Genius Wizard Takes Medicine Chapter 29

Pharmaceutical company.

The moment Lenoch saw those words, his interest sharpened.

Lately, medicine had become one of the things occupying his thoughts the most.

Acting on impulse, Lenoch immediately turned on his phone and connected to the network.

There was one site he had been checking more and more often lately.

In the past, he had barely used the internet for anything beyond reading the news.

Now, however, he had started regularly visiting Auction, the official online auction platform operated by the city government.

It was the largest marketplace on Balkan’s network.

The variety of goods was so absurd that it almost seemed easier to count what wasn’t being sold.

Rare treasures.

Artifacts of unknown origin.

Even consumable elixirs capable of sustaining vitality or improving physical condition occasionally appeared there.

Among them, one item had caught Lenoch’s attention in particular.

A first-grade manufactured elixir produced by the Stania Pharmaceutical Group.

Stemonia.

Its market price hovered around one hundred million Cel.

The elixir was said to enhance human vitality with remarkable efficiency by combining regenerative magic, martial techniques, and primitive shamanistic methods.

Compared to traditional elixirs, it was closer to an artificially manufactured product.

Its main effects were improving stamina and preventing excessive loss of energy.

Even so, it was considered rare enough that it did not appear often, even on a major auction site like this.

Lenoch was hardly in a position to be selective.

He needed money not only to improve his living conditions, but to create the possibility of improving his life itself.

The money he had saved by cutting unnecessary expenses had been gathered for something exactly like this.

“At least one more job…”

Lenoch paused.

“No. Better make it two.”

If he wanted to compete for Stemonia at auction, having exactly one hundred million Cel would not be enough.

He needed room to bid.

And Lenoch was prepared to spend a significant portion of what he had saved in order to answer one question.

Could his cursed body actually be improved through the effects of an elixir?

Until he knew the answer, he could not properly decide how to move forward.

He needed some kind of hope.

Even if he could not immediately obtain time-related unique magic, he needed proof that things like elixirs could at least ease the penalties tormenting his body.

Unique magic.

Artifacts.

Elixirs.

Among those options, elixirs were currently the easiest for Lenoch to obtain through money alone.

Even if Stemonia failed to produce some miraculous improvement, simply confirming whether this type of medicine had any positive effect on him would already be valuable.

That knowledge alone would justify the expense.

Even if it meant dipping heavily into the money he had struggled to save.

Suppressing the excitement beginning to rise inside him, Lenoch calmly turned to the next page.

“Amnac Pharmaceutical Company…”

It was not a giant name like Stania.

From what he could tell, it was closer to a venture company founded somewhere in the Zones in the thirties.

But that did not matter much.

What mattered was that they actually manufactured medicine.

Simply accepting their request probably would not give him anything special.

Still, getting closer to the pharmaceutical industry itself might prove useful.

And even if it had nothing to do with elixirs, there was always a chance he could find some clue regarding another problem.

His sleeping pills were gradually becoming less effective.

“I really don’t want to start taking stronger stuff without knowing what I’m doing…”

Increasing the dosage of cheap sleeping pills was even worse.

If he crossed the wrong line, there was always the possibility that he simply would not wake up again.

For now, all he could do was endure.

Lenoch made his decision.

His next job would be the request from Amnac Pharmaceutical Company.

With that settled, he quickly skimmed through the summary.

Most of it dealt with confidential information surrounding the development of a new drug.

From what Lenoch could tell, Amnac had become entangled in a dispute with the political powers controlling that Zone over the expected profits from the drug.

But the document was too vague to reveal exactly what had happened.

He would have to ask Jenny for the details and meet the client later.

For tonight, it was already too late.

Lenoch swallowed a sleeping pill with a glass of water, turned off the lights, and immediately lay down.

His sleep schedule had become irregular lately because of his obsession with magical research.

Even so, whenever possible, he tried to sleep at roughly consistent hours.

While waiting for the cheap pill to take effect, Lenoch picked up his phone.

Lying beneath the covers and staring at the glowing screen, he sometimes felt as though nothing had changed at all.

It reminded him of the past.

Back then, he would crawl into bed without a care in the world and spend his time smiling at whatever was on his phone.

Only the things he looked at had changed.

He no longer searched for sports news.

Entertainment gossip had lost its appeal too.

Scandals involving athletes or singers he had never heard of meant nothing to him.

Scrolling through the network, Lenoch tapped the [Breaking News] section displayed near the top of the screen.

Several headlines appeared beside a photograph.

[Delegation from the Filenom Autonomous Region confirmed to visit Balkan. Visit scheduled for two months from now… City response team to be organized for detailed negotiations.]

[City government maintains uncompromising stance. Could upcoming meeting signal a change in policy?]

[Despite corporate assurances, no meaningful progress has been made in the Aronite production process.]

“Autonomous region…”

The phrase felt both familiar and strangely out of place.

‘You don’t hear that expression very often back on Earth, do you?’

The articles did not provide enough context for Lenoch to fully understand the situation.

Still, judging from the way the headlines were written, some kind of important political meeting was expected to take place in Balkan two months from now.

Was it something important enough for him to remember?

Lenoch wanted to think about it a little longer.

But the sleeping pill had already begun taking effect.

His eyelids grew heavy.

He placed the phone beside him.

Then, almost as if he had lost consciousness, Lenoch fell asleep.

***

A week passed.

Lenoch still had not accepted the request Jenny had given him.

Instead, he spent the time taking on a few bounty jobs.

He wanted to test whether there were any shooting-support spells he had not yet properly used in real combat.

