Genius Wizard Takes Medicine [EN]: Chapter 1153

Showdown (20)

“Aron Byger’s secret hidden in this prison?”

“Yeah, that damn mask… Cough! You were right after all.”

Jillian, collapsed on one side of the high castle’s underground prison, coughed up blood.

He spat out phlegm mixed with blood and spoke in a clearer voice than before.

“You were running around like a madman in my fortress, stealing artifacts, and now you’ve reached the royal capital?”

“…I never thought the Grand Duke of Kabahim would be locked up in a place like this.”

Lennok retorted.

“Why is a direct descendant of the royal family dying in this prison? Did you commit treason or something?”

“Treason, my ass… Ptoo! Why would I do something so bothersome?”

Jillian spat and scoffed.

“If I wanted to steal my dear brother’s throne, I wouldn’t be wasting my time in some remote fortress.”

“……”

He knew what he was talking about.

When Lennok infiltrated the giant’s fortress with the clown, Jillian was holed up in the fortress’s report room, sleeping soundly.

Because they didn’t know Jillian’s whereabouts until right before stealing the ring, they were discovered by him and had to make a noisy escape.

If it hadn’t been for the clown’s pirate roulette escape show, they would have spent a considerable amount of time trying to escape the giant’s fortress.

Although he held the title of Grand Duke of Kabahim, Jillian seemed to Lennok to be someone who had no interest in power or honor.

He had accepted the position of Watcher [a high-ranking official] as a result of his negligence, so the possibility of him plotting treason was almost nonexistent.

“Forget about that crap, just hurry up and unlock these damn chains.”

Jillian thrust his right arm out in front of Lennok.

“Besides, my left side has been itching like crazy. I can’t scratch it with my arm tied up like this.”

“I have something I want to ask you first.”

Lennok ignored Jillian’s words and asked.

“Is the secret Aron hid related to his dual-natured talent?”

“…What?”

Jillian looked up at Lennok, momentarily speechless.

“You thief. How do you know about the dual-natured talent….”

“I don’t have time, so I’ll explain it simply. I’m interested in opening the [Gate] that Aron is trying to open.”

Lennok’s red eyes flashed behind his mask.

“But I’m suspicious of the process of opening the [Gate] and peeking into the sanctuary, so I’ve been looking for evidence. Do you know something?”

“You, you didn’t come to the royal capital to steal this time- Cough!!”

Jillian, who had been glaring at Lennok with a fierce gaze, coughed up blood.

Jillian looked at the dripping blood with a sense of futility and spat.

“Ha… yeah. I won’t last long like this.”

“……”

“Thief. Open the prison door. Release these chains binding my body.”

Jillian said, gesturing with his eyes towards his hands.

“Then I’ll show you what Aron is hiding, just as you want.”

“You’re quite proactive. Are you planning to oppose Aron, even though you’re his brother?”

“I’m done with Aron. Can’t you tell by the state I’m in?”

In the darkness, Jillian’s eyes seemed to burn fiercely.

“If he had beheaded me for failing to protect the giant’s fortress, I would have accepted it. If he had told me to go to the battlefield as cannon fodder, I would have followed.”

“……”

“But I can’t participate in the crazy things Aron is trying to do in this underground castle. That’s all.”

It was strange that Jillian, a direct descendant of the king, was locked up in this prison. It seemed he had been imprisoned here for refusing to participate in Aron’s plan.

Lennok, lost in thought, loosened his arms and began to gather his magic power.

“I don’t care if you run wild and die, but you better not get in my way.”

He was only making a deal because he felt Jillian was worth using. Lennok didn’t care whether Jillian lived or died.

Even though he was a Watcher, that meant nothing to Lennok since he had left the Azure Eye [a group of Watchers].

From the start, Lennok didn’t feel any bond or intimacy with most of the Watchers, except for a few.

Whether Jillian opposed Aron and died or not, Lennok didn’t care much.

Rather, if he could use his animosity towards Aron to find out his secrets, it would be a profitable deal.

“I’ll release you. Step away from the door.”

“Wait, there’s a detection spell installed in the prison to detect intruders, so I’ll explain how to-”

Clank!!

The prison door lock was released easily, and Lennok stepped into the prison.

Jillian made an awkward expression as he watched the black robe swaying in the shadows.

“…I’m pretty sure someone tried to escape a few days ago and was dragged away to be butchered.”

“It’s impossible for ordinary detection spells to detect my presence.”

Lennok said, extending his hand and drawing out a magic thread.

“Hold out your hand. I’ll cut the chains.”

“You’re quite skilled at sneaking around like a thief.”

“Do you want your arm cut off too?”

“Ah, that would be a problem.”

At Lennok’s cold retort, Jillian chuckled and turned his shoulder.

“I’m already missing an arm anyway.”

“……”

Lennok fell silent as he saw Jillian’s left sleeve, stained with blood, fluttering.

He had not only been tortured and imprisoned but had also lost his left arm in the process.

