Genius Wizard Takes Medicine [EN]: Chapter 1141

“How are you feeling?”

“What state are you referring to?”

“Avesta Chapman, the graft surgeon. I did a little tinkering with his mind myself.”

Deep beneath the lobby of the Talkerphuz Auction House, in a dark, unpaved tunnel.

Suju’s expression twitched at Mastermind’s words as he walked ahead.

Ignoring Suju’s reaction, Aoshu Spero continued.

“Being a trait-type sorcerer [a sorcerer whose powers are tied to a specific trait or ability], his brain structure is completely different from that of a normal human. The number of nerve cells is much higher than in modern humans, making it difficult to synchronize with the body.”

“……”

“I thought it wouldn’t be strange if he became a vegetable, considering the severe backlash during the process of connecting the spinal cord and the right brain and binding it to the central nervous system…”

Spero, who had borrowed the body of the elderly gentleman who had been the host, turned his head sharply to look at Suju.

With a crack, his neck turned halfway around.

Blood flowed from under the old man’s nose, but Spero ignored it and smiled.

“I really wanted to eat that brain if he didn’t wake up, but it’s a shame. That was the condition for helping in the first place.”

“……”

Was the reason Mastermind cooperated in the mental adjustment of the graft surgeon because he was initially interested in Suju’s right brain?

While he seemed to communicate normally, his words still had a chilling aspect.

A twisted mentality and madness different from the clown or the graft surgeon.

“Psychic. It wouldn’t have been something you’d particularly regret.”

However, Chapman calmly replied to Spero’s words.

“There wouldn’t have been a scenario where I couldn’t wake up in any case.”

“Is that so?”

“The fact that my ego does not exist independently from the point of severing the brainstem and excising the right brain has already been verified.”

The graft surgeon spoke in an indifferent tone.

“Under the premise that bodily functions are alive, my cognitive abilities always exist in a biased manner, and I try to define myself through endless confirmation.”

“Sorry, but I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“This is because my soul and image exist through the origin of grafting.”

Ignoring the clown who tilted his head, Suju turned his gaze towards Lenox as if it were natural.

“Since I perceive things based on the premise that they are divided from the beginning, ‘I’ can exist as ‘I’ even after being divided. You understand, right?”

“Why should I understand a psychopath who splits his brain in two?”

“…The experiment on the left side failed, but the right side is still here.”

Even at Lenox’s firm refusal to understand, Suju calmly raised his left hand.

Suju, who looked at his left hand for a moment, folded his fingers one by one and said.

“If I remember that fact, I would have definitely controlled this body someday. I don’t think I owe you anything.”

“……”

Connected to Suju’s right brain is the left half of the drug lord’s body.

What controls the right half of the body must be an artificial creation made by the drug lord’s alchemy.

Then, what the graft surgeon recognizes as himself is only the left side of his body.

The reason why Suju himself expressed dissatisfaction, saying that he couldn’t even produce half of his sorcery performance, is vaguely understandable.

“You have a strong mental fortitude, not like a high-ranking sorcerer. Are you the type who finds a reason to live anywhere?”

Aoshu Spero tilted his head.

“It’s very different from simply blindly clinging to a goal. There are hardly any cases like this among the executioners, except for Maiya, my sister.”

“Maiya? Maiya Lenslet?”

The clown, who had been whistling and shaking his head, reacted for the first time.

“Are you perhaps talking about that executioner who recently went missing?”

“…What?”

Spero turned his head sharply.

The sound from the old man’s neck grew louder, but he turned his neck almost in the opposite direction to look at the clown.

“What did you say happened to my sister?”

“…Hmm.”

In that instant, the clown’s eyes narrowed as he looked at Spero.

A subtle change in emotion that even Lenox, who had been watching the situation, almost missed.

However, the clown quickly composed his expression and spoke with a smile.

“Well, I don’t know for sure either. I heard that she recently took on a dangerous task and failed miserably.”

“What, what kind of operation?”

“Hmm, I don’t know… It was something like the Four Heavenly Fiend Mirrors [a dangerous and mysterious location], I think, but it doesn’t seem to be our operation.”

The clown whistled and looked away.

