moreover, the prices were relatively lower than those in stores that went through distributors, so it was perfect for Lenok.

Of course, when he first bought things without knowing anything, Lenok was ripped off for hundreds of thousands of cell for the hotel breakfast, and he was often taken advantage of at expensive restaurants without knowing the market prices, but now it was different.

After realizing that the civilization of this world was a slightly more advanced form of Earth’s, he drastically reduced the amount of money he wasted in that way.

He would buy disposable lunch boxes from convenience stores and often choose cheap fast food.

However, recently, Lenok had been focusing on buying ingredients directly from the market and cooking them himself.

The condition of his body was completely different from before.

It was unavoidable to smoke drugs to work, but reducing the side effects and controlling the basic nutritional state of his body was something Lenok could do.

It was very important to take care of his own health as much as possible and manage his body so that it wouldn’t go wrong.

Yesterday, Lenok had even squeezed out his meager savings to order a comprehensive nutritional supplement set online for the first time.

“Auntie, give me two gabi onions, five senil stalks, and six bell peppers.”

Lenok, who had already been to the market a couple of times, skillfully selected the ingredients he wanted and asked the owner.

They were ingredients with distinctly different appearances and names from those on Earth, but it was absurd for Lenok’s mind not to memorize their names.

“That’s 34,000 cell.”

“Huh?”

Lenok raised his head to look at the person, noticing a calm voice that was completely different from the owner he remembered.

A woman with short, black hair was staring at him intently.

“Who are you?”

“I’m the owner of this store.”

Could this tent, roughly set up near the market, even be called a store?

“…Where’s the auntie?”

“She’s someone I hired.”

“Then what are all these vegetables?”

“They’re something I grow as a hobby.”

Were these vegetables, piled up so densely that they filled one side of the stall, really a hobby?

It was too large a scale to call it a hobby.

Only then did Lenok take a closer look at the woman he was talking to.

Calm eyes and an expressionless face. She was a beauty with a small but distinct nose and red lips.

She was sitting crouched down, wearing a loose flight jacket and jeans, but her unique calm atmosphere was impressive.

She was definitely out of place among the people buying and selling fruits and vegetables.

“If you grow this much as a hobby, you must be very rich.”

“That’s right. I make a lot of money.”

“……”

He silently paid her 34,000 cell and took the bag in his hand.

Lenok couldn’t judge whether her words were true or false.

However, if she was doing all of this as a hobby, she must be very wealthy.

Lenok had no intention of paying any more attention to her than that.

Until she spoke to him again as he was about to return to the hotel.

“That’s a unique magic power.”

“…Excuse me?”

“Why is a mage like you in a place like this?”

“I don’t understand what you mean…”

“With that level of precise pattern, it should be in my memory, but did you come to Balkan recently?”

Lenok felt a chill run down his spine at her expressionless muttering.

A new thing.

She had not only realized that Lenok was a mage, but she was openly talking about his magic pattern.

Lenok’s quickly rotating mind immediately found the answer.

‘…The barrier was the problem.’

After being able to handle various public magic, Lenok had habitually put up a constant barrier magic whenever he went outside, and it seemed that the magic pattern flowing from it had caught her eye.

Was it even possible to read the magic pattern from magic, going beyond just noticing that he was using magic?

It was something that was only possible for the police using measuring devices, but she was doing it with her naked eyes, which was impossible unless she had a natural talent or was a powerful mage.

Either way, she was not a welcome opponent for Lenok.

Lenok calmly replied, reaching for the cigarette in his pocket.

“That’s right. I haven’t been in this city for long.”

“I thought so.”

“But how did you know that?”

“Huh? Oh, don’t worry about it. It’s one of the things I do.”

“……..”

She lightly shook her head as if she had lost interest in Lenok from the moment her curiosity was resolved.

Then, she subtly began to recommend a vegetable similar to an onion to another customer who had approached from behind him.

Lenok stared at her with a bewildered face for a moment before leaving the market.

“Hoo….”

The city was vast, and there were many unique people.

He never imagined that he would feel a chill down his spine just from going out to buy ingredients.

“I need to pay more attention to magic.”

The amount of magic power automatically increased as he used magic, and the casting speed continued to increase.

It was true that he had neglected learning about magic recently, given his constantly growing skills without any special effort.

He thought that there was nothing particularly lacking at the point where he could use almost all of the public magic he knew in his head, but he had been seen through by a woman he had never met before.

Even if it was impossible to learn new magic right away and become versatile, there was still room for Lenok to use magic more efficiently in terms of technique.

Lenok returned to the hotel, wiped off his sweat, and put the ingredients down in the kitchen.

He took a moment to catch his breath, feeling tired after going outside, and washed all the ingredients he had bought and stored them in the refrigerator.

Then, he took out just the necessary amount of ingredients, placed them on the cutting board, and began to cook.

“One spoonful of misugaru [a Korean grain powder]… two spoonfuls of sugar…”

Next to the cutting board was a memo with cooking instructions. It was copied from a cookbook in the library.

On days when he didn’t go to Jenny’s bar, he often visited the library.

It was open to the public, had a vast collection of books and data, and it was possible to use computers if necessary.

Lenok had been accumulating knowledge about this world and magic whenever he had time, and this time he had borrowed a cookbook related to health food.

It was the first time he had ever tried cooking, but Lenok’s face was more serious than ever.

Lenok understood very well that he needed more than average effort to keep his body in good condition.

Not only the low physical ability he had decided on when creating his character, but also the various penalties he had given himself to increase his magical talent were constantly chipping away at his mind and body.

He couldn’t directly address those penalties right away, but there was no way that there wouldn’t be a way in this place where magic existed.

He shouldn’t get impatient.

Lenok calmed himself and slowly moved the knife in his hand.

‘First, I need to create a proper identity and bank account.’

The zucchini-like vegetable on the cutting board was cut crookedly, but Lenok didn’t care. In the first place, he shouldn’t expect any skill in anything he did with his body.

‘It’s not too late to create a safe channel to store money after that. Gathering money and finding a way is next.’

The road ahead was long, and there were many things to do.

But he had to be careful and cautious.

The environment surrounding him was still unfamiliar, dangerous, and precarious.

To survive, and even more so, to live, he had to be prepared for many things.

And Lenok believed that he was ready for that.

With such a desperate will to survive, Lenok reached for the third vegetable with his knife.

It was an evening when the sun was setting.

#

“A new job?”

District 49. Jenny’s bar.

He had already been to her workplace more than a dozen times.