Genius Wizard Takes Medicine [EN]: Chapter 958

Forbidden Arts (14)

Phaisha, who had spoken so decisively, sneered as she looked at Felix, who had fallen at her feet.

“This birdbrain has no desires or goals he wants to achieve, even if it means transcending his level. But is he a stoic ascetic who has transcended all desires? No, he’s not.”

“……”

“He’s just half-baked. He’s only prepared to throw away his life, but he’s not prepared for anything else. And you’re trying to make this guy level 8?”

Phaisha, who had stomped on Felix’s side, shook her head.

“For a great mage’s experiment, it’s pretty lame. If you weren’t a lackey of Antares, I would have recommended killing you on the spot.”

“Well, I disagree.”

Lenok shook his head.

“The Arrival is an Ascendant who reached level 9 in the Berserker class. Although his origin was flawed, his level was not a lie.”

At the Yorta Memorial Tower, in the abyss called the Sanctuary of Curses, Lenok faced the corpse of the Arrival and knew that the Arrival was originally a vessel used for the cult leader’s body.

He was able to become an Ascendant because he had briefly contained the cult leader’s presence in his body.

However, the fact that the Arrival reached level 9 and became an Ascendant was also clear.

It was also clear that the Arrival’s own talent had a potential comparable to an Ascendant, which is why he was able to serve as the cult leader’s vessel.

Therefore, Lenok did not think negatively about Felix being swayed by the Arrival’s magic.

“From the point of view that he is enduring without being completely consumed by the Ascendant’s magic, I see potential in Felix. I don’t want to dismiss his patience as nothing.”

“That’s just wishful thinking.”

Phaisha scoffed.

“You have to have something you want. You have to have something you desire so much that you’re willing to break a completed level. This eagle chick is not that kind of person.”

“That’s because you and I have already reached level 8 and are looking back and reflecting.”

Lenok smiled.

“But when I look back, reaching a level isn’t always just about will or desire.”

“……”

“Depending on the situation, environment, and conditions, human will and emotions are constantly changing… and there may be cases where the high points coincide and reach a level by chance.”

Lenok asked Phaisha, who was silent, in a strange tone.

“If… we could artificially create [chance], wouldn’t it be possible to push Felix forward?”

“That’s optimistic wishful thinking. Do as you please. It’s none of my business.”

Phaisha shrugged and turned her body away without hesitation.

“Anyway, if it’s over, I’m leaving. From now on, don’t call me for this kind of trivial work unless it’s about killing people.”

“Who said you could leave as you please?”

“What?”

At Lenok’s cold words, Phaisha hesitated for a moment and stopped walking.

Felix, belatedly regaining his senses, slowly raised his body.

“Ugh…”

With a black feather stuck in his forehead, he looked around blankly in a ridiculous manner before regaining his senses.

“Ah, Half…!! Is it over?”

“I’ve suppressed the Arrival’s magic.”

Lenok replied.

“It would be difficult to continue training right away.”

“Y-yes, I see…”

Only then did Felix slump his shoulders with a dejected look.

“I’m sorry. I asked you for training, and I couldn’t even last an hour.”

“It’s not over. There’s still something we can do.”

“Hmm?”

“That feather.”

Lenok pointed to the black feather stuck in Felix’s forehead and asked.

“Do you feel anything?”

“Feel anything? Nothing comes to mind right away-”

Felix, who was about to say that, stammered with a strange expression.

“W-wait a minute. Something in my head… I think I see a strange mansion. What is this?”

“It’s the lower coordinates for Anathema’s residence and information about the security barrier.”

“……”

“The thing I stuck in your forehead is a feather of a Phantasmal Beast, which can neutralize abnormal symptoms caused by magic.”

Lenok did not use a special method to suppress the Arrival’s magic that had consumed Felix’s body.

He used the feather left by Slane Onyx to neutralize the Arrival’s magic with the will of the Phantasmal Beast called the Mediator.

However, it was inevitable that the information about Anathema that Slane had put in the feather would flow into Felix’s head in the process.

“I’m testing the ability I got from the conference, but it’s still difficult to use it in conjunction with spells.”

Lenok explained casually.

“In a hurry, I was looking for something to neutralize the Arrival’s magic, and I ended up letting you know about Anathema’s residence.”

“Anathema’s residence, what is this…”

“Originally, I was going to go alone, but now that it’s come to this, it wouldn’t be bad to take a vanguard with me.”

Lenok, who had checked the time, immediately grabbed his coat and turned his gaze.

“That’s the end of today’s training. In the remaining time, we’re going to find Anathema’s forbidden weapon.”

* * *

“While killing Anathema, who had become an Apostle, I was given his assets according to the rules of the Holy War.”

