Genius Wizard Takes Medicine [EN]: Chapter 2

“Hey, Ban, what are you doing?”

“We don’t have time for this. Let’s just clean up later!”

Ignoring the other workers’ scolding, he waved his hand dismissively, looking annoyed.

“Shut up, it’s noisy. It’s okay to let him have a smoke before he dies, right?”

He said this and actually pulled a rolled cigarette from his pocket.

“If you were hiding something like that, you should have told us.”

“Yeah, you bastard. I’m desperate for a smoke right now…”

“I stole a few while cleaning the supervisor’s room. I don’t have any to give you guys.”

The man called Ban took out a match from under his bed, lit the cigarette, and placed it in Lenok’s mouth.

Lenok’s eyes widened as he unexpectedly inhaled the cigarette smoke, and Ban chuckled.

“Amazing, isn’t it?”

“……”

“It’s famous for being made with a mix of psychotropic plant leaves and cheap drugs. After one puff, all the pain will disappear. It’s not a bad send-off to the other side.”

Ban said this, patted Lenok’s shoulder, and left with the other workers.

A breeze came in through a slightly open window, and the stained curtains fluttered.

Lenok, left alone in the empty room, slowly rose to his feet with the cigarette in his mouth.

Normally, he should have moved right away, but he sat on the bed without a word, focusing on smoking the cigarette.

Absurdly, the cigarette Ban had given him was completely changing all of Lenok’s plans.

The acrid smoke filling his lungs was, strangely, invigorating Lenok’s body.

To be precise, the cigarette, made with all sorts of harmful substances, was forcibly making him forget the fatigue that had accumulated in his body and dulling the nerves that felt pain.

However, just by becoming insensitive to the fatigue that had been weighing him down, Lenok felt a refreshing sensation he had never experienced since he came into this world.

It was as if his physical abilities had returned to the days when he played games without any worries.

Lenok stood up and swung his arms a couple of times, and he was certain.

It didn’t matter if it was made with drugs or strange plants.

No matter what side effects it brought, Lenok desperately needed this kind of stimulant right now.

“…Did he say it was the supervisor’s room?”

Lenok muttered to himself, changed into his work clothes, and immediately left the bedroom.

Confusion.

He had already roughly figured out where the supervisors stayed while wandering around to understand the factory’s layout.

After checking the numerous trucks busily entering from outside the window, he lowered his head slightly and moved quickly.

A lighter and faster pace than ever before.

He encountered other supervisors while walking through the hallway, but they quickly stopped paying attention after seeing Lenok’s face and confirming that he was not a worker under their direct supervision.

Normally, they would have found fault with the workers even if it was unnecessary, but they didn’t even have the time to do that on a busy day like today.

The supervisors were struggling just to deal with the union members who were inspecting and collecting the products made in the factory.

Already, people wearing bright blue vests were wandering around everywhere, pushing the supervisors from all sides.

“The product quantity doesn’t match. Am I asking too much?”

“…No, sir.”

“Hey, who do you think is making it possible for you to run this factory?”

“I’m sorry!”

“The workers here, it wouldn’t be surprising if they were reported to the Human Rights Commission, but we’re understanding their difficult situation. So you should show some sincerity too.”

Conversations that made your neck stiff just by listening to them were exchanged, and the supervisors, who were like ghosts in front of the workers, were busy bowing their heads like reeds.

Among them, a union member who looked particularly old threw the documents the supervisor had brought down with a frustrated shout.

“That’s enough! Looking at the ledger, you’ve been embezzling quite a bit. I’ll check the warehouse myself and see what materials are missing. If the missing quantity isn’t filled by the time we leave today, you’d better be prepared.”

As the union member made a threat, the supervisors around him reluctantly nodded. But rather, their expressions were full of relief.

Targeting the material warehouse meant that the first scapegoat had been chosen. The union member, who had vented his anger while helping out appropriately, would likely come up with a more reasonable compromise than now.

Of course, the supervisor in charge of the material warehouse would have a hard time, but there was no loyalty among the supervisors to cover up such trivial matters.

Lenok picked up a box that was lying around carelessly and loitered nearby.

Soon, one of the supervisors standing nearby noticed him and approached him.

He blatantly looked down at the work clothes Lenok was wearing and asked.

“Why is a worker here?”

“Well… I came because I was sent on an errand. I have something to do in the supervisors’ quarters…”

“Tell me what errand it is.”

