Genius Wizard Takes Medicine Chapter 28

A mage capable of calling down lightning at will from an empty sky.

clearly wasn’t something anyone here could monopolize.

Considering the level of magical ability he possessed at such a young age, it wouldn’t have been surprising for a lightning-attribute Magic Tower to take an interest in him right away.

For a genius like that to turn his back on wealth and prestige and instead scrape by in a place like this, there had to be reasons that money or fame alone couldn’t explain.

Someone might be able to hire him, but he clearly wasn’t the kind of talent any single group in this line of work could monopolize.

“Still, it’s such a waste… Where are we ever going to find another mage like him?”

Kidel tilted her head, and the barrel of the rifle slung across her back gleamed.

“And who’s to say we won’t end up facing him as an enemy someday?”

“……”

Only then did the smile disappear from Dray’s face.

Kidel’s concern wasn’t entirely impossible.

Neither Dray’s mercenary office nor Lenoch could exactly be called good or righteous people.

They were simply workers of the underworld, making a living by following the money and keeping the city’s hidden machinery running.

No one knew when they might cross paths as allies and help each other, or when they might meet as enemies and have to risk their lives.

After hesitating for a moment, Dray answered.

“That’s why you always make sure to leave a good impression on the people you work with.”

His voice grew much heavier than before, drawing the attention of the other mercenaries.

“If I’d clung to him after seeing what he could do, maybe I could’ve eased my regret for a little while. But then it would’ve been harder to leave him with the impression that we handle our business cleanly. You never know when something that small might come back around later.”

“……”

“I just made the best choice I could in that situation. Now all we can do is… hope we’re lucky.”

What else could you expect from a life spent roaming the streets at night with guns and blades in a city of tens of millions?

All you could do was hope no one stronger than you showed up while you were working.

Hope no one accepted a bigger payout to come and kill you.

And so you survived another day, praying that whatever misfortune might be waiting out there would pass you by.

That was all Dray Grimgald could do.

Pushing aside his complicated thoughts, he calmly patted his companions on the shoulders.

“Let’s go. Once the job is done, we’ll pour a drink for the ones we lost.”

***

Two days after successfully completing the job from the Grimgald Mercenary Office.

Dray sent the blood collected from the man’s corpse to Lenoch through Jenny.

