Genius Wizard Takes Medicine [EN]: Chapter 613

“I heard Lyman’s workshop has been closed recently.”

“The owner there was quite unique, and it was fun to hear his thoughts after entrusting him with equipment. You even posted a review, didn’t you?”

It had been a few days since Renok locked up his workshop and immersed himself in modifying new equipment.

The rumor that the workshop, which had been a hot topic for a while, had closed spread quickly.

Among them, there were quite a few customers who had brought their equipment to Renok, only to be disappointed by the closed door.

“The door is closed, but it seems like the workshop’s furnace is still running?”

“I heard a rumor that he’s focusing on secluded training after being pushed back in the selection ceremony.”

“…Secluded training? Is he a martial artist, not an engineer?”

“Anyway, it doesn’t seem like he’s moved the workshop or quit altogether, so let’s wait and see.”

“The reservation app for the workshop district is already full. When will it be updated…?”

As people grumbling and passing through the workshop district gradually disappeared, and the late-night hours passed midnight, there were hardly any pedestrians left on the streets.

Around Renok’s workshop, black shadows slowly rose and began to approach from various parts of the workshop district.

Saaah…!!

In the darkness, figures wrapped in even darker shadows like clothing, slid through the night streets and approached.

They quickly confirmed each other’s positions, emitting faint green glints in their eyes.

[……]

[……]

Without a single word, they exchanged intentions, and with just hand gestures, they determined the order and timing on the spot before returning to their assigned positions.

From the shadows, a hand encased in a thick glove quietly picked the lock of the workshop door and carefully pushed it open.

Creak…….

Some flowed through the gaps in the windows, some through the ventilation duct on the roof, and some seemed to walk through the wall on the spot.

The shadows that had entered the workshop in an instant quietly began to survey the interior.

[……]

Unlike when the workshop first opened and started receiving customers, the scene was chaotic, with all sorts of machine parts piled up like mountains of junk.

Various crafting tools, including hammers, were melted, smashed, or broken and hung on the wall as if on display.

Even among the debris of parts and discarded machinery piled up so high that the workbench was not visible, the shadows made no noise.

As if they were sucking the noise they made into the shadows, there was a silence that felt no echo of their movements, even though they were definitely present.

However, even though they had successfully infiltrated the workshop, the shadows began to cautiously survey their surroundings with even more tension.

From behind the back of a shadow slowly reaching for its waist, a sudden rustling noise echoed.

“……Woong!!”

[……!!]

Immediately, the shadows pulled out different firearms from their waists and aimed them in all directions, taking up positions.

Their movements were unbelievably agile. There was an undeniable discipline in their movements as they quickly divided and shared the perimeter.

[……]

The shadows moved as one, following the hand gesture of the shadow holding an assault rifle at the front.

They turned and headed towards the back of the pile of junk where the noise had come from.

The shadows divided their positions and numbers around the location of the noise, and appeared simultaneously from three sides, aiming their guns.

Click!!

The first heavy sound of a magazine being loaded echoed. However, the person who had a gun pointed at their face did not panic, even with the cold metal touching their forehead.

“Ugh, coool……”

He merely smacked his lips with a troubled expression and tossed and turned with rough breaths.

The shadow, having confirmed the face of a middle-aged man with a thick beard, lowered its gun.

[Who is it?]

[Mauzer Blofeld. A craftsman who has lived in the lower workshop district for a long time.]

The shadows exchanged information through their communication network, belatedly.

[He has never participated in the Meister Selection Ceremony [a competition to become a master craftsman], but he is recognized for his skills, and he is known to have many acquaintances among the craftsmen. He is a very popular figure.]

[Officially, this workshop is also under his name. Given the circumstances, it’s not strange that he’s here… but the target seems to be absent.]

[Shall we wake him up and interrogate him?]

[No.]

A raspy voice immediately cut off the question on the communication network.

[There’s no reason to make unnecessary noise. This isn’t our target. It’s better to leave him asleep.]

