Genius Wizard Takes Medicine [EN]: Chapter 277

It didn’t take long for Asui, who had awakened from his coma, to realize that he had survived.

“I, I did it!”

He was practically bursting with excitement at the fact that he had fought the Six Spirits’ proxy and returned alive and well, and he began to ramble.

“Perhaps there was a great warrior’s instinct dormant within me, just like my uncle. In fact, how else could I have returned alive and well among such formidable proxies, if not for the beast-like nature that was suppressed by my own magical abilities, which was awakened through this event…”

[That guy, he’s become so annoying since he came back to life.]

Manson muttered, looking disgusted, and Lenok shook his head.

“Leave him be. Asui’s real role isn’t in the proxy war anyway. It’s better if he’s mentally boosted by the joy of victory.”

“No, he didn’t even win in the first place, did he?”

“Ah, that’s right.”

Lenok chuckled, as if he had been momentarily confused by Chen’s words.

“But does it matter?”

None of those present considered Asui’s actions a defeat.

The fact that he had successfully given up without any serious injuries and had messed with the Six Spirits’ proxy was enough to draw the audience’s attention to their side.

It was enough to let others know where the balance of the proxy war was now leaning.

“We’ll start right away. Can you handle it?”

“Of course.”

Chen replied, lightly loosening his body.

“That’s what we’ve been practicing for, after all.”

He adjusted the curved sword at his waist, parted the curtains, and stepped into the inner part of the manor.

Waaaaaaah!

As if they had agreed beforehand, a roar that shook the eardrums erupted.

Amidst the magnificent response that made the ground tremble slightly, the executioner was waiting for him.

He should have been mentally shaken by letting Asui live, but his breathing was stable, as if he had already calmed his mind.

The glint in his eyes, visible through his helmet, calmly looked down at Chen.

Chen silently drew his curved sword and slowly checked his body.

The sensation of the mana threads bound to his entire body was already familiar enough.

The important thing was not to blindly follow Lenok’s manipulations, but to understand the combat logic he was thinking of and to prepare for and react to the actions he would take in advance.

Just by doing that, Chen felt his senses becoming sharper and more refined.

The executioner looked down at him with a heavy gaze, then muttered something quietly inside his helmet.

“The bastard of the Five Rings Family. I’ve heard the stories.”

“…”

“I never thought I’d be using the hand that killed his father to lay a hand on his son. It’s considered taboo among executioners to harm blood relatives…”

Thud!

The executioner lowered his stance, a heavy greatsword resting on his shoulder.

“On a day like today, even the ghosts will look the other way.”

Whoooosh…!

The executioner was drawing up his mana without hesitation.

There wasn’t a single trace of carelessness in his actions.

Having been disgraced in his previous fight with Asui, he was determined not to be defeated a second time.

Facing his murderous aura, Chen also slowly took his stance.

At the same time, the mana threads that Lenok had inserted reacted, sharply refining the mana flowing through Chen’s body.

Kiiiiing…!

As he felt the sensation of his entire body standing on edge like a blade, Lenok’s voice echoed in his head.

[We’ll finish this quickly.]

“What?”

Lenok continued, not caring that Chen had paused while raising his curved sword.

[I got a rough idea while dealing with Asui earlier. Thanks to that, I think I can do something interesting.]

“No, I’m sorry, but please refrain from experimenting in a place like this and just do as we practiced… Ugh…!!”

There was no reply.

At the same time as the bell rang, Chen’s limbs began to move, and he started running across the manor.

By lowering his upper body, leaning forward, and moving his legs, his body’s balance was instantly aligned, and he accelerated.

The surrounding scenery blurred in an instant, but despite the tremendous acceleration, Chen’s expression was not good.

‘It’s too simple…!’

While Lenok was manipulating Chen’s body to experiment with various combat logics, Chen had not been idle either.

As a natural businessman who was used to using his head, he had been quite impressed by the way Lenok thought.

Even in the midst of fierce combat, he did not hesitate to prioritize things and engage in strategic and psychological warfare every moment.

He would throw reckless or daring moves without hesitation, but that was also part of a psychological warfare to seize the timing and take the initiative.

He observed the act of combat as if looking down on a large battlefield, and even if he had to give up the initiative in a moment, he would gain more options than his opponent in the total sum of offense and defense.

