Genius Wizard Takes Medicine [EN]: Chapter 146

It had to be the moment she dispensed the medicine… A fitting standard for someone called a Medicine Master.

How long would it take for Lenok to get a diagnosis from her, properly identify the problem with her body, receive a prescription, and get the medicine?

No, in the first place, would she even be able to get the answer Lenok was looking for from her?

She had been agonizing over this problem for a long time, but in the end, there was only one thing she could think of.

Nothing would change unless Lenok took action herself.

The same was true here. Rather than doing nothing out of fear of revealing her secret, she had to take the risk and look for an alternative.

The time she spent worrying while looking at the lake wasn’t wasted.

With Jenny’s help and a bit of luck, she had barely made it this far.

If she was going to take a step, it had to be now.

“Alright. Let’s begin.”

[Extend your arm. I need to take your pulse first.]

Her medical skills were a bit different from modern medicine, more like an older method… But in this world where magic and sorcery ran rampant, what use was such a standard?

Lenok rolled up her sleeve and extended her wrist.

The Medicine Master raised her wrinkled hand, took Lenok’s pulse, and closed her eyes.

She could feel her magic slowly flowing into Lenok’s body.

Reason was screaming at her to seize that flow and reverse it right now, but Lenok forcibly ignored the cry and closed her eyes.

Even if the Medicine Master changed her mind here, she could always subdue her.

If she didn’t have that confidence, she wouldn’t have come this far.

[Hmm… this is…]

The Medicine Master involuntarily groaned at the ominous energy she felt the moment she touched Lenok’s body.

It wasn’t just that her constitution was naturally weak; she could fully feel all sorts of rare energies that were hindering her bodily functions.

If the problem was this clear, there was no need to check for long.

She knew how to clearly distinguish between what she could do and what she couldn’t.

Not long after, the Medicine Master, having removed her hand from Lenok’s pulse, spoke.

[You were born with a wretched fate. To have such talent, yet at the same time, to be heading towards the abyss?]

“…”

[I understand why you came to me. With a body like this, you would have been cautious even about getting a diagnosis from someone…]

Lenok, who had been silent, spoke.

“I don’t think you can solve all my problems.”

[Hmm…]

The Medicine Master couldn’t deny it.

She didn’t think that the shackles that had been set since the moment she opened her eyes in this world could be broken with the help of just one person.

Lenok was neither that optimistic nor someone who expected an absurd stroke of luck.

Even if it was just a small breakthrough, if she could just set a new direction to move forward.

That would be enough.

“Tell me what’s possible, and what I need to do for it.”

[You have already fully accepted your own future… yet you are still striving for a better outcome.]

The Medicine Master, who had been thinking with her eyes closed for a while, answered.

[Then I shall give you an answer worthy of that.]

“…”

[I don’t fully understand all the problems plaguing your body. Even if I did, I could only address a small part of them.]

[But it is possible to somewhat alleviate the addiction phenomenon where your bodily functions are severely repelled by magic.]

The shackles that Lenok had placed on herself while pushing her talent to its limits were five in total.

[Insomnia] and [Scarecrow], [Mana Addiction] and [Too Much of a Good Thing]. And [Early Death of a Genius].

Of these, the Medicine Master was saying that she could show some improvement regarding mana addiction.

Lenok nodded without much hesitation.

“I’d be satisfied if the restrictions on my physical enhancement were somewhat lifted.”

[Are you telling me you’ve been living as a mage in this city with just your bare body? You’re insane…]

The Medicine Master, shaking her head at Lenok’s calm words, continued.

[Making medicine for you isn’t difficult, but there’s one problem.]

It was a statement that poured cold water on the expectations she had built up, but Lenok’s expression remained calm.

She hadn’t expected it to be easy.

Hasn’t Lenok always achieved what she wanted on her own?

[Mana addiction is a rare disease that is difficult to diagnose even in this era of advanced magical medicine, and it requires rare medicinal ingredients. And I don’t have those materials on hand right now.]

“Can I get them?”

[To be precise, they no longer exist in this era.]

“…”

The Medicine Master flicked her fingers and suddenly projected an image into the air.

A high-level magic projection, at first glance.

Floating on the ceiling of the dark mansion was something that looked like a small, refined piece of black tree root.

If you were to dye a ginseng black, it might look something like that.

As Lenok stared at it, she spoke.

[Malabes. A plant that only grows on the ruined island. If consumed as is, it has toxins that harden all the muscles in the body and petrify the entire body, but if refined in a special way, it turns into a very powerful drug.]

“…A drug, you say.”

Lenok, who was about to nod naturally, asked back with a bewildered expression.

A drug? Was what Lenok just heard correct?

The Medicine Master nodded with a nonchalant expression.

[The root cause of mana addiction isn’t just a problem with your constitution. The reason why you can handle mana smoothly as a mage, yet direct exposure to your body is a problem, is because your nervous system is reacting negatively to mana in the first place.]

“…”

[That’s why we use a medicinal ingredient that can provide a strong stimulus to temporarily paralyze the functions related to your symptoms and change the threshold of your mana reaction through fine adjustments. We arbitrarily adjust the reaction level, which is set for ordinary people, to alleviate the symptoms of addiction.]

[The drug Malabes has the characteristic of being able to finely adjust the stimulus applied to the user down to the cellular level by controlling the dosage and mana projection. That’s why it can act as a medicine for those with ‘congenitally broken’ functions like you.]

The Medicine Master continued, not caring whether Lenok understood or not.

