Genius Wizard Takes Medicine [EN]: Chapter 183

Grisha sighed deeply at the bizarre scene unfolding before her eyes.

“Well, logically, they wouldn’t have failed to prepare for this kind of operation….”

“Let’s keep it simple.”

Lenok, channeling his magic, immediately stomped his foot.

The shockwave from his foot slammed into the iron door, causing it to tremble, and the recoil sent the two split halves of the man’s body flying forward.

At the same time, Lenok and Grisha distanced themselves, each using different spells.

The two men, who had been charging naked, were defenselessly struck by the spells and exploded, but they immediately began to regenerate.

Their recovery was truly abnormal.

Combined with their dull intellect, it was already a stretch to call them human.

“Ah, if you’re not gonna eat it… then die and be eaten…!!”

The man, stuttering, raised his thin arm and threw a punch.

It was an ordinary punch with no magic, but Grisha’s face changed when she heard the sound of the air tearing from the man’s fist.

KWA-AAANG!!

The intense shockwave from the man’s fist shattered the museum ceiling, revealing the sky above.

“Crazy, what kind of power…!! With this much strength, it would have been impossible not to notice him before!!”

Grisha muttered, slightly surprised, and then quickly realized the answer.

“No, someone outside must be controlling his output. From start to finish, he’s a creation made by someone’s hand…!!”

“Correct.”

Lenok replied, watching the man’s clone charge at him.

Due to the immense power emanating from the clone’s clenched fists, shockwaves continuously erupted from the floor, accelerating him.

He was moving so fast that he was barely visible.

But instead of dodging, Lenok quickly reached inside his coat.

The black collar fluttered, and the relic inside, the Archangel’s Compassion, flashed for a moment.

At the same time, Davi appeared and precisely manipulated the light, slamming it into the man.

Like a lie, the man’s body disappeared and crashed into the exhibition hall’s iron door on the opposite side.

KWA-AA-AAANG!!

Lenok smiled faintly as he watched the man’s body crumple against the iron door, which then swung open from the force.

He had tried it on a whim, but the results were better than expected.

He had managed to subdue the man and open the sturdy iron door at the same time, a double win.

While Lenok used his remaining magic to completely subdue the man, Grisha quickly finished her task and approached Lenok.

“So, how about you start explaining things?”

She stomped her foot, her face full of irritation, and the man’s head, which was lying on the floor, shook pitifully.

Somehow, the man’s limbs were tightly bound by strange green rings, and he couldn’t move.

Grisha had also quickly grasped the man’s abnormal regeneration ability and realized that subduing and leaving him was easier than killing him.

“What is this monster, and why did that door open so easily?”

“……”

“If I know the Drug Lord’s personality, things should never be this easy….”

“It’s simple.”

Lenok said, slowly lifting the man who had crashed headfirst into the door.

“This isn’t a human, and it’s definitely not alive.”

That was why Lenok had used the teleportation spell within the Archangel’s Compassion to teleport the charging man, slamming him directly into the iron door.

He had finally realized the source of the déjà vu that had been bothering him.

“This is a homunculus.”

Artificial life created by sorcerers who were once engrossed in research to transmute gold.

It was a creation of alchemists now forgotten in this world.

“A homunculus?”

Grisha asked, looking puzzled.

“I’ve never heard of that. What kind of spell uses that term?”

“Hmm….”

Lenok was about to explain further but stopped, realizing that now was not the time.

Explaining the alchemy he knew to Grisha would likely take a while.

Because the alchemy he knew was the name of the gold transmutation spell that existed in WORLD 1.0.

Lenok, who never easily forgot a spell or technique he had seen, had only felt a sense of déjà vu instead of properly remembering it because it was a technique he remembered from beyond the monitor, not from his memories after awakening as Lenok.

“It’s hard to explain here. Let’s talk after we finish this.”

Lenok brushed it off and stepped into the vault.

Alchemy existed in WORLD 1.0, but it was an unfortunate transmutation spell that was removed in 2.0 through an update.

At the time, it had an overly complex structure in terms of game balance and was too inaccessible, so it wasn’t very popular.

There was also the argument that alchemy was unnecessary in a world where magic existed, so everyone had moved on.

Nevertheless, Lenok still remembered the name and skill composition because, towards the end of 1.0, the incredible efficiency of alchemy had begun to attract attention and be researched.

It had considerable efficiency in combining herbs in ways different from the existing methods or creating subordinate creatures like golems, which led to players regretting it later.

“……”

At the time, he had thought it was just part of a game update, but what if it wasn’t a coincidence?

What if everything that existed in that world wasn’t just a figment of a game?

Perhaps, the treasures of unknown origin called ancient relics were actually….

Lenok shook his head, stopping himself from thinking further.

Don’t think too deeply.