“I don’t remember well. I might remember after seeing the 8th Apostle’s corpse that the Order was smuggling out…”

“……”

Even in the midst of all this, is he trying to reel Spero in and manipulate him as he pleases?

Lenox inwardly shook his head at the clown’s bizarre answer, but he was lost in thought.

Maiya Lenslet. A member of Pandemonium and the best physical ability executioner of the Machine City.

To think that an executioner who was still alive when they met at the Anathema Temple has gone missing in the Fiend Mirror.

In terms of one-on-one combat ability and combat skills, she is a transcendent technician that Lenox found challenging.

As an executioner, she would have the skills and knowledge to take care of herself anywhere.

What does it mean that she entered the Four Heavenly Fiend Mirrors and then went missing?

“That way.”

Behind Spero, who had closed his mouth with a chilling force, Suju tilted his head with an indifferent expression.

“I smell blood.”

Whioooo!!!

A long tunnel leading down from the auction house basement.

A basement filled with crushed and broken containers and several unrecognizable corpses.

Raymon, who was standing with a cane among the corpses scattered everywhere, turned his gaze.

He was covered in blood from head to toe, and he smiled at Lenox.

“Ah, I’ve been waiting for you.”

“……”

At Lenox’s unresponsive reaction, Raymon belatedly checked his appearance and gave a wry smile.

“I apologize for this appearance. I was in the middle of dealing with the Order’s priests after receiving an urgent call.”

“Were you directly tracking the Order members?”

“It was information directly provided by a VIP. The situation was so urgent that I had no choice but to move myself.”

Crack!!

As Raymon limped and turned, the head of a priest who had fallen under his feet was lightly crushed.

The power to crush a human head with pure telekinesis without even looking at it properly.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t help with the recovery of the forbidden weapon. Instead, I asked Mr. Spero to sort out the situation, but was the matter resolved well?”

“……”

Raymon seemed to have come down here after the game with Lenox and was hunting down the Order’s priests.

Was that why Aoshu Spero suddenly appeared at the auction house and sorted out the commotion?

Looking at the telekinetic user covered in blood, he didn’t even think about questioning the results of the game.

“The Order’s priests must have remained here to smuggle out Kamrodal’s corpse.”

Lenox asked, looking around.

“Where is the body? Did you perhaps miss it?”

“Ah, you don’t have to worry about that.”

Raymon smiled wryly and turned his gaze.

“It’ll be back any minute now.”

Kooong!!

At that moment, the warehouse shook greatly as the guardrail moved far away in the underground warehouse.

The impact of something very large and heavy vibrating and slowly approaching this way.

As the vibration gradually increased, shaking the ground where the group was standing and tilting it, at that moment.

Kwaaaang!!!

Something that had broken through the warehouse wall revealed itself, scattering its light beyond.

[Hoo, hoo…!!]

A rock giant, breathing heavily and looking down at the ground with bloodshot eyes.

Disgusting tentacles wriggled and convulsed violently between the hard rock armor.

The giant, slowly approaching with severed rails and wires dangling, appeared.

“Oh my, it seems those guys weren’t as relaxed as I thought.”

The clown, realizing the identity of the rock giant, chuckled.

“I didn’t expect them to try to smuggle out such a cumbersome shell whole?”

“The corpse of the Guido Order’s 8th Apostle, Kamrodal.”

Raymon said, glancing at the clown.

“To be precise, it’s the ‘puppet’ he used in this battle.”

“……”

The rock armor borrowed from Anathema’s power. The disgusting mass of tentacles that flowed out from within.

In the final battle with Lenox, Kamrodal’s puppet had not escaped the battlefield after all.

“Were there any other corpses or traces at the scene?”

“There were corpses of the Order’s priests, but this was the only remains presumed to be an apostle.”

Thump!! Thump!!

The apostle, pulsating and scattering ominous magic from his whole body.

The moment the rock giant, who had come right in front of the group, glared at the clown, his eyes flashing.

Kamrodal’s corpse knelt down on the spot and collapsed.

Kuuuung!!!

The impact created a gust of wind, and a strong wind blew.

[It’s wrong. This is the limit of movement.]

