Genius Wizard Takes Medicine [EN]: Chapter 167

“It’s highly likely that they’re the same group that attacked the train. And if they’ve targeted the relay station, there’s a very high chance that…”

“They might have tampered with the tracks too.”

“Exactly. If we don’t stop now, the train could end up going in a completely different direction—”

Koo-oong!

Before she could finish speaking, the train vibrated violently and tilted sharply to one side.

Lenok, who had secured himself with mana threads, was fine, but Kasia, who had been leaning out the window, was thrown off balance.

She barely regained her footing and said, her face pale, “It seems we’re already too late.”

Lenok could tell too.

The fork in the tracks they had just passed. The biker gang had intentionally changed the direction.

From this moment on, the train was starting to move further and further away from the Pilenom Autonomous Territory.

Bwaaaang!

To make matters worse, dozens of presences were rapidly approaching from behind the train.

True to their name, the biker gang didn’t seem to be planning on ending their pursuit with just one attempt.

“To be this persistent… you must have a very close relationship with the Teina Research Institute.”

“…”

Lenok sighed and turned his gaze away from Kasia, who was still leaning out.

“I’ll change the direction. Please take care of the ones coming from behind.”

“I wish I could, but… is there really a way?” Kasia asked.

“To change the route again in this situation, we’d have to stop the train and move it backward, but that’s impossible with those guys chasing us from behind.”

“…”

“It might be more reasonable to just wipe out the pursuers here and walk to the relay station to find another means of transportation.”

“No, it’ll be possible.”

“How on earth…”

“We haven’t strayed too far from the route yet. There’s something I can do.”

With the magnetic magic he had just used, he was confident that his metal manipulation ability was sufficient.

Lenok quickly assessed the situation in his head and began moving towards the front of the train, shifting the mana threads attached to his body.

* * *

“Haa… how did things turn out like this…” Kasia sighed deeply as she watched Lenok’s back as he quickly crawled towards the front of the train.

It was all well and good that she had boarded the train to the autonomous territory to find medicine to treat Director Baila’s condition.

But the commotion that was happening now was something she couldn’t easily handle on her own.

She couldn’t help but guess why the biker gang had appeared at this time to chase her.

Her research institute, led by Director Baila, had made significant achievements, and the conflicts with other research institutes were intensifying.

They might be trying to take Kasia, who had been the director’s secretary, hostage, or they might think she was on her way to the autonomous territory to deliver innovative technology.

“…”

The more she thought about it and became aware of the current situation, the colder she felt.

That’s right. This city was like this from the beginning.

She had been able to focus on her research while being safely protected in the society of mages, but if she strayed even a little from the light, she would face such violence.

An opponent who didn’t understand reason or logic.

A city of outlaws who would do anything to get what they wanted.

“…Hmph!” She felt like crying, but Kasia forced herself to sniff and pulled herself together.

She couldn’t stop here. She had to complete her mission for the director’s sake.

But even so, she couldn’t help but think about the man who had just climbed onto the roof of the train.

His ruthless actions of not being flustered at all in this absurd chase and instead killing the biker gang were unimaginable for a mage like her.

Judging by the surge of mana she had felt while she was talking to the engineer, he must have killed dozens of people, yet there wasn’t a hint of emotion on his face.

Was that the kind of mage that the director had always talked about?

Perhaps talent included the strong mind that didn’t break one’s composure even in such urgent situations.

“This isn’t the time for this.”

She didn’t know what solution the man had, but she had to stop the pursuers coming from behind, as he had said.

The solution to turning the train around would only be possible after stopping the biker gang’s interference.

As she thought this and tried to gather her mana to face the approaching gang.

Drrrrrrr!

“Kyaaak?!” With a bizarre noise, the train suddenly began to shake.

Losing her balance and staggering, she quickly raised her head and then gaped.

“Oh my god, this is…” Dozens of rails that had risen into the night sky were moving towards the front of the train, creating a new path.

Train (4)

Whoooosh!

As he ignored the loud wind noise that brushed past his ears and arrived at the front of the train, he felt the wind blowing even more fiercely.

Perhaps because it was the first car to cut through the night wind, the vibrations felt particularly strong compared to the train car he had been on earlier.

Lenok immediately secured himself with mana threads and calmly gathered his mana.

“Davi, can you assist with calculations?”

What he had to do now was something that couldn’t even be attempted without precise calculations and quantified results.

He needed a calculation assistant who could compare the information she received based on Lenok’s mana sensing, set a standard, and assist with judgments from the side.

[Of course, let’s begin.]

“Good.”

[Magnetic Control]

The most basic magnetic manipulation magic. It was a common magic used to maximize one of the basic properties of mana, magnetism, to pull or push metal.

But for Lenok now, there was something he could do with just this basic magic.

He fixed the mana in his body with his left hand and swung his right hand low.

Crack!

At the same time, the tracks in front of the train twisted slightly and then began to bend to the left little by little.

Drrrrr!

The tracks that had been fixed to the ground bent, and a strange sound echoed, but the rusty and old screws of the tracks were easily pulled out of the ground, and the tracks were bent in an instant.

