Genius Wizard Takes Medicine [EN]: Chapter 602

Renok’s statement that he could easily surpass most artisans, which could be seen as arrogant, was not taken lightly.

Instead of scoffing, Mauzer listened with a serious expression and nodded.

Mauzer knew how powerful Renok was as a mage and a skilled superhuman.

He also knew from long experience that it was rare for a mage of that caliber to make empty boasts.

“Alright, if you’re that confident, you won’t be suspected. Don’t worry about me and do your best.”

“If anyone comes looking for me, it would be best if you just pretend not to know me. Or you could come up with an excuse, like you were threatened.”

“You’re saying some ominous things…”

“As Master Mauzer knows, no one can harm me unless I want them to.”

Mauzer fell silent, sensing the conviction beneath Renok’s calm words.

“So, it’s easier for me if you just deny everything if necessary.”

“…I understand. If things get weird, I will.”

“Thank you.”

Mauzer replied awkwardly, then looked up at the ceiling of the workshop and muttered.

“Anyway, this workshop I’ve given you was originally empty. It’s good if someone uses it.”

“It’s very well-maintained for a place that’s supposed to be empty.”

“Indeed.”

Mauzer said in a slightly heavy voice.

“It was the workshop of a guy who went with me as a delegate to the Blaver Magic Tower.”

“…”

In the end, Mauzer was the only one who survived among the delegates from the Machine City.

Was he still spending his time alone, managing the workshops of his colleagues from that day?

It seemed like he was a well-respected artisan enough to be chosen as a delegate, and that explained why he was so willing to help Renok even after so much time had passed.

However, Renok did not show any of those emotions and simply nodded.

Mauzer stared blankly at Renok, then came to his senses and turned away.

“Then, I’ll be going now. If you need any help, contact my workshop anytime.”

“Understood.”

Before Renok could even dwell on Mauzer’s departure, he heard someone walking from the workbench area in the workshop.

It wasn’t the back door used by artisans, but the front door where the workbench and stall were located.

It was where Renok, who had taken a job under a false identity, received customers who had heard about him.

The person stopped right in front of the workshop door, seeming to hesitate for a moment.

Listening to the sound of their footsteps, Renok pulled up the hood he had prepared and lowered his gaze slightly.

Combined with the iron mask that covered half of his face, it was difficult to recognize him even though half of his face was still visible.

“This should be enough, right?”

[I’ll take care of adjusting the parts inside the mask, so don’t worry, Master.]

With Davi’s help, he adjusted his appearance to look like a modified human, making it impossible to recognize Ban’s original face.

Since he was receiving help from Mauzer, he couldn’t deviate too much from Ban’s identity that Mauzer knew.

Therefore, instead of creating a new identity or name, Renok decided to operate as an anonymous artisan who was known in this artisan district.

‘Unless someone has seen my face directly, it’s impossible to know Ban’s face from photos or videos.’

Due to his powerful target designation resistance, Renok’s face was not properly captured on screens or videos, and unless someone had seen him in person, they could not know Ban’s face.

Despite his reputation and achievements, one had to meet Renok in person to remember his face.

In Vulcan, Renok’s distinctive appearance and unique magic made it impossible not to recognize him if you met him, but here in the Machine City, not many people knew what kind of mage Renok was, let alone his face.

It was not difficult to pretend to be an artisan by simply disguising and changing his appearance without creating a new identity.

While he was checking his appearance to his satisfaction, the customer who had been standing outside the workshop seemed to have made up their mind and stood in front of the stall.

Clank!!

Renok opened the stall window and greeted the hesitant customer first.

“Do you have any equipment or artifacts you want to entrust to me?”

It was time to work.

Of course, just because he decided to work as an artisan didn’t mean that legendary swords or famous artifacts would suddenly come in as requests.

The Makina Artisan District of the Machine City was full of artisans who were famous or known for their skills.

In such a competitive environment, most of the customers who came to Renok were either those who didn’t have much money or those who were particularly curious.

And to quickly make a name for himself among those artisans, Renok had no choice but to work as an artisan in his own unique way.

“I mainly use shotguns, but the barrel keeps getting clogged.”

A man with a neat appearance muttered, looking troubled.

While examining the shotgun he had presented, Renok asked casually.

“Do you have a specific habit when loading your shotgun?”

“Huh?”

“In my opinion, it seems like during the process of loading the shotgun…”

Renok said, holding the shotgun and lightly spinning it around.