A flat voice echoed faintly from inside the rock giant’s head.

[If I stimulate the brain any more with my ability, the remaining parts will be completely destroyed.]

“……”

“I’ve heard that there are more powerful superhumans hiding in the shadows of Machina than I thought, but this is beyond expectations.”

Next to the silent Lenox, the graft surgeon asked with an indifferent expression.

“If you use psychic abilities to the extreme, can you even control the brain of a dead apostle?”

[The Syndicate asked me to extract the memories of this corpse.]

Aoshu Spero said calmly.

[I also agreed because I was curious what an apostle’s brain would taste like.]

“Interesting. This is called a puppet, but it’s a living vessel that imitates an incarnation.”

The clown smiled with interest.

“Even if you are a powerful innate ability user, it’s not something you can handle with a clear mind. You might end up becoming a slave of the Order, you know?”

At the end of the battle in the stadium, Kamrodal’s puppet, who had faced Lenox with forbidden weapons.

The body, which was directly exposed to the power of the forbidden weapon within the clown’s self-destruction, was already lifeless.

But even so, Aoshu Spero is manipulating the spirit of the already dead corpse to move the body.

Psychometry, a psychic ability, is impossible without affecting the body beyond just the mind.

“I’ve already finished checking the condition of the corpse before you guys arrived.”

Raymon, who was leaning on his cane, turned around and said, looking at the approaching corpse.

“The outer skin of the corpse is harder than any monster or demon I’ve ever seen. However, most of the internal organs have been ‘lost’.”

“……”

The clown grinned at Lenox, and Lenox ignored his gaze.

Raymon’s gaze, who had not noticed the two’s reactions, sank deeply.

“A transcendent sorcery that can designate and destroy internal organs. Or it was directly swept away by a power that deals with concepts.”

“Is it possible to intervene in the body even after the nervous system is completely dead? Interesting.”

The graft surgeon, his eyes shining, took out gloves from his surgical gown pocket and began to move.

The massive body of the tattered rock giant, kneeling and slumped.

Suju, looking at the bizarre tentacles protruding from it, took out a scalpel.

“If it’s okay, can I dissect that body for a moment? I’d like to check the cellular tissue of these tentacles.”

Chwaak-!

Before hearing an answer, Suju cut off the end of a protruding tentacle with a scalpel.

Ignoring the body fluids splashing on his face, he lifted the cut end of the tentacle and examined the inside.

“With my knowledge of soft-bodied multi-legged creatures, I can learn a lot just by dissecting the corpse.”

Thud.

He casually cut off the tentacles with an unsterilized scalpel, extracted the cells inside, and put them in his mouth.

“Generally, the main nerves and sensory organs are concentrated at the distal end. The area with the most information is probably-”

“Guek.”

“……”

The clown, pretending to gag and biting his tongue, and Lenox, casting a contemptuous gaze.

Raymon, who had been watching it with a shocked expression, belatedly stammered.

“You don’t have to go that far… Mr. Spero has already come to some conclusions about the origin of the 8th Apostle.”

“What kind of conclusion are you talking about?”

[The puppet of the apostle named Kamrodal. It is somewhat compatible with my ability, but the mental parts like memories are almost unreadable.]

Spero said from inside the corpse.

[If the system was different, I wouldn’t have been able to move this corpse. Conversely, if it was the same, I would have had to eat the brain and read the memories.]

“……”

At that moment, Lenox crossed his arms without answering.

He understood the meaning of what Mastermind was saying, but he didn’t understand the reason.

“Are you saying that Kamrodal’s apostle sorcery… has similarities with your innate ability?”

[It’s much closer than that.]

Aoshu Spero said.

[The 8th Apostle’s apostle sorcery is not a simple sorcery. If you think about it, it’s closer to a psychic ability.]

“……”

[This octopus named Kamrodal. Before becoming an apostle, he might have been a very powerful psychic.]

The 8th Apostle’s apostle sorcery, Kamrodal’s puppet.

Is his sorcery, which splits his ego in exchange for human sacrifice and makes it a clone and puppet, operating on a principle similar to psychic abilities?