“That, uh… it’s for smoking.”

Lenok said this and pretended to gather smoke in his mouth and exhale.

If a worker had stolen a cigarette from the supervisor’s room, it was highly likely that other supervisors were also openly enjoying similar items.

As expected, the supervisor, who immediately understood, glanced around and grabbed Lenok by the collar, moving him to one side.

He headed down the hallway with familiar steps, grumbling irritably.

“I told them that sending it by delivery would get caught, but those crazy bastards still sent it on a day like this. Seriously…”

After walking briskly and turning a few corners in the hallway, a cleaner hallway appeared than the shabby workshops where the workers stayed.

The supervisor rummaged through his pockets in front of a door painted white, and soon found a ring of two or three keys and held it in his hand.

As the locked door was opened, a small bedroom came into view.

Compared to Lenok’s memory, it was still a terribly cramped space, but it was still a much better bedroom than the old cubicle where he had been eating and sleeping for the past week.

If he had come this far, he no longer had any business with the supervisor.

Lenok raised his magic power and brought his thumb and index finger together.

He imagined a strong current of electricity. He focused his magic power while strongly visualizing the effect of a stun gun in his mind.

“…Bolt.”

Zzzt..!!

At the same time as he whispered the incantation, a small current of electricity burst out from between Lenok’s fingers.

The supervisor, who hadn’t noticed that magic was being used right behind him, turned around and looked down at Lenok at that moment.

Lenok immediately pressed his two fingers under the supervisor’s chin.

“Okay, then quickly hand over the goods… Ggggrrrkkkk!!”

The supervisor’s eyes, which had been gleaming with undisguised greed, instantly rolled back, and a bizarre scream came from his mouth.

The supervisor’s huge body, convulsing and trembling all over, fell straight in front of the slightly open door, and the bedroom was wide open.

Lenok grabbed the supervisor’s shoulders and struggled to move the huge body inside the room.

If he left him like this and someone else found the supervisor, it would be a problem.

If he was going to do it properly, it would be best to put his unconscious body all the way up on the bed, but Lenok gave up after trying a couple of times.

With his weakened strength, it was impossible to lift and move this body.

Anyway, after moving the supervisor inside the room and closing the door, Lenok sat on the bed with a sigh of relief.

“Hoo…”

Thanks to the effect of the cigarette, it was a bit tiring, but there was no lethargy or lingering fatigue weighing him down.

But he shouldn’t be mistaken. The unknown vitality circulating in his body right now was not eliminating pain or fatigue, but only making him forget it for a while.

The backlash that would come after the drug wore off would be more intense than the fatigue Lenok usually felt.

There wasn’t much time to rest. He had to hurry to escape the factory.

Since he had come to the supervisor’s bedroom, which was not in his plan, it was important to get out of here as soon as he got what he wanted.

Lenok first took the key ring from the fallen supervisor’s hand and immediately began searching the bedroom.

If it was a popular item among supervisors, it was highly likely that they would be keeping it somewhere precious.

Only after lifting the entire bed mattress did Lenok finally find the answer.

“You’ve hidden a lot.”

Lenok clicked his tongue at the sight of the neatly arranged piles of cigarettes along the hidden space under the mattress.

Even if he estimated it conservatively, it seemed to be more than a carton.

Lenok snatched the cigarette case from the supervisor’s pocket, swept the cigarettes under the mattress into his hand, and stopped without hesitation as soon as the case was full.

There was no space to move even if he tried to take everything anyway.

The case the supervisor used was just the right size to fit in a pocket, and it even had an ignition function to create a flame, so it was very convenient to carry around separately.

He wanted to put one in his mouth right away and relive the feeling he had felt earlier, but Lenok forcibly suppressed it and began to look for other useful items.

While rummaging through an old drawer, Lenok paused when he felt a hard metal at his fingertips.

“……”

It was the first time he had touched it directly, but it was impossible not to recognize this shape.

Lenok took out an old pistol from the drawer and looked down at it with a complicated expression.

The subtle details were different, but the overall silhouette was very familiar.

The magazine at the bottom of the pistol was full of eight bullets, but no more magazines were visible in the drawer.

It seemed to be a product that didn’t consider safety devices at all, and it seemed to be able to be fired just by pulling the slide at the top to load it.

Lenok stared at the pistol for a moment, but soon realized that even that hesitation was a luxury.

To survive, he had to not hesitate in any way. Lenok put the pistol in his pocket and immediately left the supervisor’s bedroom.

