Genius Wizard Takes Medicine [EN]: Chapter 500

Lenok rested for about a day and then immediately finished preparing to leave.

After talking with the observers who would remain on the island, he boarded the boat heading off the island.

Grisha laughed at Lenok, who was holding a bunch of items in both hands, such as the charm given by the captain and Rapper’s cross.

“You’re really something. You haven’t even properly divided the merits of this operation yet, and you don’t seem to have any great attachment to it?”

Grisha took something out of her arms and tossed it to Lenok.

Thud!!

Lenok, who naturally missed it, sighed and picked it up.

“Couldn’t you just hand it over nicely?”

“Oh? I think something like this happened before.”

Grisha tilted her head, then smiled and pointed at the object in Lenok’s hand.

“Well, it doesn’t matter. Anyway, there’s no observer here who has been more active than you.”

“…So, what is this?”

“It’s a key that allows free access to all the facilities on the island.”

Grisha said.

“It opens not only the third lighthouse that will be newly built, but also the vault where relics and elixirs are stored, the material warehouse, and even the hangar with equipment.”

She smiled and stared at the object in Lenok’s hand, a key that glowed with a faint blue light.

“You can freely take and use anything that can be opened with that key.”

“……”

Is she saying that all the assets accumulated in the name of the Far East Branch of the Order are effectively being transferred to Lenok’s ownership?

For now, the Azure Eye will manage and use it jointly, but it means that the act of taking out supplies will be overlooked at any time.

It’s practically a declaration that the assets on this island itself will be transferred to Lenok’s name.

Only then did Lenok understand what Grisha meant by giving him this key, and he chuckled.

“Since we can’t divide the merits right away, you’re just giving it all to me?”

Grisha, who has worked with Lenok since the beginning of the Azure Eye, knows what kind of person the mage Evan is, even if others don’t.

She must have thought that he was not a greedy person, even if he took what he needed without hesitation, which is why she could give him this key.

The fact that she is allowing Lenok access to the entire Far East Branch’s assets is nothing less than trust in him.

“If you inject magic power into the key, the island’s location will appear in real-time. Take whatever you need.”

“The island’s location appears in real-time? Was there such an artifact in the vault?”

“I made it yesterday.”

“……”

It’s an amazingly elaborate artifact for someone who is just yawning.

The fact that the location of the island floating in the sea can be observed and quantified in absolute coordinates is impossible without the caster’s excellent intuition and skill.

Moreover, how amazing is it that she made such an artifact in just one night and gave it to Lenok?

It was not surprising that Grisha had a lot of experience in making tools and was skilled, as she had lived for a long time.

But the fact that she revealed such skill in this way was a bit unexpected for Lenok.

“Well… okay. There were quite a few useful equipment among the Order’s weapons. I’ll stop by from time to time when I need them.”

As the Far East Branch was one of the places in charge of the Order’s rear supply, the amount of supplies and weapons it had stored was considerable.

Among them, there were also forbidden weapons that could not be used without permission as a believer of the Order.

The greatsword with bulging veins used by Irina Pespild of the Arashak Expedition was also one of those types of weapons.

Lenok himself was not a style that used blades or polearms, but there was a talented mercenary he knew who could use such weapons.

“Let’s go now.”

“Okay. There were a lot of unfortunate events this time, but let’s meet again for something better next time.”

“That’s a funny thing to say.”

Lenok laughed.

“When have we ever gathered together for something enjoyable and happy?”

Grisha didn’t answer and just smiled bitterly.

Leaving the shaman puffing on a cigarette behind, Lenok immediately boarded a small boat.

Pio, who was waiting on the boat, skillfully pulled the motor, and Lenok’s body was thrown back.

Thud!!

In the boat that was quickly cutting through the water and moving away from the island, Lenok grumbled irritably.

“…Can’t you go a little slower?”

“Kehehe, I’ll take you at top speed!!”

Pio and Gio were giggling with playful faces.

They were wrapped in bandages all over their bodies due to the aftermath of the fierce battle, but their tension was strangely high.

Lenok looked at the twins, who were bickering about who would drive the boat, and asked.

“Are you guys okay?”

The other observers had also suffered quite a bit, but the twins were the ones who overdid it the most after Lenok in this battle.

They had faced several bishops who had released their binding spells, and they had also fought a group battle against hundreds of priests in place of Lenok.

Even if they had reached level 8 by fusing their minds and bodies, the battle they endured in the depths of the temple must have been an unusually fierce war of attrition.

Pio and Gio looked back at Lenok with slightly surprised expressions.

