Genius Wizard Takes Medicine [EN]: Chapter 24

Dray couldn’t help but chuckle at Kidel’s words. It seemed she hadn’t given up hope yet.

“Kidel, after seeing that lightning earlier, you’re still thinking the same thing?”

To be clear, Dray had entertained similar thoughts before coming up to the rooftop, but the moment Lenok summoned lightning from thin air to capture the Scavenger’s branch leader, all those hopes had vanished like bubbles.

A pharmaceutical company.

A mage who could freely summon lightning from the empty sky.

Considering his magical abilities, which were hard to believe for someone so young, it wouldn’t be strange if the Electro-Magic Tower [a powerful organization focused on magic] took an interest in him right now. He was a monster.

The fact that such a genius was rolling around in a place like this, disregarding all the wealth and fame, could only be explained by circumstances beyond money or honor.

Someone might be able to hire him, but it was clear that no one here could monopolize his talent.

“But it’s such a waste… Where else can we find a mage like him?”

As she tilted her head, the barrel of the rifle slung behind her back glinted.

“And what guarantee is there that he won’t become our enemy after working with us?”

“……..”

Only then did the smile fade from Dray’s face.

Kidel’s words were not entirely impossible.

Dray’s mercenary group and Lenok were by no means kind or good people. They were just workers in the underworld, living off the city’s grease, chasing after jobs that paid well.

No one knew when they would meet as allies, helping each other, or as enemies, risking their lives.

After a moment of hesitation, Dray replied.

“That’s why we always have to leave a good impression on the people we work with.”

His voice was heavy, completely different from before, and the other mercenaries turned their heads.

“If I had clung to him because of his abilities, I might have been able to shake off the feeling of waste for a moment, but it would have been difficult to give him the impression that I handle things cleanly. No one knows how such trivial actions will come back to us.”

“……”

“I just made the best choice I could in that situation. Now, all we can do is… hope for good luck.”

What was it like to live in a city of tens of millions, roaming the night streets with guns and swords?

It was only natural to hope that someone stronger than you wouldn’t appear the moment you were working. To hope that someone wouldn’t come to kill you for more money.

They lived another day, praying that the bad luck of that faint probability wouldn’t appear before them today.

That was all Dray Creamgal could do.

Having shaken off his complex thoughts, he calmly patted his colleagues on the shoulders.

“Let’s go. After the job is done, let’s offer a drink for the guys who fell.”

#

Two days after successfully completing the job from the Creamgal Mercenary Office.

Dray had Jenny deliver the blood taken from the man’s corpse to Lenok.

Jenny, handing over the styrofoam box, had a disgusted look on her face from the fishy smell of blood, but Lenok didn’t fall for her clumsy act and calmly accepted the box.

For a woman who had the guts to open a bar in the middle of District 49, being disgusted by the smell of blood was ridiculous.

He had to buy another small refrigerator to store the blood separately, but it wasn’t a big expense.

He couldn’t analyze the blood mixed with black magic right away, but later, when he became more magically adept, he might be able to figure out the principle of that strange doping ability.

“The consulting firm that was in that building has moved to another location.”

Lenok listened quietly to the aftermath of the incident that Jenny was telling him, while drinking the liquor Jorden had given him.

At some point, the two of them stopped charging Lenok for drinks. The fees he had brought in so far had already exceeded ten million cells [currency], so it was possible.

“It was kind of obvious. No matter how much you want to save on rent and taxes, there’s a limit. Not many people would be able to stay put after going through something like that.”

Ta-ta-tang!!

Her words, spoken without a change in expression even at the faint sound of gunfire from outside the bar, were not very convincing.

Since this kind of thing was not uncommon in District 49, all three of them didn’t even think about moving and just quietly sipped their drinks.

It was just another day with nothing special, except for one customer who had grumbled about the noise, stormed out, and returned covered in blood.

“Ban, what were your impressions of working with the Creamgal office this time?”

Lenok replied nonchalantly to Jenny’s question.

“There was nothing special. Compared to my experience with the Kraken, it was incomparably smooth. I did face a Scavenger executive, but… it wasn’t that difficult.”

“Was he a retired soldier? If he was an executive from District 51, I can guess his level.”

She chuckled and muttered, putting a long cigarette in her mouth.

“But not all Scavengers are weak or pathetic. Let me tell you, there are quite a few guys who got caught up in it after working together a few times and got taken out while they were off guard.”