The half-loaded ammunition was loaded into the magazine by centrifugal force, and the slide closed.

Clank!!

Renok, who had almost dropped the shotgun on the spot due to his weak grip but caught it with his magic power without showing it, said.

“It seems like you have a habit of loading it like this.”

“Y-yes, that’s right!!”

The man, who had a slightly indifferent expression, widened his eyes.

“The person who taught me how to shoot told me that I had to load it like this for the ammunition to go in deep…!!”

“It’s not wrong, but if you look at this shotgun, it has four barrels.”

Renok said calmly, bringing his finger to the end of the barrel and wiping off the remaining gunpowder residue to show him.

“Even with a double barrel, it wouldn’t be a big problem, but with a quadruple barrel, the amount of gunpowder that flows out when loading is not small. It’s not just a problem with the shotgun itself.”

“Hmm…”

“The quickest solution would be to switch to high-quality shotgun ammunition that doesn’t let gunpowder flow out easily.”

“But high-quality ammunition is too expensive…”

“…”

That was true. The ammunition used in such shotguns was likely to be mass-produced with cheap quality.

Normally, the gun should have exploded due to the gunpowder that had already flowed out, but the magic user himself was suppressing the problem.

“Then, it would be better to do this.”

Renok said, and suddenly took the iron rod next to the workbench and brought it to the furnace in the back.

The iron rod, which had turned red-hot in an instant, was brought directly to the bottom of the shotgun barrel and inserted.

Sizzle!!

A hole was made in the bottom of the barrel, and gunpowder began to leak out from below.

“Oh, if you make a hole in the barrel, the shotgun will…!!”

“Try it out at the nearby shooting range.”

Renok said, cleaned the shotgun, and handed it back to the man.

The man, who returned to the workshop after only about 10 minutes, had a dumbfounded expression.

“The gunpowder doesn’t stay between the barrel and the magazine at all, and the power hasn’t decreased much… How is this possible?”

“If you make a vent in the part where centrifugal force acts according to your loading habit, you can prevent the internal parts from clogging and breaking down without reducing the power.”

Renok said, nodding his head.

“If you try it without the help of an expert, you’ll end up breaking something useless, so I don’t recommend trying it on your own.”

“O-of course!!”

The man, who looked as if he had been caught off guard, gave a sheepish look and left after paying for the repair.

Renok smiled slightly, watching the man’s retreating figure.

He could have told him to correct his habit of spinning the shotgun when loading, but for a superhuman who goes into battle, even such a minor routine could be a sensitive area that affects their condition.

Out of consideration for that, instead of correcting the man’s loading habit, Renok had repaired the shotgun so that it wouldn’t cause problems even if he maintained that habit.

Clatter!!

Renok pushed the stack of bills on the workbench into the safe below and closed the door.

It was not a bad amount of money considering it was earned from briefly fixing a shotgun, but Renok’s real purpose was not there.

While directly handling various equipment in this place, he wanted to secure the repair skills to fix Kaise’s pocket watch himself, and at the same time.

He also wanted to obtain information about the design of the giant room that was left in Kaise’s research journal.

The most efficient choice to fulfill both purposes in the way he wanted was for Renok to pretend to be an artisan in Makina.

‘There’s no need to show off my repair or modification skills in a grand way.’

Renok thought, habitually touching Kaise’s pocket watch.

‘Rather, my repair skills are clearly inferior to those of the real Meisters [Master Artisans] of Makina, so it would be faster to gain word-of-mouth by hiding my true nature and showing my abilities in the areas I can handle.’

The strengths that Renok could show as an artisan in the workshop were not his skills in handling machines, molds, or castings.

The powerful magic power sensing and manipulation abilities he had gained as a transcendent high-level mage.

The data from the prototype modification blueprint he had obtained from the battle with Gearside.

Even the ability to access the network itself using the abilities of the cyber spirit Davi.

It was clear that all of these were advantages that could be used in indirectly repairing and modifying equipment rather than directly creating them.

‘If I stand out in secondary workshop businesses like modification and repair, I can meet both the Meisters and the customers who deal with them at the same time.’

Most of the superhumans who live and work in the Machine City of Makina use equipment or artifacts made of machines, befitting the stage.

If they don’t use weapons or equipment, they often modify and replace parts of their bodies with magitech equipment or artifacts.