However, even though he had lost an arm, Jillian didn’t seem to be sad or angry about it.

Thud!!

He inserted the magic thread between the chains and manipulated it to release the lock.

Jillian stood up, leaving the heavy chains that had fallen with a loud noise, and swung his right arm around.

“Well, this is good enough.”

He nodded, checking his range of motion as he turned his shoulder.

“I can’t move a few fingers, but I have no problem throwing a punch. Let’s go.”

“Where are we going?”

“Is that even a question? To the lowest level of this damn underground prison, of course.”

Wooong…!!!

Jillian said, raising his magic power.

It was a magnificent magic power, hard to believe it came from a body that had lost an arm and was in such a battered state.

The moment Lennok reflexively raised his magic power as well, Jillian unfolded his fist at an invisible speed.

Whoosh-

The arm, which passed by Lennok’s side without a sound, grabbed the back wall of the underground prison and tore it off.

Thud…!!

Jillian, who had brushed off the stone dust in his hand with one hand, pointed to the hole he had made in the wall.

“There. This should be enough to avoid being detected outside.”

“……”

“If I, a royal, walk through the corridor, I’ll be detected for sure. We have to make our own path from here.”

“It seems you know how not to be a burden.”

“Did you just call me a burden, you thief?”

Jillian grumbled, but he walked ahead towards the hole in the wall.

However, Lennok was thinking about the ‘technique’ Jillian had used to tear down the wall just now.

‘It seems he didn’t lose his microcosm [a unique mental ability] just because he lost his left arm. If anything, his ability seems to have become stronger….’

Jillian’s microcosm, [Giant Soldier], was a mental ability that allowed him to enlarge parts of his body and use them as weapons.

Lennok, who had fought Jillian with the clown, knew how powerful his microcosm was.

The ability to increase the size and mass of his body was powerful enough, but what was surprising was the speed at which he activated his microcosm.

The speed at which he could instantly enlarge a part of his body and shoot it out like a cannonball was so fast that even Lennok could barely react to it head-on.

It was much more difficult to deal with him when he repeatedly enlarged and shrunk his body to adjust his weight than when he simply became a giant and rampaged.

Just now, Jillian had enlarged his hand to tear down the prison wall, then immediately returned it to its original size and compressed the fragments he was holding.

The series of actions of enlarging and shrinking his hand was so fast that there wasn’t even a sound of the wall breaking.

It felt like he was much faster than when Lennok had fought him in the giant’s fortress.

‘He’s much faster than before. Is it related to the accident where he lost his arm?’

“This way.”

Crack!!

Jillian, with his left sleeve fluttering, swung his right arm and dug into the wall at an incredible speed.

There was almost no vibration or sound in the process, so there was no need to use soundproofing magic or detection blocking spells.

“If you’ve met my brother, you probably already know what kind of person Aron is.”

Jillian opened his mouth amidst the small noise of crushed stone fragments falling.

“Then there’s not much to explain. You’ll understand everything at once when you see what’s happening down there.”

“So the reason you chose this castle as the execution site wasn’t because of the prison?”

“This prison is just the dregs of the secret Aron is hiding.”

Thud…!!

Jillian, who had roughly torn down the reinforced wall, said as he slowly stepped inside.

“Most of the prisoners locked up here are just places to store Aron’s ‘parts’.”

“…Ah.”

Inside the narrow, blood-stained prison, someone sitting cross-legged raised their gaze.

His eyes were gouged out and torn, and his face was gaunt and emaciated.

The man, feeling the vibrations of the ground as he groped around, slowly turned his face.

He couldn’t even speak properly, just moving his mouth and scratching the floor with his fingernails.

“Ah, ah…”

“It’s not just his eyes and tongue that were removed.”

Lennok said, scanning the man’s entire body behind his mask.

“One liver and kidney. His right wrist and leg. Even his tendons and cartilage. They were all forcibly extracted.”

“In this country, prisoners who are deemed to have low potential in Aron’s eyes usually end up like this.”

Jillian said in a low voice.

“They can’t even be used properly, and they just wait to die in prison after having their useful organs removed.”

“Ah…”

Even at Jillian’s quiet words, the man didn’t answer.

Instead, he just slowly moved to the side with a painful groan that sounded like he was choking.

“This side of the prison wall is a shortcut to the deepest part of the underground prison.”

Jillian looked at the man silently, then slowly approached the stone wall and said.

“And it’s also the only way to escape this castle without being detected.”

“Why is the path to the deepest part an escape route?”

“If my brother is here, this area will be completely surrounded by the knights.”

Jillian said with a serious expression.

“There’s a space transfer magic circle on the lowest level of the prison. We’ll knock down the guys guarding it and escape.”

“If you hit them with your fist, they could die with their heads exploding. The surroundings will be quite a sight.”

“I don’t care.”

Crack…!!

At the same time as Jillian clenched his fist, the blood vessels on the back of his hand throbbed.