It was an idea that should never be overlooked, but now was not the time to get lost in such thoughts.

The important thing was that the existence of alchemy explained many of the Drug Lord’s secrets.

The two sorcerers tied up the man, split into two, next to the vault.

Grisha seemed to try using some kind of spell on the unconscious man’s head, but she frowned, as it didn’t work as she wanted.

“…His mental resistance is very strong. None of my spells work on that. It’ll be hard to keep him tied up for long.”

It was only because they were sorcerers like Lenok and Grisha that they could subdue him like this. It was clear that he wouldn’t even react to ordinary shocks.

Immense regeneration and strength. Immune to mental attacks and splitting depending on the number of opponents.

He was the perfect guard for the warehouse.

But Lenok took out another item from his coat.

“This should work.”

The dagger with a twisted blade that he had used to subdue Weizen.

It contained a curse spell, but it wasn’t a very high-level one.

However, when Lenok stabbed the blade into the two split halves of the man’s body, the effect was dramatic.

“Kkkkk…!!”

“Uhhh….”

Grisha looked bewildered as the man writhed and convulsed as the curse spell seeped into his body.

“What is this… How can his mental resistance be so strong, but his curse resistance so weak?”

“Because he’s not properly made. Judging by how low his intellect is, to the point where he can’t even speak properly, it’s probably the result of intentionally lowering his intelligence to increase his mental resistance.”

A homunculus was not a living creature, so it had almost no spell resistance that living beings naturally possessed.

To solve this problem, the materials used to create the homunculus had to be of high quality, but the Drug Lord wouldn’t have bothered with that for a simple warehouse guard.

“Let’s go in. Let’s quickly grab everything and get out.”

Leaving the two convulsing homunculi behind, Lenok immediately entered the exhibition hall.

The moment he stepped inside, he felt the air change.

As it was a storage for medicinal herbs that the Drug Lord had deliberately created, the delicate interior, completely different from the primitive environment outside, caught his eye first.

Instead of the glass cases that should have displayed various relics, there were machines that controlled humidity and temperature, and the floor was covered with soft soil.

And on top of that soil, thousands of different herbs and medicinal ingredients were piled up in mountains.

Sprinklers that operated regularly from the ceiling moved over the herbs piled up in the hall, spraying an unknown liquid.

Grisha, who followed him in, also exclaimed in admiration at the scene inside.

“For a madman who turns humans into monsters, his storage is very well-maintained. The humidity is similar to my hometown… The temperature is surprisingly consistent.”

“He probably poured all sorts of spells and money into protecting his assets.”

“Thousand Day Grass, White Lotus Flower, Gourd Root, Televia, Bainas… Herbs that are hard to find even with money are scattered everywhere. If this is what I can see, the value of the items gathered here must be unimaginable.”

And even this was just a part of his medicinal herb warehouses scattered across the continent, so it was impossible to even guess the extent of his wealth.

His hidden assets alone seemed to be enough to surpass most corporations.

“However, what’s strange is that there aren’t many medicinal herbs used for drugs… Usually, when you think of expensive drug herbs, you think of things like Gangsanseul or Cole 19, but strangely, there’s nothing like that here.”

As Grisha muttered, Lenok quickly began to rummage through the neatly stacked herbs.

He had received a brief explanation from the Herbalist, but it was hard to be sure about Malabes without seeing it directly.

Grisha would probably have to look for the ledger, so Lenok had to rummage through the piles of herbs alone while taking the medicine.

“Hoo….”

His body started to heat up after moving quickly for the first time in a while.

He thought it was just rummaging through piles of herbs, but bending over and sifting through the herbs by hand to avoid damaging them was more tiring than he had expected.

If he used magic or mana, it wouldn’t be strange if these sensitive herbs were to change in some way.

He thought he was already fully aware of it, but he couldn’t help but smile bitterly.

No matter how hard he tried to perfect himself, there were times like this when he felt the inescapable penalties with his whole body.

That was why he had to complete the new medicine with the help of the Herbalist.

To go higher.

To step into the realm of transcendents who had surpassed humanity.

He needed a way to break free from the shackles that bound him, even if only for a moment.

‘I don’t like that the solution ultimately comes down to medicine, but….’

If there was no other choice, there was no reason to hesitate.

“……”

Grisha, while searching for the ledger, was also carefully watching Lenok.

“….Found it.”

The five-pronged roots merged into one in the middle, forming a flower shape at the end.

Malabes, also known as the flower that grows underground.

It was once considered an indispensable treasure in the drug industry, but now it was a rare medicinal herb that was hard to find due to the development of manufacturing techniques.

Was this truly the Drug Lord’s medicinal herb warehouse? The sight of more than a dozen Malabes buried there, which were hard to find anywhere else, made Lenok’s hands tremble.