“I didn’t know you were the type of person who could worry about others. It’s touching.”

“That’s right. When you first talked to me, you said I was a bloodless, tearless killing machine…”

“You crazy bastard, shut up!!”

Pio, horrified, covered Gio’s mouth.

Instead of responding to the nonsense he had heard so often, Lenok asked something else.

“I’m not talking about the injuries, but about what happened after the fusion.”

“Fusion?”

“There’s no way there wouldn’t be any consequences for achieving unity in both mind and body. There must be considerable aftereffects.”

“……”

Lenok could also guess, as he had roughly learned the principles of the fusion technique from them.

Twins born on the same day at the same time.

Perfect conditions to learn each other’s variation and synchronization techniques and compensate for each other’s differences.

But even so, it can’t be easy for two people born as different beings to fuse into one.

If they can temporarily transform into a being of a higher order than what they originally possessed through unity, then it is clear that they must pay a price for it.

Only then did the twins understand what Lenok was talking about, and they turned their gazes with embarrassed expressions.

“Well… it’s not like there aren’t any problems.”

“Sometimes our memories get mixed up, or our level temporarily drops during the fusion process.”

“That’s right, so once this bastard…”

“You X-like bastard, don’t go around blabbing about that!!”

The twins, as if they had never been serious, started punching each other in the face this time.

Only Lenok’s complexion, which was nauseated by the violently shaking boat, turned purple.

[Haa… What pathetic organisms.]

Davie, who had been watching from inside his coat, sighed and hacked the motor, and the boat regained its balance and began to cut through the water again.

By the time they reached the shore, the twins, who had stopped punching each other, got off the boat and organized their respective belongings.

“Well, anyway, I owe you one for this time.”

Pio, with a bruised and swollen face, reached out his hand to Lenok.

It was absurd that his face was like that not because of the battle with the Order, but because of what had just happened, but Pio’s expression seemed serious.

“You know, to be honest, I’m not very interested in the mission of the world’s destruction or anything like that.”

“……”

“If I enjoy today, it’s okay if tomorrow is a little hard. Doesn’t the sun rise again tomorrow?”

Pio said.

“It’s the same. If we’ve done our best to live in the present, isn’t it okay to accept that the end will come someday… That’s what I think.”

Is he the type who doesn’t have much emotion or antipathy towards the end of the world? It’s an unusual way of thinking for a high-level superhuman.

Perhaps it was because of his values, which didn’t care much about his situation, that he was able to master the transformation technique, which was not bound by appearance, to such a high level.

Lenok listened to his words quietly and then asked.

“Then why did you join the Azure Eye?”

“Gio has a family.”

Pio slightly turned his gaze.

“I don’t care, but my brother is different. Both of his children are not even ten years old.”

“……”

“I don’t know exactly when the end of the world is, but if we need a little more time, isn’t this the only place?”

Pio smiled as he said that, but Gio, who had finished organizing the boat and approached quickly, smacked him on the head.

Paak!!

“Kuek!!”

“Don’t talk nonsense. Who’s your brother?”

Grumbling, Gio turned to Lenok, kicked Pio’s butt, and chased him towards the boat, saying.

“Don’t listen to what that guy says. He’s not very reliable.”

“I understand.”

“Unlike me, he’s insincere, has a lazy nature, and is a pathetic guy who can’t even save properly…”

Gio snorted.

“That’s not a reason to accept the end. I will survive. My brother and my family too.”

“……”

“In that sense, the fact that there’s a mage like you in the Azure Eye is a comfort… At least it doesn’t mean that my judgment of people is wrong.”

Gio nodded, staring intently into Lenok’s eyes.

“I owe you one this time. I’ll be sure to repay you next time. With my brother.”

A moment of silence.

But before the afterglow could fade, Pio, who had been holding his head, rushed towards Gio.

“This bastard is really… Don’t you know I came out a few minutes before you, you jerk!!”

“You don’t understand, in the sect we grew up in, the one who came out later was born first…!!”

“……”

The sight of the two twins rolling around on the sand and fighting was not very compatible with their serious determination from just a moment ago.

But still, he understood what they wanted to say.

Even the talented people who had been wandering around without belonging anywhere were now approaching a time when they had to choose a direction.

It was enough if he didn’t forget that fact and remembered it.

“Lapis said that there will be another East-West integrated gathering for the Saint-level observers. See you then!!”

“Hey, that’s not confirmed yet, so I told you not to say it in advance…!!”

After that, Lenok said goodbye to the two idiots with swollen faces and turned away.