Jenny wore a disgusted expression as she handed over the styrofoam box, apparently bothered by the metallic smell of blood, but Lenoch calmly accepted it without falling for her obvious act.
A woman bold enough to run a bar in the middle of District 49 getting squeamish over the smell of blood?
It wasn’t even funny.
He had to buy another small refrigerator to store the blood separately, but it wasn’t much of an expense.
There wasn’t much he could learn from analyzing blood mixed with dark mana at his current level.
But once he became more proficient in magic, perhaps he would eventually be able to uncover the principle behind that strange doping effect.
“The consulting company that used to occupy that building has moved somewhere else.”
Lenoch quietly listened as Jenny filled him in on what had happened afterward, sipping the liquor Jordan had handed him.
Considering that the commissions Lenoch had earned them had already surpassed ten million Cel, a few free glasses were hardly worth mentioning.
“Can’t really blame them,” Jenny continued. “Cheap rent and lower taxes are nice, but there’s a limit. After something like that happens, most people aren’t going to stick around.”
Bang! Bang!
Faint gunshots echoed from somewhere outside the bar.
Jenny did not so much as twitch.
Her concerned words about the consulting company sounded considerably less convincing when she could casually ignore gunfire happening right outside.
But incidents like that were common in Zone 49.
None of the three even considered moving. They simply continued drinking.
The only person who reacted was another customer, who cursed at the noise, stormed outside, and returned a while later covered in blood.
Jenny turned back to Lenoch.
“So? How was working with Grimgald?”
“Nothing worth mentioning. After Crocken, that job was almost peaceful. There was a Scavenger executive involved, but he wasn’t particularly difficult to deal with.”
“Wasn’t that guy a retired soldier? If he was important enough to be an executive in Zone 51, you can probably guess he wasn’t some random thug.”
With a long cigarette hanging from her lips, Jenny chuckled.
“Don’t start assuming every Scavenger is weak just because the ones you’ve met so far were pathetic. Plenty of people made that mistake after running into them a few times. Most of those people aren’t around anymore.”
“So the upper ranks are different?”
“It’s not only the executives. Their branch managers vary wildly too. If you ever run into the Scavenger branch heads operating in the Zones in the twenties, keep your guard up. There’s a reason they managed to gather that much trash together and still turn it into one enormous organization.”
Lenoch said nothing, but committed the warning to memory.
Every Scavenger he had encountered so far had seemed little better than a thug or robber.
But if Jenny was warning him this seriously, there was probably far more power hidden within the organization than he had seen.
enny exhaled a stream of smoke and grinned at his indifferent expression.
“You know, that little incident of yours has become pretty famous underground.”
“So I’ve become gossip now?”
“Pretty much. The Scavengers haven’t made such an organized move in a while, so a lot of people were watching what happened.”
“And?”
“And now more clients are asking for the mage who calls lightning down from a clear sky. For freelancers like us, that’s excellent news.”
“Hmm…”
That really was good news.
Jobs that specifically requested him carried more value and usually paid better than ordinary requests offered to anyone available.
Jenny reached behind the bar.
“So naturally, I went through all kinds of trouble for our precious mage.”
She pulled out a thick file and slid it toward Lenoch.
“I gathered every request that specifically asked for you over the last week. Take them home, look through them, and choose whatever catches your eye.”
Lenoch picked up the file and glanced at its thickness.
“All of these asked for me specifically?”
There had to be more than a dozen pages inside.
“Apparently people are desperate for a competent mage. Even I’m surprised. Most freelancers I deal with don’t get anywhere near this many direct requests.”
Jenny looked at him with an unmistakably greedy gleam in her eyes.
“So don’t forget who helped you get started. Keep working with me and I promise I’ll only rob you a little on commission.”
“Haha.”
Lenoch gave a dry laugh and offered no answer.
Jenny wisely chose not to push any further.
He stood with the folder in hand and was about to leave when she suddenly remembered something.
“Oh, right. One more thing.”
Lenoch glanced back.
“A lot of those requests overlap. Once you choose one, I’ll have to turn down the others. So don’t take forever deciding. The clients need enough time to hire somebody else.”
“I’ll decide soon.”
Lenoch returned home carrying the folder and the container of blood.
He tossed both into a corner for the moment and went straight to the bathroom.
Then he vomited up all the alcohol he had drunk at Jenny’s bar.
It was something he had discovered through trial and error.
Emptying his stomach before taking his medicine seemed to reduce some of the side effects.
It was unpleasant, but far preferable to spending an entire day unable to leave bed.
After flushing the toilet and washing himself up, Lenoch headed into the kitchen.
He cut up the meat he had thawed earlier and placed it on the pan.
Then he washed some vegetables and stir-fried them with a premade sauce.
Sizzle!
He took out yesterday’s leftover rice and added a few simple side dishes.
That was enough for a meal.
The important thing was not eating large portions.
It was making sure his body received a balanced range of nutrients.
Lenoch ate slowly, deliberately chewing every bite thoroughly before swallowing.
His cursed body came with an equally miserable digestive system, so he could not afford to be careless about food.
After finishing, he washed the dishes immediately and did some light stretching.
Living alone made it dangerously easy to start neglecting small things.
Lenoch had no intention of letting that habit take root.
He took the vitamins he had ordered two weeks earlier, then finally relaxed and sat down against one side of the room.
There was barely any empty wall left to lean against.
Sheets of torn paper and handwritten notes covered nearly every surface.
They contained ideas that had occurred to him while experimenting with common magic—possible applications, alterations, and methods worth testing.
Everything Lenoch knew about common magic had been reconstructed through his own memory and talent.
Until he obtained unique magic, the only way to push common magic further was through countless small improvements made by his own hands.
Fortunately, the extraordinary magical talent he had built at the cost of countless penalties was not going to waste.
Even the smallest inspiration or realization was enough for Lenoch to steadily improve his spells.
He was no longer satisfied with simply using existing magic exactly as intended.
He altered mana consumption.
Adjusted range.
Changed output.
Tested limitations.
Then he reconstructed spells around those changes and created entirely new applications.
The precise control of [Thunder Calling] during the fight with the Scavengers had been one result of that research.
Lenoch opened the styrofoam box and transferred the blood sample into the small refrigerator he had bought.
Since the blood contained traces of dark mana, he also placed a small barrier around it as a precaution.
Only after finishing everything did Lenoch sit upright in the corner and pick up the folder Jenny had given him.
He began examining the requests one by one.
Some came from mercenary offices similar to Grimgald.
Others were from individuals looking for personal protection.
There were unusual offers asking him to assist with laboratory experiments, along with several corporate requests like the Baritz job.
Lenoch continued turning the pages until something made him stop.
“Heh… You’ve got to be kidding me.”
The Scavengers had sent him a job offer.
More precisely, the branch manager of Zone 38 had apparently taken an interest in his performance.
They knew perfectly well that Lenoch had openly interfered with one of their operations.
And yet they were trying to hire him anyway.
The complete lack of concern was almost impressive.
Jenny had undoubtedly noticed the request too.
She had probably kept quiet about it just to see his reaction.
After working with her for a while, Lenoch had realized that she had a surprisingly mischievous side.
“Not this one… this one’s out too…”
He began sorting through the pile.
Anything with an urgent deadline was eliminated first.
He temporarily set aside the offers from mercenary offices as well.
Requests from unidentified private clients went straight into the rejected pile.
In the end, corporate work remained the cleanest option.
Lenoch did not inherently dislike the idea of working with gangs or similar groups.
The real problem was trust.
Until he became strong enough that others had no choice but to respect an agreement with him, he preferred not to involve himself too deeply with dangerous organizations.
After applying those strict standards, only one request remained that genuinely interested him.
Its deadline was the most generous of the entire pile.
The work itself did not appear particularly demanding.
The payment was nothing extraordinary either.
But one word in the request immediately caught Lenoch’s attention.
“A pharmaceutical company…”

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