Genius Wizard Takes Medicine [EN]: Chapter 615

Not only had Renok found a secret space in Langmuir’s study, but he had also taken out a cell phone and begun to examine it.

Langmuir, who had risen from his armchair, tried to snatch the phone from Renok, but he only thrashed about as if blocked by an invisible barrier.

‘Ugh, ugh…!! What is this?!’

Meanwhile, Renok held the old portable communicator he had obtained and pressed the power button.

Click.

As soon as he saw the screen not turning on, he flipped the phone over to check the battery.

Seeing the empty battery compartment, Renok stroked his chin as if intrigued.

‘An analog cell phone that is difficult to hack. There’s no battery, and there are no traces of tampering with the screen. If it had been modified, it would have been impossible not to touch the display.’

‘……’

He tried to say something, but then closed his mouth, thinking that even mentioning it could give Renok a clue.

Renok ignored Langmuir’s reaction and gently stroked the surface of the phone.

‘A Taylor Workshop portable communicator, but with only the screw parts replaced. Moreover, the battery, screen, and antenna are not working at all…’

Renok took out a small screwdriver from his pocket and carefully began to turn the screw parts, matching them slowly.

‘It’s just borrowing the form of a cell phone. It’s easier to think of it as a storage device with something hidden inside.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Lyman.’

Langmuir said, glancing at Renok, inwardly anxious.

‘That’s just a cell phone that was used for work a long time ago. I had forgotten about that space a long time ago…!!’

‘Ah, I found it.’

Renok said, quickly turning the screwdriver with skillful hands.

‘The sound of the protrusions rubbing changes subtly depending on the speed of turning the screw.’

‘……’

‘Quickly, then slowly… It varies depending on how much it turns, but if you keep the sound variation constant and turn it all the way…’

Click!!

Renok quickly disassembled the back of the phone and took out the contents, saying,

‘It’s something that can only be opened by simultaneously turning the four screws inside the battery case at a set speed… It’s a simple but difficult method to come up with.’

In the process of researching Kaise’s pocket watch, he had memorized all the items and parts produced by the Taylor Workshop, so he was able to focus on the screws.

If he had to find clues from the beginning, Renok would have struggled quite a bit.

However, Langmuir’s expression as he looked at Renok was strangely distorted, as if he were seeing a ghost.

‘First, would you please explain what this is?’

Renok shook the object he had taken from the hidden space inside the phone with a smiling face.

A small bullet, soaked with dried blood.

‘It seems to be quite related to the evidence I got rid of last time.’

‘……’

Langmuir no longer tried to answer.

He desperately avoided eye contact and tried to ignore Renok’s questions.

Renok stared at Langmuir for a moment, then nodded as if there was no other choice.

‘Was once not enough? I’ll try a little more.’

He then went back into the secret warehouse behind the study and brought something else out.

Renok placed a dusty old candlestick on the table and said,

‘This candlestick. At first glance, it looks ordinary, but the part that holds the candle wax is subtly unbalanced.’

‘……Stop.’

‘It’s because the end has been slightly ground down, making it shorter. There must be a reason why the sharp end was deliberately ground down to make it blunt, don’t you think?’

‘Stop it!!’

Seeing Langmuir shout in exasperation, Renok quietly put down the candlestick.

‘The items in that warehouse. They’re all evidence of someone’s murder, aren’t they?’

Renok asked with a smile.

‘Deliberately entrusting the handling of evidence of a crime committed by a powerful person’s offspring to place responsibility on them. Is this how the Machine Heads control their affiliated members?’

‘……’

Why were the evidence related to someone’s crime kept in a secret space behind the study?

It must be because the owner of this evidence was not Langmuir himself, but someone even higher up.

Renok had searched the study of Council Member Langmuir, who had tried to place the responsibility on him, and had uncovered the flaws of the faction he belonged to at once.

‘I thought there might be some things that would make us blush, but I think this is enough.’

Langmuir was probably a member of the Machine Heads, tasked with concealing evidence of crimes committed by higher-ups.

However, the moment it was revealed that this fact had been discovered by someone else, Langmuir’s position within the faction would also shrink rapidly.

‘I’ll reopen the communication line for you.’

Renok found Langmuir’s personal cell phone on a table in the study and threw it to him.

‘If you have requested reinforcements or help from the outside, cancel them all. Let’s finish what happened today here.’

‘……’

Perhaps he felt something in that calm voice.