[……]

[No one has entered or left the workshop for the past few days. Either he’s hiding inside, or he escaped through a passage not visible from the outside.]

The shadows, walking silently, slowly began to examine the interior structure of the workshop.

Even in the workshop where the only light source was the occasional sparks rising from the extinguished furnace in the deep darkness, the shadows had no difficulty observing the darkness.

The green glow of their night vision goggles clearly pierced through the darkness, allowing them to see beyond what was visible.

[There is no space where a person could hide. On the surface, it looks like an ordinary workshop…]

[We need to look for a secret passage. I’ve heard that sometimes the more ordinary a workshop looks, the more sophisticated the technology and design it employs.]

[The target is a craftsman specializing in modification technology. We can’t rule out the possibility that he modified the workshop itself to create a passage…]

The shadow, who had been muttering, suddenly raised its head and turned its gaze.

At the end of its gaze was the back of another shadow, carefully examining one corner of the room.

The sudden reaction of the shadow caused the others to temporarily stop their search and turn to look at it.

[Team Leader. What’s wrong?]

[…It wavered.]

[Pardon?]

[The tone of the communication network, it wavered for a moment only when Brett spoke.]

[Leader. Directly saying a team member’s name here…!!]

The moment the panicked shadows reached out to stop their leader.

The leader instantly pulled out a pistol from his waist and shot the head of the same shadow he had called Brett.

Bang!!

The sound of the gunshot echoed clearly, no longer trying to hide it.

Brett’s head, which had been turned away, lurched violently, and dark red blood splattered down.

[Leader!!]

[What are you doing!!]

The shadows quickly distanced themselves and reached for their waists at the leader’s sudden act of shooting and killing a fellow member.

[Is this… fratricide!!]

“Cooool, cool…”

Even though a gunshot had just echoed right next to him, Mauzer smacked his lips and showed no sign of waking up.

The air between the shadows became tense, to the point where his nonchalant insensitivity felt awkward.

Seeing the shadows that had surrounded him and reached for their guns, the leader nodded without panicking.

[Look at Brett’s corpse. Don’t you understand yet?]

[……]

[He’s already too late.]

Upon hearing those words, the other shadows turned their gaze towards the corpse of the shadow that had fallen with difficulty and quietly gasped.

Crack!

The chest of Brett, who was wearing a mechanical suit with no color, was roughly lacerated as if a beast had clawed at it.

A gruesome sight, as if his heart had been torn apart while he was still alive.
The blood that flowed from the lacerated chest wound had already half-hardened.

[Brett… is dead. The blood coagulation is already progressing.]

[Even if he had died just before, it’s an abnormally fast rate. This was from the beginning…!!]

[Yes. From the beginning.]

The leader, who had been watching the shadows with his arms crossed, spoke.

[From the beginning, he never left this workshop for a single moment, and he was waiting for us.]

At that moment, a strange scream, like metal being rubbed and broken, leaked from the ceiling of the vast workshop.

Creak…!!

Whoosh!!

Something that had descended from the air snatched a shadow’s neck as if swinging a claw.

Thud!!

The shadow, having lost half of its head, died on the spot without even screaming.

Only then did the shadows realize that an invisible enemy was hanging above their heads, and the moment they all raised their guns.

[…This can’t be.]

Clatter…!!

A huge night raven, covered in black metal, glared at the shadows with red eyes.

The blood dripping from the sharp beak and claws was so clear that it was impossible to understand why they hadn’t noticed it until now.
A bizarre and alien raven monster that was hard to believe was lurking in the middle of this quiet workshop.

Even the shape of the automatic manufacturing machine arms that were stuck to its body and wings, which had not been removed.

Clank, clank!!

While the shadows were speechless at the sight and stopped in their tracks, a quiet voice was heard from behind them.

“Not a bad design, is it?”

[…!!]

The shadows, startled, turned their guns around and simultaneously pulled the trigger, pouring out all their bullets.

Ta-ta-ta-tang!!!

As if the quiet silence had been a lie, the workshop was filled with the sound of intense gunfire and mixed sparks, and the air was filled with the acrid smell of gunpowder.