Swish!!

Foul-smelling sewage surged below their feet.

Flies buzzed around the dim lights, and strange cries echoed from beyond the dark tunnel.

“In particular, I heard that a forbidden weapon made in the central city is sealed in his residence.”

“Damn it, this is so dirty.”

While Phaisha was cursing and shaking her feet, Lenok, who had moved forward without paying attention, said.

“According to Slane Onyx, Anathema left his residence somewhere in the underground of Balkan.”

“……”

“The lower coordinates that Slane gave me were quite deep, so it wasn’t easy to find an area with such a facility underground. However, after asking around the outer districts, the location we found was-”

“This place, you mean.”

Balkan, the megacity. The third sluice gate of the eastern underground waterway in District 55.

District 55 was a candidate site planned as a new water source for the city when the city expansion development plan was being promoted.

Most of the district is designed around underground waterways, so the scale of the sewers is among the top in Balkan.

However, the problem is that there are several illegally built factories right next to District 55.

There are many factories that ignore the city government’s environmental regulations and discharge all kinds of chemicals and wastewater without hesitation.

Among them, the scenery of the eastern underground waterway, which is close to the factory area, was truly hellish.

Crack…!!

Every time they took a step, a dark green liquid stuck to the bottom of their shoes, and acidic water droplets dripped from above.

The foam rising above the yellow-brown wastewater flowing through the sewer had a pungent odor that made it difficult to breathe.

“…I want to burn it all down.”

“It’s hard to breathe.”

Phaisha, who was frowning and covering her nose, and Felix, who had closed his beak tightly and even closed his eyes.

Lenok, who had raised his gaze without any reaction, muttered.

“But the pollution of the eastern underground waterway is severe. The southern underground waterway wasn’t like this…”

“Have you ever been to this hellish place?”

“A long time ago. Briefly in the early days of my freelance work. That’s when I first met Mad Manson.”

Lenok, who had answered Felix’s question, snapped his fingers, and a white ball of light bounced across the wastewater, illuminating the sewer.

“However, the southern underground waterway wasn’t this bad. Maybe it was because I visited when it was cold…”

As Lenok said that and turned his gaze toward the ball of light he had thrown.

A blob of mucus that had emerged from under the wastewater swallowed the ball of light.

[Kkueooo!!]

Splash!!

A hideous form like a rotten hippo with no eyes or nose at all.

The mucus monster, which had been chewing for a while, soon disappeared under the wastewater.

Lenok, who had been watching the monster, shrugged his shoulders.

“I don’t think there were any strange monsters like that.”

“……”

Felix, who was standing there with a complicated expression, sighed quietly.

“No matter how you look at it, this isn’t a place to stay for long.”

“Hey, mage. I can’t take it anymore.”

Phaisha, with veins popping out on her forehead, raised her spear.

“I’m going to break the ceiling and make a vent, so don’t stop me.”

“No. Hold it in.”

“Hold what in, you bastard!! Can’t you see that people are suffocating to death!”

“Is that the volume that would come from someone who is suffocating to death?”

Lenok, who had looked at Phaisha, who was yelling so loudly that the entire sewer was echoing, with a nonchalant gaze, shook his head.

“It’s an old facility that was built decades ago. If we break the sewer ceiling here, it wouldn’t be strange if we were all buried alive.”

“Whether my lungs rot and die, or I get buried and die, it’s the same thing, you know?”

“Enough, get ready.”

Lenok said that and pointed to the other side of the sewer.

“There are plenty of things to break here, even if it’s not the sewer.”

“What?”

[Gurgle…!!!]

A grotesque mass of flesh was rushing toward the group at an incredible speed from the other side of the sewer.

A terrible appearance that seemed to have mixed human eyes, noses, ears, and mouths.

It was similar to the flesh monster of the cult that they had encountered at the conference, but the specific shape was very different.

Felix, who belatedly realized that it was wearing human skin sewn on, hardened his face.

“That’s…”

“Monsters that live in the dark sewers are unlikely to have good eyesight.”

Lenok explained.

“Of course, they will react sensitively to light, sound, and vibrations, so they will come running after hearing your voice.”

“Damn it, you should have told me that sooner!!”

“Either way, we have to clean up the eastern underground waterway to find Anathema’s residence.”

Lenok, who had pushed away the convulsing Phaisha, nodded his head.

“It’s time to work. Move quickly.”

“…I’m going to kill you someday!!!”

Phaisha, who was shuddering while cursing, rushed toward the monsters with a reluctant Felix.

* * *

“We’ve arrived. This is the sewer power room.”

The eastern underground waterway.