Langmuir picked up the cell phone with trembling hands, and after confirming that the communication network had been restored, he swallowed hard.

He made a call to a number on his contact list, connected the phone, and began to handle the situation as Renok had said.

‘It’s me. There seems to have been a signal error while checking and experimenting with the internal functions of the mansion.’

‘[……]’

‘Yes, recall all the agents who are currently moving, and have them stand by until further instructions.’

After ending the call, Langmuir made similar calls to several other places, then turned to Renok with a nervous look.

‘I’ve contacted the Earth Police Force, the Special Forces, and the Mechanized Corps that requested reinforcements. There will be no latecomers to this mansion now.’

‘You made a lot of calls in that short amount of time.’

Renok smiled faintly.

‘It seems you thought your life was that precious.’

‘The agents you sent were members of the Side Squad, the elite guards assigned to Ex Machina.’

Langmuir answered, struggling to get up and sit back in his armchair.

‘If they were dealt with and you came to find me, how could I not think you were going to kill me?’

‘But now you’re willing to cooperate, I see.’

‘If you had intended to kill me, you would have taken my life immediately after entering the study.’

Langmuir looked up at Renok with a weak voice and shook his head.

‘I know you’re not just a skilled artisan. Now that my flaws have been exposed, I also know that you are above me.’

The moment Renok broke into the mansion and found his weaknesses, he admitted that the situation had completely reversed.

A completely different, humble attitude from the dignified one he had just had, when he was about to scold Renok for failing the selection.

As a member who had served in the Supreme Council for a long time, his change of attitude was very quick.

‘I will never again question your safety or decisions. Furthermore, I will do my best to ensure that you can continue your work as an artisan in the workshop district.’

‘……’

‘If you still have any lingering attachment to the Meister position, I will be the first to recommend your name to the Machine Heads when the selection is held again. I swear on the name of the Ex Machina council member.’

Langmuir, who had quickly mentioned his past mistakes and the privileges and rewards that would be given to Renok in the future, asked, watching Renok’s reaction.

‘If there’s anything you want, tell me now. What can I do?’

‘It’s not difficult.’

Renok said, manipulating his magic power to display a picture in front of Langmuir’s eyes.

Whoosh!!

The last page of Kaise’s research journal. A blueprint of a huge room that can only be seen through serum.

Renok, who had selected a fragment of the blueprint and displayed it as a magical hologram, asked Langmuir,

‘I want to know where this blueprint is likely located in the Machine City, Machina.’

* * *

It had been a few days since Renok had opened his workshop, which he had closed after failing the selection, and started accepting customers.

The number of customers visiting Renok’s workshop had increased dramatically compared to before.

Although he had not achieved any results due to the evaluation being put on hold, rumors had begun to spread that the judges had all highly praised Renok’s modification skills.

So many customers had started to flock to his workshop that he now had to set a limit on the number of customers he could receive each day and assign them numbers on a first-come, first-served basis.

‘It’s common for popular workshops.’

Mauzer, who had now naturally settled into Renok’s workshop, nodded, picking his teeth with a toothpick.

‘This is an old workshop district where has-been artisans like me gather, so this kind of thing rarely happens, but if you go to the intermediate workshop districts where Meisters [Master Artisans] and young people gather, it’s commonplace.’

The workshop district where Renok was doing business was a street where artisans gathered, but this was not the only such district in the Machine City.

The workshop districts were classified according to the level of the artisans and their location within the city, and their importance was divided and categorized.

Among them, the workshop district where Renok was currently located was a district near the outskirts of Machina, where, as Mauzer said, has-been artisans gathered.

‘It seems that Artisan Mauzer has experience as well.’

‘I used to do business like that when I was young.’

Mauzer replied, then looked at Renok and asked as if he had belatedly remembered something.

‘But you, didn’t you have something else to do besides artisan work?’

‘Ah, someone else has taken over the work I was originally going to do.’

Renok answered casually.

‘Thanks to that, I think it’s okay to continue my artisan work for a while longer.’

‘You’ve already made friends like that? You’re quite sociable, unlike how you look.’

‘……’

Rather than a friend, he had just made an Ex Machina council member do his work for him, but Renok didn’t say that much.

Even in Ex Machina, the Machine Heads faction was a relatively intellectual group with a distribution of scholars.

Relatively speaking, it was the faction with the highest possibility of investigating the blueprint and achieving significant results even in the Machina leadership.