Following the bent tracks, the direction of the train began to change little by little.

Towards the fork that had just split off.

[Inclination angle 27 degrees. Rotation rate 41%. Rigidity 178%. Connection error 10%. Train operation is possible normally.]

“Huuu…!!” Thud!

It wasn’t over yet.

He had succeeded in changing the direction by bending the tracks right in front of the train, but as a result, he had cut off a part of the tracks and forcibly created a new path.

Once the bent tracks ended, the train’s wheels would crash straight into the bare ground, and it would be a matter of time before this old means of transportation flipped over.

Even though it was an old train, its speed was not slow, and there wasn’t much time to think.

The time left before the train, unable to overcome its inertia, crashed into the bare ground where the tracks ended was less than 5 seconds.

But Lenok, with a calm face, turned his right hand backward and bent his fingers strongly.

Whoooom!

His powerful mana, spanning dozens of meters, reached the tracks that the train had just passed.

The moment he wrapped an entire section of the tracks with mana, Lenok used Magnetic Control to pull the tracks forward with all his might.

The tracks that had been torn from the ground rotated dozens of times in the air and landed precisely in front of the train.

The train’s wheels dramatically touched the newly appeared tracks and moved forward powerfully.

Kaga-ga-gak!

“Next.”

There was no time to rest. The repetition of tearing off the tracks that had just passed and laying them in front to create a new path.

In other words, Lenok was now directly manipulating the direction of the train by laying the tracks directly on the bare ground.

It was an idea that anyone who saw it would think was insane.

But Lenok was directly implementing that idea into reality as he had imagined it.

A bizarre solution created by the combination of Davi’s powerful calculation ability, precise assistance, and his own exquisite mana manipulation ability that surpassed it.

But its effect was more certain than anything else.

The train, which had been going off course at the fork and moving away from the path to the autonomous territory, was quickly starting to narrow the distance back to the original tracks.

Du-du-du-du!

He repeated the process of removing the tracks that had been passed once and moving them forward, and then removing the tracks underneath and laying them in front.

Even for Lenok, it was an impossible process without fully concentrating on it.

Because he had reduced the range of his mana sensing and was concentrating, it was not easy to gauge the distance.

Lenok, who was sweating slightly, asked, “Davi, what’s the remaining distance?”

[It will connect with the original route in about 50 meters. Please be careful of the impact.]

“Wait, 50 meters…!!” It was just a few seconds away.

Lenok gritted his teeth and slammed mana into the tracks, turning the train’s direction sharply.

At the same time, the train landed precariously on the tracks that appeared in front of him, cutting through the darkness.

Koo-oong!

“Haa… you should have told me sooner,” Lenok said as he slumped to the ground, finally relieved.

Davi, who had left Lenok’s arms and floated in the air, wagged her tail.

[My apologies. As I narrowed the range of mana sensing, my detection range decreased. This is something I need to keep in mind.]

“There was no need to narrow the range of mana sensing usually… so does that mean that your senses are linked to my mana?” Lenok muttered as he took out a cigarette from his inner coat pocket.

“It wasn’t easy, but I managed to shake off the interlopers.”

In the process, he had bypassed the relay station that the gang had occupied, so all that was left was to annihilate the additional forces of the biker gang that were following from behind.

Judging by the mana surging from Kasia in the back, it seemed that the battle with the additional pursuers had already begun.

“I need to finish this here so they don’t chase us all the way to the autonomous territory.”

Lenok picked up the rifle he had borrowed from the hairy gunner earlier and brought his eyes to the scope again, gathering his mana.

The time it took for Lenok to help Kasia finish off the pursuers was less than 3 minutes.

* * *

“You’ll have to walk from here,” the engineer said with a somewhat dazed expression.

It was understandable.

The commotion that had occurred that night was not something that an engineer without any mana could handle.

If he had seen Lenok creating a path by supplying tracks in front of his eyes, it would have been even more so.

“There will be a stop at the entrance due to the environment of the autonomous territory. If you use the transportation provided there, you can enter the autonomous territory.”

The passengers listened to the engineer and immediately got off the train and stepped onto the ground.

Although there had been a commotion in the middle of the night, as a result, there was almost no direct damage to the train.

The other passengers who had been awake at the time were flustered, but they seemed to have accepted the fact that the gang had been annihilated.

The hairy gunner, who had woken up much later, looked bewildered as he held his rifle, which was a bit concerning… but if he had used it well and returned it, it should be fine, right?

Lenok thought so and walked in the direction the engineer had pointed.

The special terrain of the autonomous territory… he had heard about it from Jenny in advance, but it was his first time seeing it with his own eyes.

The ‘transportation’ that the engineer was talking about was probably something closely related to that terrain.

Meanwhile, a familiar voice was suddenly heard from behind. It was Kasia.

“Thank you for what happened tonight.”

“No, it wasn’t a free service.”

In the end, Lenok had succeeded in receiving the artifacts that Kasia had taken out in front of Lenok at that time as compensation.

As artifacts, their performance was decent, but since they were items manufactured by the research institute itself, they were aimed at general commerciality rather than professionalism for mages.