The time he spent with the observers, talking about various things for about a day, was not bad.

Perhaps it would have been a good experience to cooperate with them in building the third lighthouse.

But if he had to choose one thing, it was natural to focus on something that was urgent and could not be resolved if not now.

The midterm settlement of Pandemonium that he had learned about from the clown and Freya.

‘I wasn’t planning to participate at this time originally…’

Through this incident, he unintentionally obtained some valuable information from within the Order.

Some of them were secrets that were likely to lose their value soon.

As the situation of the Order had changed, it was necessary to check the trends of other organizations in advance.

Lenok was thinking of participating in the midterm settlement at this point in order not to let that information rot.

He picked up his cell phone and slowly pressed the call button.

“Hairea. It’s me.”

The modulated voice flowed out naturally.

[Victor…?]

A tense nun’s voice leaked out from the other side of the phone.

“The midterm settlement of Pandemonium that I mentioned before. I know that there isn’t much time left.”

[……]

Ignoring the silent silence, Lenok said in a cold tone.

“I’m planning to participate, so tell me the exact time and place. I’ll go there now.”

[…Bairutz, the satellite city of the Balkans. The exact time is midnight one day from now.]

Hairea’s voice, which had become calmer after a brief pause.

That calm tone, as if the person had changed, was proof that the person on the other side of the call had actually changed personalities.

[However, if you really plan to participate, you should expect some friction.]

“What do you mean?”

[Many of the operations to collect relics from the old world have recently gone terribly wrong.]

“……”

[With the truce between the Order and the Order Alliance, the situation on the central front has changed greatly, and some operations have been directly affected by the aftermath.]

The fact that they were holding a gathering in a satellite city in the first place was to have a midterm settlement among the members who had acquired relics from the old world.

If there were those who had failed or suffered losses in the existing operations, it was natural that they would be uncomfortable.

[The atmosphere will probably be quite rough. If they know what you did in the jungle recently, there’s a high probability that…]

“They’ll want to confirm it?”

Lenok laughed.

[…They’ll want to know if you took something from the Well of the Compendium.]

“Okay. That’s enough to hear.”

As he showed signs of hanging up the phone, Hairea added a word.

[The upper management does not interfere with conflicts between members at all. If you want to stay alive, you must prepare thoroughly…]

Click-

Lenok hung up the phone and shoved it into his coat.

It was nothing new to talk about what kind of organization Pandemonium was moving under now.

He had assumed that much risk from the moment he received the mask.

Lenok took out the obsidian mask and brought it to his face, and at the same time, the shadow under his feet rose and transformed into the form of a robe.

“Bairutz…”

Lenok checked the electronic map that Davie had given him and then immediately moved his feet.

“I’ll arrive in about a day.”

The sound of a motorcycle starting was heard, and at the same time as the shadow rose greatly from its place.

Lenok’s figure had disappeared from the shore.

* * *

Bairutz, a satellite city of the Balkans.

A product of the city expansion development plan created to cope with the explosive growth of population, assets, scale, and materials in the giant city.

At the time, the city government tried to form several satellite cities around the Balkans to create a huge city union, but it turned into a bubble with the failure of the Black Consumer Project.

The satellite cities, where investment had been cut off, were abandoned without any interest, and now they had become ghost cities that no one visited.

Only gangs, scavengers, robbers, and terrorists wandering outside the city occasionally used the satellite cities as their hideouts.

But even they don’t stay long in abandoned cities like Bairutz.

The fact that it is a city abandoned equally to everyone means that it is a place that is equally open to everyone.

Even the outlaws who abuse citizens can become mere victims in such lawless areas.

“Kkeoeok…!!”

The dark night sky. A ghost city where a cold wind blows.

The moans that were occasionally heard between the rusty elevated train tracks that were originally planned to run throughout the city.

The figure of a man dying with his clothes stained with blood with the gang’s symbol on them. His lower body had completely disappeared, and he was pouring out blood from the cross-section of his waist.

A gang member, who was glancing this way, was mouthing something.

As Lenok passed by without hesitation, despair appeared in the man’s eyes, and then he immediately lost focus.

“You made a wise choice, friend.”

A skinny man, who had appeared next to Lenok at some point, chuckled.

“These days, there aren’t many fools who wander around so fearlessly, so I’m worried. Do you know how sweet it is to cut those guys in half and suck out their marrow?”

The man grinned and approached Lenok without hesitation and started walking with him.