Leaking the blueprint to the outside was risky, but if he didn’t take that risk, Renok would have to do all the legwork himself from start to finish.

Now that the possibility of accessing the depths of Machina had greatly increased through his artisan work, there was no need to abandon the reputation he had built up under the name of Lyman.

He would focus on his artisan work during the day and collect information from council members, including Langmuir, at night.

This was Renok’s basic course of action in the Machine City after the Meister selection had ended.

Mauzer, his face flushed with alcohol, lay sprawled near the workbench, scratching his stomach.

‘I’m going to sleep a little longer and then work, so don’t wake me up. I’ll make the parts you talked about by midnight today.’

‘Understood.’

In just a few days of coming in and out of the workshop with Renok, he had become very friendly and treated the workshop like his own home.

Renok also didn’t think much of it, as Mauzer helped him modify and maintain his equipment.

However, customers who came to Renok to have their equipment repaired were often curious about Mauzer’s appearance and would ask about him.

‘Is that artisan okay?’

‘He seems to be exhausted from working late into the night.’

‘For someone like that, he seems to smell a lot like alcohol…’

‘……’

Sharp customers sometimes approached fragments of the truth, but the fact that artisans liked alcohol was so common in Machina that no one questioned it.

After that, Renok continued to repair customers’ equipment, half-guessing their personal stories based on his intuition, and continued his business smoothly.

There were often times when he touched on the secrets or personal stories of quite sensitive professions, but the customers who came to him seemed to expect Renok’s consulting and came to him for that reason.

Every time a customer left after completing the repair and modification, the app for writing workshop reviews was filled with various positive reviews about Renok’s repair methods.

[9.5/10: The repairs are fast and the artisan is smart.]

[9/10: The price is not too expensive and the service is meticulous.]

[10/10: The metal that the boss kindly touched is so delicious.]

[Master, it seems like the eating habits of the organics have become a little strange lately.]

Without waiting for an answer, Davi neatly pressed the report button on the suspicious review.

‘I broke the cash register while fighting with a friend I was doing business with, but strangely, I didn’t try to fix it.’

‘Did you happen to lose some of your investment money before starting the business? There’s a slush fund hidden inside.’

The rumors and reviews became more and more famous day by day, and now customers would reveal their circumstances on their own without Renok having to open his mouth first.

‘The motorcycle I bought recently keeps stalling in the middle. I brought it myself, can you take a look at it?’

‘You’ve cleverly mixed old and new parts inside the engine. The next time you go to the seller, you should bring a warrant with you.’

Of course, as the number of customers increased, he rarely got to handle only powerful artifacts.

He had to take apart equipment parts to show hidden spaces, resolve the suspicions of defrauded buyers, and fix broken radios and cell phones.

However, Renok did not complain or refuse customers, but faithfully handled the requests that customers entrusted to him.

‘It’s inevitable that attention will be focused on me immediately after the selection. There’s no reason to cause trouble with customers unnecessarily.’

If he thought of it as honing his skills in modification and maintenance, which he lacked, in practice, it wasn’t so bad.

The information about the blueprint recorded in Kaise’s research journal was being collected through the Machine Heads faction, including Council Member Langmuir.

He didn’t think that he would be able to clear up all the suspicions as soon as he visited Machina.

‘The zoning and district movement methods of the Machine City are completely different from Balkan. The entire city is constantly changing and moving like a living creature, so I need information on this side as well.’

The situation was different from Balkan, where there were divisions between the light and dark sides, and where outlaws ran rampant.

Knowing that the Enforcers, an overwhelming military group, could patrol the entire Machine City, he needed to gather as much information as possible without getting caught by them, and to contact people from various professions.

For now, he had no choice but to build a foundation for accessing the depths of the Machine City while continuing his artisan work.

As Renok thought this and sent back the customer who had been scammed with his motorcycle, after fixing it appropriately.

Clank!!

From the far end of the wide workshop district street, heavy footsteps echoed.

Several dozen soldiers in dark red uniforms lined up and quickly approached this way, traversing the street.

The other customers who were waiting in line unconsciously stepped back at the fierce momentum.

The line of soldiers, who had quickly approached Renok’s workshop, opened up, and an old woman with white hair, her hands behind her back, walked out from within.

The old woman, with her piercing eyes, openly scanned the inside of the workshop, then frowned.