Even in the midst of the chaos, the voice echoed clearly without wavering.

“I had the person who would operate it design it, and it turned out surprisingly well.”

[What nonsense…!!]

“I like this shape, which is slightly off from any ordinary aesthetic sense.”

The shadows were speechless as they saw a young man sitting with a screwdriver in his hand, covered in soot, among the scattered gears and screws.

Unidentified mechanical arms that had risen from among the debris of junk had caught and stopped all the bullets fired by the shadows with their long fingers.

The construction of a precise and agile system that was not only capable of capturing the movements of the shadows in real-time but also reacting to the speed of the bullets on the spot.

Only then did the shadows realize that they were not dealing with a powerless engineer, but with a craftsman who had built his own space, and the moment they took a step back.

Thud!!

The claws of the night raven, which had disappeared as if melting into the air, lightly leaped over a distance of tens of meters and grabbed the hearts of the shadows.

[…Ah?]

The shadows, not even properly recognizing what had happened to them, died on the spot.

Among the shadows that fell like dolls with their strings cut, only the leader stood there blankly.

Renok, looking at such a leader, brought his finger to his lips and smiled.

“It’s a bit quieter now, isn’t it?”

[……]

Instead of answering, the leader carefully looked at the shape of the raven monster writhing in the corner of the workshop ceiling.

He thought it was covered in black metal all over, but it wasn’t even a living beast in the first place.
A huge robot that had solved the entire body structure with metal in the manufacturing process. It was impossible to even guess what the internal process was like.

He could only know that the raven’s claws, which had torn through the hearts of the shadows and disappeared, had leaped through space without any sign and grabbed their hearts.

[I thought you were just a half-wit with a mediocre dangerous talent, but I completely misjudged you.]

The leader, loosening his body with a raspy voice, tapped his feet and said, looking at Renok.

[I wondered what you were doing holed up in the workshop, but you were making a space-jumping device? You’re a completely insane bastard.]

“……”

The leader knew how unrealistic it was to interfere with space. The ability to use the technology to leap and send specific materials was the right of the chosen ones in any sense.

Time and space. Even if they were craftsmen who implemented the two forces that define the basic rules of the world as tools, it was no different.

No, it was clear that putting such metaphysical concepts into specific materials was more difficult or complicated in some ways.

Nevertheless, this dirty man wearing a half-mask was showing such technology in front of the shadows without any hesitation.

[Was your participation and failure in the Meister Selection Ceremony to avoid unnecessary attention?]

“I’m more surprised that you’re asking about that.”

Renok smiled, fiddling with the iron mask that covered half of his face.

“Didn’t you come here knowing roughly what was going on?”

[……]

“I finished the selection ceremony appropriately, but if you knew what I had touched, I didn’t think it would end there.”

Renok, who had thrown the screwdriver he had been fiddling with and stood up, said.

“You came later than I expected. Thanks to that, I prepared for longer than necessary.”

From the moment he repaired the End of Theremer [a relic of the old world] and left traces, Renok had thought that things might turn out this way.

The relic of the old world that even the Meisters could not repair. All the judges had witnessed the fact that Renok could handle it even a little.

Officially, it was concluded by postponing the result notification, but someone would want to know in detail how Renok had done it.

Perhaps beyond that level, Renok had guessed that they might covet the ability to repair the relics of the old world itself.

The night raven that had faced the shadow agents was another result that Renok had steadily prepared, separate from the modification of firearms.

It was an avatar created using equipment used in the automatic manufacturing process to act as a proxy for his power as a craftsman.

“Which side is it?”

Renok, wrapped under the wings of the giant night raven, asked.

“The Meisters who participated as judges in the selection ceremony and the Ex Machina committee members. I’m curious which one of them wanted to see my face.”

[Ho, do you perhaps have any intention of accepting our invitation?]

The leader asked back, as if he was intrigued.

[I thought you were just an ordinary craftsman, but you seem much more familiar with this kind of situation than I thought. If I had known in advance, there would have been no need to put so much pressure on you.]