He had obtained the cigarettes, so he had to move right away, but Lenok stopped in his tracks and took out the key ring he had taken from the supervisor’s hand and began to examine it.

There were only three keys, but each key had a sticker attached to it, indicating where the key was used.

It was a character he had never seen before, but surprisingly, he could understand its meaning. It seemed that the old Lenok was not completely illiterate.

One was for the bedroom. One was for the assembly room… It seemed that this supervisor was in charge of the assembly room.

And after checking the words ‘rest area’ written on the last key, Lenok immediately began to move in the direction of the rest area.

“It’s a little different from the original plan… but this will be more effective.”

Lenok’s plan was to escape the factory through the underground parking lot.

He had identified several passages while wandering around the factory, but he was convinced that using the parking lot was the safest option.

Lenok, who had to move around inside the factory while avoiding the eyes of the supervisors, had no way of knowing what kind of defenses were in place outside the factory.

In that situation, if he rashly chose a land route leading out of the factory as an escape route, he would be helpless if he encountered unexpected guards or defenses.

The parking lot, where vehicles mainly came and went instead of people, was likely to have relatively less security.

However, he thought that he had no choice but to endure the risk of moving around in the parking lot with his bare body, but if he could use the supervisor’s rest area, things would be different.

The rest area was located in the hallway between the supervisors’ quarters and the workshop.

Lenok put his ear to the door for a moment and focused on the sounds coming from inside, but when he didn’t sense any particular presence, he immediately opened the door with the key.

As expected, the supervisors, who were busy dealing with the union members, were not in the rest area.

The empty rest area was littered with snacks, liquor bottles, and clothes that the supervisors had left behind.

It was obvious that they had been drinking even during work hours, but if there was anyone who could maintain such a diligent work attitude in this shabby factory, they would not have ended up here in the first place.

And if they were those kinds of people, it was highly likely that they would leave important items among these clothes without any problem.

“…Found it.”

As a result of thoroughly searching through the clothes pockets scattered in the rest area, Lenok succeeded in finding old sunglasses, an empty wallet, and two key rings.

Most of them were keys used to open various rooms or locked doors, like the supervisor he had knocked out earlier, but among them, there was a key with a code that looked like a vehicle’s serial number.

He had no way of knowing what kind of license plates vehicles used in this world, but it was a gain just to have acquired an additional key.

Thump thump!!

A faint vibration echoed from beyond the wall of the rest area. A loud noise like something was being hammered from a very far distance.

It was clear that the union members were causing a commotion while wandering around every corner of the factory.

Lenok took out a cigarette from his case and immediately lit it and put it in his mouth.

He had never touched a cigarette when he was in the other world, but Lenok quickly became accustomed to smoking.

The same smoke as before soaked into his body, making him forget fatigue and pain. At the same time, his mind, which had been on edge, began to relax and his tension began to ease.

It was good that it made him forget the fatigue of his body, but making his mind relax was definitely not a good thing in the current situation.

Lenok took the cigarette out of his mouth after inhaling the smoke appropriately.

‘They said it was mixed with psychotropic plants. If I consume too much, the speed at which my mind works will slow down.’

Escape.

Indeed, such a combination of items that are inhaled through combustion often have strong effects and severe side effects.

If he made a mistake, it would be enough to make a person like a limp rag. He had to keep his mind firmly in place until he escaped the factory.

Lenok threw the cigarette on the ground and crushed it with the tip of his shoe, then changed into clothes that were the right size from among the clothes scattered in the rest area.

The worker’s work clothes or the supervisor’s work clothes were too conspicuous in some way.

The clothes thrown in this rest area were casual clothes that the supervisors wore comfortably during their off-duty hours, so there was less concern that they would attract unnecessary attention even after escaping the factory.

“Ugh… the smell is awful.”

The stench of cigarettes and sweat mixed together stung his nose, but Lenok forced himself to change his clothes because it was necessary.

He threw the work clothes he was wearing under the sofa in the rest area and was about to leave the room when the sound of footsteps approaching from the end of the hallway echoed.

Lenok let go of the doorknob he was holding and quickly hid under the sofa.

As if his ominous premonition was correct, the footsteps quickly approached and then stopped abruptly in front of the rest area door.

Bang!

“Huh? Which bastard left the rest area door open? I’m going to get another earful from the general manager.”

“It’s understandable that they’re out of their minds on a day like today.”