“Are you saying the core leadership is different?”

“There’s a considerable difference even among the branch leaders, not to mention the executives. If you get involved with the Scavenger branch leaders in the 20s districts, you’d better be careful. There’s a good reason why they can create such a large organization by gathering all sorts of scum.”

Lenok didn’t answer, but he tried to remember her words.

The Scavengers he had encountered so far were nothing more than simple thugs or gangs, but if she said so, it was reasonable to assume that they had more power than they appeared to have.

She puffed out smoke and grinned at Lenok, who had a nonchalant expression.

“Do you know that this job is quite well-known in this industry? It’s been a while since the Scavengers tried something like this, so everyone was paying attention.”

“So?”

“So, there are more and more clients looking for the mage who drops lightning from the sky. It’s very exciting for freelancers like us.”

“Hmm…”

That was definitely a good thing. Instead of taking any job, the requests that specifically designated him would be better treated and better paid.

“So, I’ve been working hard for our mage.”

Jenny said that and brought a paper file from behind the bar and handed it to Lenok.

“I’ve collected all the requests that have come in for you this week. Take it and read it, and pick one that you like.”

“This many just for designated requests?”

The thickness of the paper in his hand was easily over a dozen sheets.

“That’s proof that there are many people who are thirsty for a skilled mage. Honestly, I’m surprised too. Not many of my clients get this many designated requests.”

Jenny stared at Lenok with greedy eyes.

“So, let’s keep working well together. I’ll only take a small cut of the fee.”

“Haha.”

Lenok laughed dryly but didn’t answer, and Jenny didn’t say anything more.

He nodded as he got up with the file, and she said as if she had just remembered.

“Oh, and those requests. They all have overlapping deadlines, so if you choose one, you’ll have to reject the others. You need to answer quickly so the clients can find someone else. You have to be considerate about that.”

“Okay.”

Lenok went straight home, threw the file and the box of blood in the corner of the room, and headed to the bathroom.

He was going to throw up all the alcohol he had drunk at Jenny’s bar. After realizing that this could reduce the side effects of taking drugs in advance, he had been doing it often.

It was inevitable that his stomach would be upset, but from Lenok’s point of view, it was more of a loss to be bedridden for a whole day.

After flushing the toilet and washing his face, he stood in front of the kitchen.

He cut the meat that he had thawed in advance and grilled it, and simply washed the vegetables and stir-fried them with the sauce he had bought at the supermarket.

Sizzle!

He took out the leftover rice from the rice cooker from yesterday and had a meal with simple side dishes.

The important thing was not to eat a lot, but to try to consume a variety of nutrients.

Slowly and consciously, he chewed the contents of his mouth well, digested them, and sent them down into his stomach.

This damn weak body had terrible digestive power, so Lenok always paid close attention whenever he consumed something.

After finishing his meal, he did the dishes and stretched.

It was important to manage himself before the bad habit of a self-sufficient person doing the dishes to eat took over.

Lenok, who had diligently taken the vitamin supplements that had arrived two weeks after ordering them, finally took a breath and sat down with his back straight in one corner of the living room.

The walls of the studio apartment were full of torn notes and memos that he had put up, so there wasn’t much space to lean against, but it couldn’t be helped.

He had written down the inspirations and methods he had come up with while researching the application of common magic and stuck them on the wall.

The common magic that Lenok used was magic that he had developed from beginning to end, relying only on his own memory and talent.

Unless he learned other unique magic, Lenok had no choice but to make an effort little by little to raise common magic to a higher level than it was now.

Fortunately, the magical talent that he had raised with all sorts of penalties was not in vain, so Lenok had been developing his own magic without stopping, even with very small inspirations and ideas.

He went beyond simply using the defined magic for its intended purpose, and went through the process of re-measuring and defining the magic power consumption, range, power, and limits to create new magic.

The adjustment of the range of [Thunder Calling] that he used against the Scavengers this time was also part of that research.

Lenok put the styrofoam box containing the blood in the small refrigerator he had bought in advance. Since it was blood that had been touched by black magic, it was only natural to take measures with a small barrier magic.

He sat upright in one corner of the room and finally picked up the file that Jenny had given him and began to flip through the documents inside.

There were requests from mercenary offices like Creamgal, and there were also cases where individuals had requested protection.