“The guys who have believed they are superior all their lives are especially delicious. Maybe it’s because they’ve never bent their backs, but their cartilage is very fresh…”

“……”

“Pretending not to know, knowing your place well. That’s a very great virtue. Try to keep it well and live on.”

At the same time, people began to appear from all over the empty streets.

The man grinned and said.

“If you can stay alive even after your lower back is cut off.”

All of them were magic users, and their eerie and empty atmosphere, which was somehow not human, was impressive.

Lenok nodded as he realized that the gazes looking at him were closer to hunger than simple murderous intent or anger.

“Ghouls, huh?”

He had heard stories about them from Jenny.

When a superhuman who had learned or mastered techniques of necromancy, spiritism, or command systems fell into a state of suspended animation and could not wake up as before.

It was said that they would become monsters that were neither dead nor alive, constantly seeking the flesh and blood of the living.

He had remembered it because it was a pretty impressive and terrible monster story, but it was the first time he had actually seen one.

Lenok, whose expression had turned cold behind his mask, silently scanned his surroundings.

“You talk too much for nothing, so you must have been a decent superhuman in your past life.”

“Kehehe, young man, you shouldn’t talk so harshly.”

At the same time as a pale spirit rose from behind the man, it began to take the form of a skeleton knight.

The others surrounding Lenok also pulled out their own spirits and narrowed the empty space.

“We’re not idiots either. We know you’re a considerable caster.”

The man’s jaw dropped down as if it had fallen out, and a long tongue that was not human poked out from inside.

“But you know, the prey that we catch after going through so much trouble is a special delicacy. Do you know why?”

A bizarre appearance that seemed to be licking his lips at the sight of Lenok.

But Lenok rather chuckled at the sight of such a man.

“You’re a monster that’s worse than a corpse, but you haven’t forgotten the meaning of effort. If you try a little harder, you might even be able to imitate a human.”

With that said, Lenok grabbed the Archangel’s Compassion from inside his robe.

“Just die.”

The space transfer technique embedded in the Archangel’s Compassion, a relic of the old world and one of the top-tier artifacts, was activated.

At the same time, the broken pieces of glass that had fallen at Lenok’s feet were neatly shoved into the man’s long tongue.

Pa-ba-ba-bak!!

A space transfer that was so precise and complete that it was hard to believe it was done with the power of an artifact.

Lenok’s senses, which had greatly improved his understanding of space manipulation through the battle with Amrita, had reached a level where he could freely manipulate even the artifact’s abilities as if they were his own.

“Kkihehehehek!!”

The man laughed like crazy, dripping rotten blood from his face.

“This won’t work. It’s impossible!! Try to struggle as hard as you can…!!”

“Self-augmentation technique activated.”

Kiiing…!!

At that moment, a dazzling light burst out from the Archangel’s Compassion that he was holding in his robe.

Most of it was trapped in the shadow robe and could not leak out, but some of it accurately squeezed through the gaps in the sleeves and covered the man’s face.

“Unique ability activated. Code Elise.”

Chiiiiik!!!

“Kkyaaaaaaak!!”

When he covered the man with the unique ability activated by the Archangel’s Tears, the ghoul’s head melted away on the spot.

“What, what the hell!!”

“What did you do!!”

The other ghouls, horrified by the completely unexpected annihilation phenomenon, stepped back.

Lenok ignored them and was about to lift the Archangel’s Compassion once more when a gruff voice echoed from above.

“Is that the relic of the old world that you brought?”

A middle-aged man was sitting on the roof of a nearby shopping mall, hiccuping while holding a bottle of alcohol.

He looked down at them with a grin on his face, which had turned red from being drunk.

“Self-augmentation technique of the Holy Spirit system. It’s also well known as an extremely rare and unique system among relics.”

The man’s bulging belly and lax posture were completely defenseless, but Lenok could not find a single gap in that figure.

A powerful physical ability user. He was definitely a veteran who had survived countless battles.

The drunkard’s eyes, looking down at Lenok, gleamed with a strange light.

“It’s definitely a valuable item, but the way you use it is wrong. You weren’t even interested in that system in the first place, were you?”

“……”

“You’re just using it to kill ghouls, so you must have gotten it recently.”

The man, who was talking without caring about the ghouls who were hesitating and looking around, was talking.

Lenok silently let go of the Archangel’s Compassion he had been holding in his coat and asked.

“What do you want to say?”

“What I’m saying is that I can teach you specifically how to use such an artifact.”

Thud!!

The man, who had jumped down lightly from a height of over ten meters, grinned as he looked at Lenok.

“Instead, if you have any other good items, let’s exchange them before the settlement. How about it?”