An arrogant confidence that if he had the opportunity to choose, he would always pick the best decision.

If it weren’t for this opportunity, Chen would not have been able to even guess how Lenok thought and acted.

Just as Lenok’s manipulation ability was growing, it was natural that Chen’s understanding of Lenok’s combat logic would increase, creating a synergy.

Conversely, it was the same as saying that the moment Lenok manipulated Chen’s body, Chen could also guess Lenok’s intentions to some extent.

A charge that had accelerated to the fullest. At first glance, it looked like a good move, but it was not a good move when facing an opponent with such a large difference in size.

The reasonable result that could be hoped for through this kind of charge was to disrupt the opponent’s balance immediately after the collision, narrow the enemy’s choices, and conversely, increase one’s own options.

The absolute psychological advantage that occurred in that process was the method that Chen had experienced with Lenok, but the situation was different now.

Considering the executioner’s broad physique and thick armor, it was unlikely that the opponent would lose his balance no matter how much mana Chen poured into it.

In short, it was a reckless preemptive strike.

Clang!

Chen’s curved sword, which had quickly penetrated the executioner’s inner side, pierced deep into the armor.

The executioner, as if he had been waiting for it, took a big step back and swung his greatsword wildly.

The impact of receiving the sharp charge was not insignificant, but he did not lose his balance due to the sturdiness of his armor and the force of his weight.

Even the way he skillfully stepped back and raised his greatsword, as if he had anticipated the situation, was impossible if he had not been prepared by shifting his body’s balance backward from the beginning.

Whoosh!

As the executioner widened the distance, a gap opened between the two.

Chen’s curved sword could not reach, and the executioner’s greatsword had more than enough reach to cover it.

At this rate, the only future left for Chen’s body was to be cleanly split from the top of his head to his crotch.

“Farewell.”

The voice that echoed from inside the helmet was already certain of victory.

Unlike the shadow mage, whose actions could not be predicted, the executioner also had some knowledge of the strategic battles that warriors engaged in.

‘Damn it…!’

The moment Chen bit his lip and unconsciously tried to raise his arms, the mana flowing through his body rotated uncontrollably, creating an unknown spell.

A collection of principles and structures that were impossible for him to understand or recognize with his current magical abilities.

With a strange sensation as if puzzles were being put together at random inside his body, the ‘will’ that had been built up in an instant was imbued with mana and manifested as a single meaning.

Whoosh!

It spread out in all directions as an intangible wave.

Immediately after, the shadow that had risen behind him stuck to Chen’s back and flapped its wings.

Swoosh!

The distance between the two, about three steps.

Thud!

“Ugh…!!”

Chen’s body, which had leaped over that perfect gap that was neither too far nor too short, was thrown backward behind the executioner.

Slice!

The executioner’s head, which had been cut off behind Chen, flew up into the sky above the manor, helmet and all.

The thousands of people gathered here witnessed the executioner’s head, which was scattering faint streaks of blood, tumbling to the ground.

At the same time as the other family heads widened their eyes as they watched the scene, the audience cheered.

Waaaaaaaah!!!

Who won, or who should have won, was not their concern.

The important thing was to provide a spectacle as splendid as the gathering of the citadel’s residents.

In that sense, the clash between Chen and the executioner, though brief, was enough to give the viewers a thrill, given the background of the two.

A battle between the executioner who killed his father and his grown son.

No matter the reason, it was enough to look like a plausible revenge story.

The fact that Chen had won by engaging in a fleeting battle with each other using their respective strengths and speeds was more than enough to be seen as a dramatic victory.

“Damn it… If you were going to do this, you should have told me in advance.”

Chen grumbled as he struggled to get up.

As he picked up the curved sword that had fallen after beheading the executioner and raised his arm with all his might, the roar that echoed throughout the manor grew even louder.

Oooooooooooooooo!!!

Even as he received the cheers of thousands of people with his whole body, Chen’s gaze was directed towards the curtain at the back of the manor stage.

Lenok, who was massaging his wrist behind the stage, noticed his gaze and smiled.

‘So far, everything is going according to plan.’

Although the process had changed slightly, the result was satisfactory from Lenok’s point of view.

The first move was to put Asui forward as the vanguard and place shadows in advance throughout the manor.