Other than [Bloody Chase], which he used to track his targets, Lenoch deliberately avoided relying on lightning, binding, or destructive magic.

He tried to solve everything with shooting-support spells alone.

By now, bounty hunting had become familiar enough that he did not need much magic to handle most targets, so the experiments were not particularly demanding.

The results were satisfying.

The moment Lenoch got within range, he only needed to pull the trigger twice.

One bullet through each thigh.

After that, most targets could do nothing but crawl helplessly across the ground.

With [Aim Correction], capturing bounties became simple as long as the revolver could reach them.

Adding [Silence] made things even easier, allowing him to subdue targets without attracting attention.

It was simple, efficient, and reliable.

Over roughly ten days, Lenoch earned another ten million Cel.

Still, the method had obvious weaknesses.

Combining the revolver with support magic raised the weapon’s performance by several levels, but the shooting combo had clear limits.

No matter how much support magic he layered onto the gun, the result ultimately came down to the same thing.

The bullet became faster.

The shot became stronger.

The spells enhanced the act of firing rather than giving the bullet entirely new properties.

There was also a limit to how much support magic a single firearm could endure.

Since the efficiency of those spells was concentrated into a narrow field, problems naturally appeared.

If Lenoch wanted to maximize the effectiveness of shooting-support magic, he could not simply improve every part of the gun at once.

He needed to specialize.

And that was difficult with an ordinary revolver.

For better performance, he would either need a superior firearm or more advanced support magic.

A new direction entirely.

The weapon problem could be solved with money.

The spell problem was different.

More powerful support magic would likely require a unique magic system.

Could he even buy one with the money he currently had?

And even if he could, would it actually be worth the cost?

‘…I need to find examples first.’

Lenoch thought as he walked down the street.

In WORLD, shooting-support spells only existed within common magic.

That was natural.

The Gun Mage class had never been able to learn unique magic in the first place.

Because of that, Lenoch’s current idea was to obtain a powerful support-oriented unique magic system and then somehow adapt the shooting-support spells he already knew into it.

But there was a problem.

What if support-type unique magic in this world worked completely differently from what he remembered?

What if it could not accommodate shooting spells at all?

‘I need to think this through carefully.’

Nothing was certain.

He could not afford to rush.

It was important to understand the potential of shooting-support magic, but becoming obsessed with it would be dangerous.

There were too many other things he still needed to deal with.

Lenoch’s life was only barely maintaining balance as it was.

If he lost his footing somewhere, he could easily collapse without getting another chance.

When he entered the bar, Jenny was already waiting for him with a cigarette in her mouth.

When they first met, she had barely touched cigarettes at all.

Now, she seemed to smoke constantly.

It appeared she had simply been holding back until she became more comfortable around him.

The moment their eyes met, Jenny pushed herself away from the bar and stood upright.

“You finally showed up. Enjoy your little break?”

She extended one hand toward him.

“It’s Amnac Pharmaceuticals, isn’t it? We’re running out of time, so give me the paperwork.”

“How did you figure that out?”

Lenoch pulled the documents from his pocket and handed them over.

Jenny laughed.

“That’s the only request whose deadline lasts until today. And you, Van, seem strangely interested in medicine, so I took a guess.”

“Fair enough.”

Lenoch gave a small nod.

“So what happens now? Do I contact them myself, or are we doing the briefing here?”

He sat down on an empty barstool.

Jenny immediately reached for the receiver.

“Just sit tight. The person in charge is coming here.”

“They’re moving that quickly?”

Lenoch muttered, but Jenny was already speaking to someone on the other end of the line.

With nothing else to do, Lenoch opened a bottle of whiskey sitting on the counter.

Then a voice came from the seat beside him.

“So you’re the new client Jenny was talking about.”

Lenoch turned his head.

A well-dressed man in a suit was sitting one seat away.

He looked younger than Jordan, but there was a certain weight to his expression that made him seem experienced.

The man sat with his back perfectly straight, quietly sipping his drink.

Lenoch studied him for a moment before asking,

“You know who I am?”

“Of course I do. You’re the lightning mage everyone’s been talking about, aren’t you? Word is you’ve been relentlessly hunting down petty criminals for bounty money.”

“……”

Lenoch could hardly deny it.

He really had been tracking and capturing bounty targets one after another for money.

Compared to the other things he was capable of, bounty hunting was relatively easy.

It was not especially troublesome either.

Most importantly, Lenoch could choose his own targets.

By avoiding anyone tied to major organizations and only pursuing criminals with worthwhile rewards, he had apparently earned himself a reputation.

The man smiled faintly.

“Don’t take that the wrong way. Bounties in this city usually fall into one of two groups anyway.”

“Which two?”

“Small fry nobody cares about if they vanish, and monsters powerful enough that they don’t care who comes after them.”

“…That’s a pretty extreme distinction.”

“It is. Everyone in between tries to stay within certain boundaries.”

The man swirled the drink in his glass.

“District 49 is the same. People get murdered and robbed every day. You hear gunshots constantly. But even here, most people still know which lines they shouldn’t cross. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Lenoch could not really argue.

There were indeed rules here that nobody needed to explain aloud.

A deliberate indifference toward other people’s affairs.

Freelancers who moved only when money was involved.

Requests and disputes handled through intermediaries rather than openly.

The man’s tone was casual, but there was enough weight behind his words to make Lenoch think.

“So who exactly are you?”

The man gave a small smile.

“Took you long enough.”

He pulled a business card from his pocket and flicked it toward Lenoch.

Lenoch instinctively raised a hand to catch it.

Then he stopped.

The card was not falling.

It floated slowly through the air.

Continue reading more chapters at henprogressive.com