‘It’s terribly old. The storage condition is also terrible.’

‘……’

‘The drainage is blocked, so the water doesn’t come out well, and the furnace vent is worse than useless. The soundproofing material in the workshop has been eaten away by mice.’

The old woman walked around the workshop, pointing out the structures and facilities surrounding the workshop.

Several dozen soldiers followed the old woman’s steps, silently moving along with her, without saying a word.

It was clear to anyone who passed by that the old woman was being treated as a very important guest.

Instead of immediately answering the old woman’s words, Renok carefully looked at the uniforms of the soldiers escorting the old woman.

‘Their uniforms are different from the shadow agents who came to the workshop before. They’re soldiers of the light.’

It was difficult to recognize them because they were all half-covered with thick helmets, but they did not have the same secrecy or cold murderous intent as the agents who had attacked Renok’s workshop.

It was right to see them as a military group with a different assignment than the Side Squad agents that Council Member Langmuir had sent.

Having finished thinking that far, Renok slowly opened the workshop door and poked his head out.

‘……Who are you?’

At Renok’s words, the old woman turned her head sharply, as if she had been waiting for it.

‘Are you the impudent brat who made the elders anxious at the selection?’

‘……’

The old woman, who had abruptly scolded Renok, strode into the workshop and frowned at the mechanical devices and parts scattered around.

‘It’s one thing that it’s not organized, but the internal structure of the workshop is also a mess. If you place the workbench in the middle like this, the heat will inevitably cool down before it reaches the furnace. And why is the spare workbench placed in such a place?’

The old woman constantly grumbled and pointed out the interior of the workshop, then slightly widened her eyes when she saw Mauzer lying down behind the spare workbench.

‘……’

The old woman, looking at Mauzer, who was lying down in a comfortable position and snoring happily, with a pathetic expression, grabbed a bottle of alcohol that was scattered on the workbench.

She turned the half-empty bottle upside down and poured it not into Mauzer’s mouth, but into his nostrils.

Mauzer, who had been sleeping with a somewhat pleased expression, was startled by the alcohol entering his respiratory tract and got up from his seat.

‘Cough, cough!! Who the hell pours precious alcohol into my nostrils instead of my mouth!!!’

‘It’s me, Mauzer.’

Looking at Mauzer, who had stood up in anger, Nova poked Mauzer’s stomach with the upside-down bottle of alcohol.

Only then did Mauzer’s eyes widen as he recognized the old woman’s face.

‘Na, Nasisa…?’

‘Old man. Why are you illegally consuming alcohol in this brat’s workshop?’

At the words of the old woman called Nasisa, Mauzer wiped his face, which was covered in alcohol, and patted his cheeks.

Mauzer’s expression, after wiping his face, had returned to that of a stern artisan.

‘That’s what I should be saying. What brings you here, when you rarely show your face in the central district of Machina?’

‘This brat’s workshop has become famous, and the capacity of the lower workshop district has been exceeded for several days.’

Nasisa nodded with a blank face.

‘There are still more than a month left until the Machina district location change cycle. At this rate, it wouldn’t be strange if the barriers within the workshop district couldn’t withstand the load and collapsed.’

‘……Has a problem occurred because too many customers are visiting?’

At Renok’s casual remark, Nasisa turned her head sharply to look at Renok.

‘You’re an artisan who has settled down and is doing business in a lower workshop district, and you didn’t know that? This is a problem.’

‘……’

‘The number of people that can be accommodated at one time in each district and area is strictly controlled. Since the barriers that divide the areas are flexible, if the capacity is violated, the barriers may break down and the division of the districts may disappear.’

Was the reason for controlling the capacity to prevent the barriers from collapsing?

However, what Nasisa was saying seemed to be more concerned about the damage to the barriers themselves than the loss of life or property.

Could the huge mechanical barriers used to divide each district in Machina have a more important meaning than he thought?

While Renok was lost in thought about that, Nasisa pointed at Renok and said again.

‘After investigating the situation, I found out that the number of customers has greatly increased since your name became known immediately after failing the selection. Moreover, I heard that you are accepting almost all the customers who come and go.’

‘That’s true, but.’

‘At this rate, the number of customers will not decrease for a while, and people will continue to flock to this district, and the load will gradually begin to collapse.’

Nasisa said, looking at the old workshop with her arms crossed.

‘So the higher-ups have decided to move this guy’s workshop to an upper workshop district.’