He nodded, kicking the fallen corpses of the shadows without any concern.

[You don’t have to worry about killing a few of these guys. If you are willing to cooperate, we can have a constructive…]

“No.”

Renok, who had been listening to the leader, chuckled.

“Of course, I’m going to interrogate you and find out who your master is.”

[……]

There was no way he would show a good face to someone who had illegally invaded his workshop and tried to kidnap him.

Only then did the leader, who had realized that he had gone too far, fall silent.

The leader, who had been quietly watching his surroundings, suddenly pulled up his magic power and sprinted forward.

[Then, we have no choice but to proceed as planned…!!!]

Ka-ga-gak!!!

The leader’s body, covered in a black mechanical suit, unfolded, transforming into a steel beast that was not human.

The leader, who had transformed into a grotesque beast dripping with oil, opened his mouth on the spot and tried to swallow Mauzer, not Renok.

Since the two seemed to be partners, it was an impromptu measure to take Mauzer hostage, not Renok, who was wary of them from the beginning.
The moment the beast’s jaws grabbed Mauzer’s leg, who was defenseless and asleep, and tried to lift his head.

The night raven, with its steel wings spread wide, crashed down on the leader’s head like lightning.

Kwaaaang!!

[Khaaaak!!!]

Parts and junk flew into the air from all directions due to the impact, then subsided like a wave.

However, the space where Mauzer was sleeping was as still as if time had stopped.

Only then did the leader realize that Mauzer was not in a deep sleep insensitive to external stimuli, but was being protected by some means, and he smiled weakly.

[So, you put some effort into it, even though he was just a bait…]

“I owe him a bit. I can’t let him get hurt.”

As Renok snapped his fingers, mechanical arms that had risen from the surroundings grabbed the leader’s entire body and began to dismantle him in place of the night raven.

Click, click!!

They cut off the outer shell with sharp blades, and began to remove the tightened screws and parts one by one.
The leader, watching his entire body, made of machines, being dismantled piece by piece, asked.

[What are you going to do with me?]

“I’m going to disassemble your body into parts.”

Renok answered.

“It seems like you’ve modified your entire body with magic engineering metal, but I’ll leave only your thought circuit and disassemble everything else to use as parts for my equipment.”

[…What?]

“The storage condition and hardness are very good. If I slightly modify this and use it as a firearm part, it will be a very good piece of equipment.”

An answer that only someone who was completely obsessed with modification and maintenance could give.

Even the shadow leader, who was in immediate danger of death, was momentarily speechless at the absurd answer.

Even in the meantime, the mechanical arms steadily began to dismantle the body of the giant robot beast.

Click, click!!

“Unlike what it looks like, the part where the circuits are concentrated was inside the chest.”

Renok muttered, having confirmed the location of the inner circuits and skeleton.

“That’s why full-body modification is convenient. You can modify your weaknesses or vital points as you please and completely reverse your body structure.”

Weeeeeeeng!!

The saw blade attached to the inside of the mechanical arm rotated rapidly, cutting through the inner skeleton that protected the inner thought circuit part.
The skeleton, made of a hard material, resisted, sparking, but it didn’t last long when magic power was added to the end of the saw blade and a cutting spell was applied.

Ka-ga-gak!!!

Renok, having cut through the inner skeleton and taken out an object that looked like a transparent glass crystal from within, stared at it with interest.

“No matter how many times I see it, Machina’s advanced technology is truly amazing. Now they’ve materialized the thought circuit itself and put consciousness into these spheres…”

Renok said that, looking at the glass crystal, but then he stopped speaking and closed his mouth.
The image of the Iduparbi’s statue engraved on the crystal circuit inside the thought circuit.
The shape of the pattern was too unnatural to be engraved on such a transparent glass bead.

Renok had encountered an entity with exactly the same appearance as this in the satellite city of Bairutz before.

A huge old-world data storage statue that the doctor had brought for the interim settlement.

It was a trace of Pandemonium.