The second move was to put Chen forward as the mid-tier and win the proxy war, balancing the scales.

In the process, stealing Asui’s spell and reproducing it with Chen’s body was closer to a half-improvised decision, but the result was definitely effective.

Even the other family heads, who had been looking at Chen with indifferent eyes, were now looking down at him with tense gazes.

Although he had manifested a shadow spell with Chen’s body, who had no knowledge of spells, it would be enough for the other family heads, who did not know the inside story, to think that he had been hiding his skills.

“The Six Spirits Family’s executioner…”

“His head was cut off in one exchange. It’s an absurd result.”

“He accelerated once more in an absurd way right after the clash. I even missed the second acceleration for a moment.”

“Either way, the fact that the executioner couldn’t even react is no coincidence. There must have been a reason why he took away the Eight Dungeons’ proxy’s qualification.”

“…”

Despite the murmurs of the other family heads, the Eight Dungeons’ family head simply lowered his head and could not say anything.

It was obvious how the Eight Dungeons, who had not even joined the five families’ alliance and had their proxy qualification taken away, would be treated.

Perhaps it was a good thing that Chen’s performance highlighted the fact that their proxy qualification had been taken away.

Lenok sharply watched the family heads through the curtains.

It was natural for them to be shaken.

He had been moving by choosing only the results that would break the board and twist the situation, while maintaining the planned plan as much as possible.

Although only one proxy from each side had been defeated, it was enough for the other family heads to feel that things were not going well.

If they felt that the situation was flowing strangely, that was enough.

Someone who thought that the flow of the proxy war was changing strangely would definitely take a different action.

The reason why Lenok did not step forward first and sat as the leader to observe the situation was also to observe the reactions of the family heads during the proxy war.

The Guiding Order.

If they were truly deeply involved in this citadel’s proxy war, there was no way they would not make additional moves in this situation.

‘A large-scale spell that sacrifices lives… If the Order’s aim is really that, then one of the family heads must be helping her. I need to find out who the collaborator is before the proxy war ends.’

He roughly knew what the missionary, Walter Martinez, was aiming for when he infiltrated this Eight Vast Citadel.

If it was to collect the secrets contained in the spatial distortion within the citadel, it would not be strange for him to reach out to other family heads as well as Yvon.

It was for this very moment that he had recruited Oren and made him the head of the Five Rings Family, placing him in that position.

With their keen eyes, the two of them would surely be able to identify which of the family heads was most closely allied with Yvon.

All that was left was to continue to change the course of the proxy war in a way that would shake expectations and observe the reactions of the family heads.

* * *

While he was lost in thought, the proxy war continued.

The battle between Chen, who had succeeded in preserving almost all of his stamina, and the second proxy on the other side.

What appeared from the other side of the stage was a slender martial artist.

Lenok already knew who he was through the information from the Three Young Family.

Adam Brobeck. The Seven Virtues’ proxy and a famous mercenary.

As a member of the Plato Office, a mercenary group comparable to Antares even in the mega-city, he was an extremely skilled martial artist and grappler.

The Seven Virtues was one of the families that hired an outsider as a proxy, like the Six Spirits who had hired Mad Manson.

As Lenok recalled the information in his memory, his eyes turned cold.

‘Plato… It’s been a while since we’ve crossed paths again.’

It was when Lenok was just starting out as a freelancer, in his first year.

Even back then, when he was taking on requests from Ibelin and dealing with black mages with the agents, the members of Plato were always interfering here and there.

It had been quite some time since they had disappeared after being everywhere whenever he took on a large-scale request.

What was the reason why they, who had been interfering in all sorts of incidents in the mega-city, had reappeared now?

How much of the ominous rumor that their unique abnormal capital was related to the high-ranking officials of the city council was true?

Unlike the complex thoughts swirling in his head, Lenok flicked the mana threads with a calm expression.

At the same time, mana transmission echoed in Chen’s ear, turning into a quiet message.

[From now on, we’ll proceed as we discussed beforehand. Is that okay?]

“Since when have you asked me that?”

Chen replied with a wry smile.

“It can’t be helped if I get some flak. Now that we’ve started, let’s see it through to the end.”

It didn’t take long for the meaning of those words to become clear.

Just five minutes after the proxy war began, Chen immediately declared his surrender.