There were also unusual requests, such as requests for cooperation in research from research institutes, and there were many requests from companies, like last time.

Lenok paused for a moment as he flipped through the documents and then let out a hollow laugh.

“Heh… these guys are crazy too.”

There was a request from the Scavengers to hire him.

To be precise, the Scavenger branch leader of District 38 had been watching his performance.

It was a blatant request that openly implied that they didn’t care that he had openly interfered with the operations of the same organization, so Lenok couldn’t help but be surprised.

Jenny couldn’t have not known about this, so she probably didn’t tell him on purpose.

As he worked with her, he realized that she was quite playful.

“Let’s see. First, I’ll take this out, and this too…”

He filtered out all the requests with deadlines that were too tight. He also put the requests from the mercenary offices on hold for now.

He also removed all the requests that came in under unknown individual names.

The requests that came in under the names of companies were relatively clean.

Lenok didn’t think it was a bad idea to work with a gang, but the problem was trust. He was going to put off working with dangerous organizations until he had the ability to buy trust with power.

After sorting through the requests with strict conditions, there was only one request that Lenok liked.

First of all, among the requests gathered here, it had the longest remaining deadline until acceptance, and the conditions were not strict. The pay wasn’t that high, but there was a keyword that caught Lenok’s eye.

“A pharmaceutical company…”

An unfamiliar guest.

A pharmaceutical company.

It was a word that strongly attracted Lenok’s interest, who had recently become very interested in drugs.

Lenok turned on his cell phone screen and connected to the internet network.

There was one site that he had been visiting more and more often lately, even though he had only occasionally checked the news.

The official online auction site run by the city government, Auction.

In this city’s largest network market, where it was faster to count the number of items not for sale, all sorts of rare treasures and relics of unknown origin were often listed.

Consumables such as elixirs that maintained the user’s energy and health were also occasionally listed here.

Among them, what Lenok was currently looking at was ‘Stemonia’, a first-class manufactured elixir from the Stania Pharmaceutical Group, which was priced at around 100 million cells.

It was said that it combined regeneration magic, qigong [a system of coordinated body-posture and movement, breathing, and meditation], and primitive shamanism in a variety of ways to achieve the most efficient energy enhancement for the human body.

Among the elixirs, it was relatively close to a manufactured product, and its actual efficacy was focused on boosting physical strength and preventing energy from scattering, but even that was a rare item that didn’t often appear in such public auctions.

Lenok was in no position to be picky right now.

He had to work to improve his standard of living, but also strive for a better life than he had now.

The money he had saved by cutting back on spending here and there was also for this time.

“One more request… no, at least two.”

To be sure of winning the bid for Stemonia at auction, 100 million cells alone was not enough.

Lenok was thinking of spending a considerable amount of the money he had this time to confirm one important fact.

Could he improve this weak body with the effects of an elixir alone?

If this question was not resolved, Lenok could no longer move forward.

He needed hope.

Even if it wasn’t a unique time-based magic, he needed the hope that taking these kinds of elixirs could alleviate the penalties that filled his body.

Unique magic, relics, elixirs.

Among these, the most accessible and likely to be obtained with capital for Lenok were the elixirs.

Even if he didn’t see a big effect right away, it was very important to confirm whether similar elixirs could have a positive effect on Lenok.

Even if it meant spending some of the money he had worked so hard to save.

Suppressing the rising excitement, Lenok calmly turned the page.

“Amnak Pharmaceutical Company…”

It wasn’t a well-known conglomerate like Stania, but a venture company that had started in District 30, but what was important was that they were manufacturing drugs.

He wouldn’t be able to get anything special by taking on one request, but it would be good if he could learn about the industry.

Even if it wasn’t an elixir, he might be able to get a hint to solve the problem of the sleeping pills that were gradually losing their effectiveness.

“I’m a little reluctant to just switch to a stronger drug…”

However, if he took a few more cheap sleeping pills than the recommended dose, he might never wake up again, so he had no choice but to endure it for the time being.

He had decided.

The next client would be Amnak Pharmaceutical Company.

Lenok had roughly read the outline of the request, but it only contained the behind-the-scenes story of the pharmaceutical company related to new drug development.

It seemed that they had clashed with the political circles in that district over the expected profits from this new drug development, but it was difficult to find out the specific circumstances because they were not written down.

He would contact Jenny and meet the client later. It was almost time to sleep.