“They’re all in cahoots with my brother. I don’t care if they live or die.”

“People who really don’t care about such things don’t talk so much.”

“Is this guy for real… are you trying to pick a fight with me right now?”

Lennok, ignoring Jillian’s glare, fell into thought.

He had tried to secretly uncover what Aron Byger was hiding, but he had encountered a much bigger secret than he had expected.

However, discovering that Aron’s ‘purpose’ was hidden beneath the underground prison of the castle was a more important gain than he had thought.

He didn’t plan to escape the castle right away, but it wouldn’t be bad to help Jillian stir up chaos and search the deepest part of the prison.

‘Now that I’ve confirmed the existence of the Mandala [a symbolic representation of the cosmos], I need to find a way to retrieve it. I can’t just let it go.’

The part of the Mandala that Lennok felt potential in was that it was a domain, not a thought-space.

A domain is generally a concept closer to realizing the ideal of a spellcaster’s spell in reality.

If the Mandala was in the form of a domain, then simply acquiring it would be a huge step forward for Lennok’s manipulation spells.

And with such a singularity, it would be possible to advance the branching point of the manipulation spells within the kaleidoscope to a different level.

He was interested in the Mandala’s abilities and essence, but he couldn’t overlook the visible improvement in the performance of his manipulation spells.

To do that, he had to first find out what Aron was hiding at this point.

“It seems that checking the site directly is the fastest way.”

Lennok, having reached a conclusion, raised his gaze.

“Let’s go to the deepest part of the prison where the transfer magic circle is. Lead the way.”

“This guy, who does he think I am, his guard dog….”

Jillian grumbled, but he started tearing down the prison wall to make a path.

Thud!!

The deeper they went into the prison, the more prisoners they saw who were even more messed up than Abel.

They were so damaged that they couldn’t even notice Lennok or Jillian, even as they broke through the walls.

They had lost all their functions and abilities as humans, and were just lumps of meat that were barely breathing.

“We’re here. It’s inside there.”

Jillian, his expression hardening at the cold air flowing from inside, said.

Jillian, who had broken through the prison ceiling instead of the wall, jumped back and gestured.

“Once you see it… you won’t be able to back out anymore. You’d better prepare yourself.”

“That’s unnecessary worry.”

Lennok slowly moved through the gap in the ceiling that Jillian had made.

The moment Lennok moved his body, following Jillian silently.

Crack!!

Jillian broke through the hole leading down from the ceiling and immediately descended below.

Lennok, who had followed him down, was finally able to see the scenery of the deepest part of the prison properly.

“…Where is this?”

Whoosh!!

His vision, which had been adapted to the darkness, was suddenly bleached white.

Unlike the gloomy and dark prison, the lighting was bright, warm, and clear.

Before he knew it, Lennok was standing in the middle of a clean, white corridor.

A clean corridor without a single piece of trash. Pleasant air with good ventilation.

Even the strange silence made it seem like he had suddenly entered a huge laboratory or research building.

Everything was so sudden and unexpected that even Lennok momentarily paused.

“This way.”

However, Jillian wasn’t surprised by the sudden change in the environment and staggered forward.

His body was covered in blood, and his disheveled appearance, having lost an arm, created a terrible sense of incongruity in this space.

Nevertheless, Jillian seemed to already know where he had to go.

“You said you wanted to see the secret my brother hid here.”

Jillian turned to look at Lennok and gave a fierce smile.

“Once you see what Aron has created down there, there’s no need to explain it.”

“……”

In the suffocating silence, he slowly followed Jillian.

He walked slowly through the deserted corridor, turned the corner, and headed towards the window.

The moment Lennok walked in front of the glass window, following Jillian’s gesture, he stopped in his tracks after seeing the scene in front of him.

“……”

Whoooosh!!!

On the transparent, white walls of the research building, thousands of ice blocks were hanging.

Inside the cold, frozen ice, people were lying with their eyes closed in peaceful expressions.

They were sleeping as if time had stopped, frozen solid in countless ice coffins.

A cold and eerie sight, as if the cold ice blocks were their coffins.

The ice coffins hanging on the walls were being transported along rails, moving through the research building at a constant speed.

Researchers were walking around, measuring and recording the values of the ice coffins.

“Everything that exists in this country is the property of the royal family.”

Jillian, who was standing next to Lennok, said.

“But for Aron, that’s not just artifacts or weapons, but ‘humans’ as well.”

“……”

“What exists here are the talents and bodies that have been directly ‘preserved’ by Aron and incorporated into the royal family’s property.”

Jillian slowly moved to the side of the corridor and twisted his head.

“All of those attempts were the result of ugly trial and error towards the single goal that exists there.”

The moment he turned his gaze to follow that gaze, Lennok froze as if he had been petrified, discovering a mural engraved at the end of the hall.

The image of a huge gauntlet, surrounded by three circles, with a clenched fist.

The picture engraved on the mural was exactly the same as the Forbidden Armament that Lennok possessed.