[In short, by increasing the limit of ‘mana tolerance where addiction occurs,’ we can make it so that there are no particular problems with mana injection to a certain extent. Even if it’s not a fundamental solution, it’s what I mean by being able to alleviate the symptoms.]

The explanation was quite complex, but Lenok understood it immediately.

“You’re saying that it’s possible to make it so that physical abilities can be enhanced by mana to a certain extent.”

[…You’re quick to understand.]

“Hmm…”

Just by taking her pulse once, she was able to recognize the existence of the penalties on Lenok’s body and suggest what she could do. It was clear how excellent a physician the Medicine Master was.

This, too, was probably the best treatment method she could offer.

There was no need to think about it for long.

“I understand.”

[But after the ruined island was purified, it became nearly impossible to harvest Malabes. We need to find another way.]

“You have a specific method in mind.”

Why else would the Medicine Master have so desperately emphasized the need for the plant called Malabes to Lenok?

It was partly to explain how Lenok would be treated for mana addiction, but more than that, it seemed like an act of asserting the need for Lenok to obtain the medicinal ingredient.

She wanted to persuade Lenok about the method of obtaining Malabes.

[…Because Malabes is used as a drug, there is only one easiest way to obtain it.]

The Medicine Master continued with a calm expression.

[The drug lord Dominic Cabaro. A tycoon who holds all the drugs in this world and distributes them across the continent. If you want to find Malabes, you’ll have to search his pockets.]

Medicine Master (3)

“…”

A drug lord, huh?

Surprisingly, Lenok had heard this name before.

In the process of collaborating with Dyke Corporation, the drug dealer Paul Ackerman, who was funding the Cigar Bang gang.

Wasn’t he one of the drug lord’s henchmen and one of the drug dealers who had been expanding his influence in the Balkans?

She had solved the problem by killing the vampire swordsman Jude Russell, who was escorting him, at the harbor, but the stories she had heard about Dominic Cabaro at that time were still vividly etched in her memory.

No, the reason that name remained in Lenok’s memory was… because he was one of the newly incorporated members of the Demon’s Lair.

“Juice Master…”

[Do you know him?]

The Medicine Master’s eyes lit up as she confirmed Lenok’s reaction.

But instead of immediately responding to that, Lenok stared at her intently.

She was trying to hide it with a nonchalant expression, but right now, she was talking about the drug lord with a more intense gaze than ever before.

After confirming the emotion contained in that gaze, Lenok had no choice but to ask her true intentions.

“Do you want me to kill the drug lord?”

[…]

The Medicine Master was silent.

That alone was enough of an answer.

Lenok stood up from her seat.

“That’s not a cost-effective proposition.”

Assassinate the drug lord in exchange for receiving treatment from the Medicine Master?

Considering the power Lenok had built up, it wasn’t entirely impossible if it wasn’t a head-on confrontation, but it was definitely not something to accept at face value.

The opponent was a member of the Demon’s Lair.

Regardless of the drug lord’s own abilities and background, it was unimaginable how many people would be protecting a tycoon who had amassed a vast fortune.

What would be the chaos and aftermath if the drug lord, who distributed all the drugs on the continent, were to die?

Unless she was certain that she could completely conceal her identity and kill him without a trace, it was something she shouldn’t even attempt.

The Medicine Master quickly agreed.

[I’m sorry. I made a mistake for a moment. Please sit down.]

“…”

Lenok ignored her words and looked down at the Medicine Master with narrowed eyes.

The Medicine Master composed herself and spoke in a calm tone.

[A long time ago, when I was working in this city, he came to me.]

“…”

[He said that my pharmaceutical skills would be a great asset to his business. I refused his request, and he targeted my family.]

Her hands began to tremble.

[I had no choice but to treat my family with my own hands. And I… I forgot all about my husband and children.]

Did the drug lord know about the restrictions the Medicine Master had and exploit them in the most devastating way?

That was probably the worst possible outcome of the tragedies that could happen to Anushka Greenaway.

She muttered with a hollow expression.

[Once a relationship is severed, it never comes back. Even if it barely manages to reconnect, it’s something completely different from what it was before. I didn’t even know what kind of people my former family were.]

[I resent this curse I placed on myself. My foolishness that caused all of this… and everything he did to me.]

Now, she couldn’t even hide her feelings of hatred.

[You should also know this. The end of high-level sorcerers who place restrictions on themselves in order to reach higher realms… The challengers who constantly whip themselves in the hopes of ascension eventually collapse, trapped in the shackles they created themselves.]

[That way, we can avoid repeating this foolish path.]

“…”

Restrictions and shackles, huh?

Lenok thought that her inability to speak might be somewhat related to that situation, but she didn’t bother to ask.

The Medicine Master seemed to have said those words to instill a sense of caution in him, who had an amazing talent, but Lenok thought that such advice was meaningless.

Sacrificing something to gain something else was too familiar to Lenok.

From before Lenok opened her eyes in this world, hadn’t she already decided on all the penalties and restraints she would bear?

When you think about it, she was no different from the Medicine Master or other high-level sorcerers.

But if there was one difference, it was that unlike the Medicine Master, who had already given up on resisting, trapped in her shackles, Lenok had not given up.

Just one resolution she had promised herself.

Instead of voicing such thoughts to the Medicine Master, Lenok calmly continued.

“I will retrieve the Malabes from the drug lord’s warehouse. We can discuss the payment for the treatment after that.”

The Medicine Master shook her head.

[I won’t accept payment. Jenny coming with you must have meant that.]

“…”

Was it related to the story of Kaise?