A huge iron door located at the end of the waterway where the mucus monsters were blocking the way.

Although the surface is worn out due to being heavily rusted, the pipes buried around it prove what kind of place this is.

“There must be a system terminal nearby to open the door.”

“…Phew.”

“Hiccup.”

Behind Lenok, who was looking at the iron door, there was a lot of shredded mucus scattered all over the hallway.

Phaisha, who was covered in sticky, slightly acidic mucus, was breathing heavily.

Felix was also hiccuping while holding a hammer covered in mucus.

Phaisha, who was nervously wiping the mucus off the blade of her spear, said.

“Hey, birdbrain.”

“…I’m listening.”

“You, you were trying to match my pace earlier.”

Phaisha looked at Felix with a cold smile.

She was pointing out that Felix had tried to match Phaisha’s speed while fighting to protect Lenok, who was investigating the sewer.

“You’re so ignorant and arrogant… do you want to die?”

“I did it to help Half, not you.”

Felix replied calmly.

“I don’t like you either, but for Half’s sake, I think we need at least minimal cooperation.”

“You don’t understand. Are you going to die helping others until the end?”

“……”

“Be selfish. Don’t worry about anything else, just fight and kill.”

Phaisha’s eyes gleamed in the darkness of the sewer.

“A guy who’s going to handle the Berserker’s magic is still pretending to be innocent. Do you still not know how precious the opportunity is that the mage is helping you?”

“You’re the one who evaluates Half higher than anyone else.”

Felix replied calmly.

“I never thought you were the type to bow your head so easily after a defeat.”

“……”

There is no big connection between Phaisha and Felix, but they are not strangers to each other.

The evil relationship between Phaisha Grisburn, who had committed a brutal massacre on the side of Dead Rise during the civil war, and Antares, who had fought a one-on-one battle with Phaisha and defeated her.

Of course, Felix, who was with Antares, also knew what kind of person Phaisha was.

“You’re doing something you didn’t even do for Antares, right now by Half’s side.”

Felix’s eyes, looking down at Phaisha, shone deeply.

“Can I assume that you were deeply impressed by Half?”

“Impressed my ass, what nonsense… do you think I would feel that way about that kind of mage?”

Phaisha smiled coldly.

“It’s just that the situation is so fucked up that I’m cooperating with him. In the first place, if it wasn’t for that woman, I wouldn’t be like this-”

“That woman?”

Felix asked back as if he had guessed something, and the moment Phaisha frowned fiercely.

“There.”

Lenok knocked on the iron door and turned his gaze.

“Don’t stand there blankly, step back.”

Squeak!!

The heavy iron door opened wide, revealing the dusty power room.

Giant engines and pipe facilities that stretched for tens of meters. The instrument panels and cylinders that should have indicated the state of the power room.

The cobwebs piled up in the middle of the power room covered the entire facility like a wide curtain.

“Wait, Half.”

Felix, who had followed Lenok into the power room, pulled on the cobwebs spread out above his head and muttered.

Felix’s expression, looking at the cobwebs stuck between his fingers, had hardened.

“The viscosity of the cobwebs is strong. It hasn’t been pulled out for long. Maybe around here-”

“Look up, you idiot.”

Kikik!!

A giant spider hanging from the ceiling of the power room looked down at the three of them and let out a strange cry.

A hideous sight with human skin sewn all over its body like clothes, and multiple eyeballs blinking rapidly.

“…Oh, dear.”

“It’s so damn ugly.”

Phaisha sneered.

“Is it a trend for the monsters living here to sew human skin on their bodies like clothes?”

“They’ve learned how to intimidate intruders over the years.”

Lenok said.

“It also means that this underground waterway has been neglected for a long time.”

Kikikik!!

The moment it sensed the magic gathering at the mage’s fingertips, the spider’s legs moved at an invisible speed.

The spider, which had moved along the cobwebs installed all over the power room, rushed toward the place where the group was standing.

Phaisha turned her head with an annoyed look.

“Who’s going to do it? No, birdbrain. You do it.”

“I was going to do it without you telling me-”

“I’ll do it.”

Lenok, who had stepped forward, raised one hand and reached out toward the cobwebs.

“The innate ability I received from Anathema. There was something I wanted to test after the processing was finished.”

The Later Heaven Eight Trigrams, which symbolizes the changes of all things. Among them, the innate ability that deals with the most chaotic changes.

Lenok had been constantly adjusting it since the end of the conference to handle this ability, which had no standard and had reached the extreme of relativity.

Kiiing!!!

The magic circle that had appeared behind Lenok rotated violently, and the moment it turned into a powerful halo that could not withstand the speed.

With the sound of sharp glass breaking, time began to slow down.