In other words, in this city, powerful equipment or sophisticated artifacts are a means of indirectly revealing one’s status and hierarchy.

Therefore, if the fact that Renok has excellent repair or modification skills becomes known, he is likely to come into contact with the executives of Makina without going through a complicated process.

‘For now, this is the best choice I can make.’

Since the Machine City of Makina itself has a closed atmosphere, and Renok has no other connections or bases other than Mauzer.

In order to quickly grasp the situation in Makina and gather information in a short period of time, he had no choice but to pretend to be an artisan.

Of course, it wasn’t that there were no people from the Machine City among the countless powerful people Renok had faced, but he couldn’t ask Maiya Renslit, who was an executive, for help.

He shouldn’t be stuck pretending to be an artisan for too long, but there was no other efficient way to do it.

Thinking so, Renok began to greet the customers who brought their equipment or firearms again.

The work he had to do was not much different from what Renok thought was essential.

“This is a folding blade I got from the Cluster Workshop five years ago. It keeps bending to the left when I use it, but other repair shops couldn’t find the problem.”

“It’s not a problem with the blade itself.”

Renok said, examining the folding blade that looked like a giant cutter knife.

The lens inside the iron mask that covered half of his face rotated, magnifying Renok’s vision like a magnifying glass to examine the surface of the blade in detail.

“The blade is a bit damaged from cutting crustaceans often, but the structural usage itself is not wrong.”

“I see.”

A man with a gruff voice and a thick beard asked, looking curious.

“But how did you know that I cut crustaceans often, Artisan?”

“The fact that you use a folding blade means that you periodically replace the blade, considering the rapid wear of the blade.”

Renok said, turning over the blade joint and showing it slightly.

“In other words, the user himself knows that he has to cut something hard quite regularly. Usually, in these cases, there are many people who work in industry or fishing rather than combat.”

“Huh.”

“The blade doesn’t fold well and creaks because of the saltiness between the blades, right? If you are near the sea in the Machine City and have to cut something hard, I just thought you might be processing the winged lobster, a famous crustacean in the sea area.”

The man, who had been nodding blankly at Renok’s articulate voice, asked.

“Now that I think about it, you should have been a detective, not a repairman?”

“Thank you for the compliment.”

Renok said, rubbing the blade casually and handing it back to the man.

“I fixed it. Take it.”

“Huh? No, already?”

The man said, picking up the blade and sliding it back and forth, nodding with a slightly surprised expression.

“Huh? How did you do this with just a few gestures…?”

“I put a small magnet on the bottom of the folding blade.”

Renok said, pointing to the man’s mechanical arm.

“After measuring and calculating the degree and curvature of the blade bending to one side, it is presumed that it was bent by a strong magnetic force. I think you might be processing crustaceans next to a huge machine.”

“Y-yes… I put the processed winged lobster directly into the machine that processes the flesh, so…”

The man, who was looking at Renok like a god with an unbelievable expression, asked.

“Are you saying that my blade keeps bending periodically because of the magnetism coming from that machine?”

“To be precise, it’s not just because of the machine, but I think there’s a strange magnetic field generated by the entanglement between the mechanical arm and the equipment.”

Renok said, shaking his head.

“I don’t know the details unless I go to the site, but just putting a magnet of that size on the bottom of the blade will help you balance it to some extent.”

“Thank you!!”

After that, Renok spent the time he needed to research Kaise’s pocket watch and acquire Makina’s engineering knowledge, and the rest of his time working as an artisan.

[Huh?]

Davi, who was tapping on the computer inside the workshop with his thick front paws, organizing the day’s sales and net profit, tilted his head.

[Master, it seems like the rumors about this workshop are a bit strange?]

“What do you mean?”

[The total sales and net profit are increasing rapidly, but the reason is not because of the word-of-mouth you were thinking of. I hacked into a paid app that compiles customer reviews of the workshop, and they all say the same thing…]

“Is this a consulting company that tells me all my problems just by looking at the condition of my equipment?”

“…”

Renok, hearing Davi’s words, unconsciously got up from his seat and headed towards the computer, but turned his head again at the voice coming from outside.

“The zero point of the artifact I’ve been using hasn’t been adjusted for two weeks, can you tell me the reason?”

Ironically, it was unexpected that Renok’s intuition to see through the cause was more noticed than his repair skills.

Thanks to such unique reviews and word-of-mouth, customers with good equipment and information began to visit Renok faster than he had expected.