However, even after hearing Spero’s confident words, Lenox remained silent for a while, lost in thought.

Because if that were the case, there were too many parts about Kamrodal that didn’t make sense.

“Well, I’m more interested in that friend’s memories than the secrets of the cute octopus monster.”

The clown, tilting his head with a smile that couldn’t be read, said.

“It’s a shame that you can’t read the memories. In this case, we’ll have to find out the motives of the Order in another way.”

“Do you think we need to know why the Order intervened?”

“As far as I know, there is no reason for the Order to target the [Gate] of the Royal Capital.”

The clown replied leisurely to Lenox’s words.

“They already have several passages that can act as [Gates]. Isn’t that why the Holy War happened in the first place?”

“……”

It seems like he just heard a very important fact about the Holy War in passing.

However, the clown seemed to have no emotion about what he had said, and he rested his chin on his hand, pondering.

“The reason why the highest-ranking apostles of the Order are so concerned about the [Gate]. I don’t want to be backstabbed after just passing it by. Isn’t it the same for Victor?”

“I think I can- ugh, help with that part.”

At that moment, the graft surgeon turned his gaze.

The clown laughed as he saw the tentacle wriggling and being chewed in his mouth.

“Chapman. I’m also curious about the taste, but that’s not an edible ingredient. Are you trying to die?”

“As a result of the dissection, the internal structure of the apostle is not much different from the soft-bodied creatures I know.”

Suju, who stood up while crunching the tentacle, said with a calm expression.

“These types of creatures have far more sensory organs than humans, and the way they transmit and remember information is completely different.”

Crunch!

Suju, who tore off the tentacle he was holding, said.

“Soft-bodied creatures perceive and remember information through the movement of their muscles, so for them, these distal parts are like mouths and ears. Do you understand what this means?”

“Are you saying that you can reproduce the movement of the tentacle muscles to read the memories of the corpse?”

“That’s correct.”

Poook!!

Suju, holding a scalpel and stabbing it into the tentacle, gave a chilling smile.

“Reproduce the command signals that have passed through the sensory and motor systems to repeat past actions. Of course, the memory of this tentacle is limited to the time it was just born, but-”

Suju glanced around.

“That moment is the memory of the moment when this tentacle was given its purpose. Isn’t that right?”

[-Ah, aaaa]

Farrrr-

At that moment, the tentacles scattered on the floor began to vibrate and convulse violently.

As if vibrating itself to make a sound, the vibration itself became patterned and transformed into a form of language.

And then, it slowly spoke.

[.daatf eht [etaG] ni eht gnikdom eht ot eb ton]

“It’s speaking backwards. It seems that Chapman is reproducing the memory of the tentacle backwards.”

The clown, who immediately recognized the identity of the discomfort, shone his eyes.

“I’ll reverse the order with my illusion.”

The moment the clown snapped his fingers, the tentacle’s message began to be heard in reverse.

[Found the [Gate] in the basement of the Royal Capital.]

“……”

A heavy, low-pitched voice, transformed into sound through the vibration of the tentacle muscles.

Lenox realized that it was the voice of Kamrodal himself, who had created this puppet.

[According to the information from the inner route, Pandemonium’s forces are currently gathering in Talkerphuz.]

[Move the forces of the Far West Branch to buy time and prepare for the main incarnation to intervene.]

“It seems that some of our operation information has been leaked.”

The clown smiled and turned his gaze.

“They seem to have stolen the observation data of the inner route of the Western Continent, but could they have learned about the [Gate] with just that?”

“If it was just a simple guess, a single-digit apostle wouldn’t have been deployed to the battlefield.”

Lenox’s eyes flashed behind his mask.

“It seems certain that there was a stronger motive than that.”

“Even if it wasn’t, this is the end.”

Suju, with an indifferent expression, stabbed the scalpel in and turned it.

“The goal that the apostle himself designated at the moment this puppet was created.”

[Open the [Gate] located in the basement of the Royal Capital and offer the miracle of opening the gate to the main body-]

Kamrodal’s slow voice echoed softly over the dark tunnel.

[This will be the first arrangement and cornerstone to break the seal of the Order’s 1st Apostle.]