Genius Engineer in the Labyrinth - Chapter 6



Only Noblemtl

Novak Clinic (2)

Alan, who woke up earlier than the usual time today, recalled what he had carried on the cart yesterday. The fluttering red cloth, the body like a stone.

‘It’s fortunate that it’s a corpse.’

How many people died in Lanka? As is typical of poor countries, many were born and many died. In addition, civil war, murder, starvation, and disappearances contributed to the deaths.

It was a sight that Alan had seen often since he was young, so he had some tolerance for it.

‘What would I have done if I were alive···.’

Alan gave up on the idea. The imagination was meaningless now. It took strength to even make a small sound.

I turned my eyes and looked down at my palm. There was nothing in it. I looked down at the bed to push away the uncomfortable feeling. My assistant Vito was lying on the first-floor bed, breathing artificially.

It was a mana training method that you learn when you become an assistant. Although it was basic, it could generate mana hearts, so all the workers tried to become assistants.

Ding ding ding!

Today, as always, the sound of iron striking announced the start of work.

At the same time, Vito’s eyes, which had been raised, sparkled faintly. The training method that the assistant was learning activated the brain and strengthened the eyesight. It was a characteristic that seemed to be tailored to a magic engineer.

Vito turned his head this way and that, met Alan’s eyes, and his shoulders shook.

“···Are you awake? Do you know what day it is today? Come to the power room at 8 o’clock.”

Vito flinched like a startled cat at the sight of a falling leaf, then pretended as if nothing had happened and left the room.

After finishing his meal alone, Alan looked at the mirror hanging on the sink. That was why Vito was surprised.

Her dry eyes stared at Alan indifferently. Even after washing her face with bone-chilling cold water, there was no change. Even though she pretended to be indifferent to her parents’ death, the truth was reflected in her eyes, which were the windows of her heart.

It was something that couldn’t be resolved right away. Alan wiped the moisture off his face and headed to the corner of the basement where the power room was.

As we stood in front of the thick door, a cable with a mechanical eye protruded from the security system next to it, scanning the visitor.

Beep beep beep. Tiring!

The red light, like the blood spurting from the eyeballs, soon changed to green, and the iron door slid open to the side. The interior was simple. In the center was a cylindrical magic power the size of a container, on the left was an emergency magic power, and on the opposite side were stacked mana batteries.

Vito, who was sitting on the chair in front of the battery, pointed to the chair next to him.

“You came quickly. Come and sit down.”

“All right.”

Alan sat down, attaching the square sensor that was on the chair to his body. At the same time, Vito stuck a needle into his arm.

“You don’t even blink an eye.”

“It’s because I’m used to it.”

“For someone who says that, you didn’t react much at first. Oh, the graph is coming out.”

Vito fiddled with the terminal connected to the sensor. Alan, who was watching him, naturally opened the book he had brought.

From the day he arrived at the Novak Clinic, magic extraction was a daily routine. Alan looked at his bruised forearm like his parents for a moment before concentrating on his book.

[Magicware and Wizards]

It was expected that the status of wizards would be endangered by the spread of magicware that allowed ordinary people to use magic, but wizards are wizards after all. They found a way to interfere with magicware, that is, hack it.

For a moment, we forget that the superior tools are handled much more skillfully by craftsmen than by ordinary people. The status of magicians has become much more secure, and the labyrinth has given wings to their advances.

However, the technological advancement over time was amazing. As the performance of magicware improved day by day, many trainees who were fed up with the arduous learning resigned······. Today, the number of true magicians is rapidly decreasing······.

“Eight!”

Alan, who was storing each letter in his brain, turned his head to the side due to the sudden noise. Vito was tapping on the terminal with his eyebrows narrowed.

“The output is much more unstable than last time···.”

Vito kept his mouth shut. It was so quiet that he had momentarily forgotten, but Alan was also in the engine room. Their eyes met.

“This is my job, you read a book.”

“Try changing the resistance and narrowing the sampling period.”

“I’ll take care of it. Are you more experienced than me? Or just quietly focus on extracting magic.”

To Vito’s annoyance, Alan returned his focus to the book. The sound of pressing buttons completely disappeared, and only the hum and the sound of pages turning remained inside the engine room.

A few minutes passed. Vito watched Alan’s expression and operated the terminal as he said. Then, the graph drawn on the screen became clearer.

It was clear who was right. Vito, slumped over on his chair, looked up at the ceiling.

“I want to go down to the basement quickly.”

“···.”

“Are you listening?”

“Yes, I can hear you well.”

The dry answers that came out of Alan’s mouth. Vito actually liked that aspect. It made him feel much more comfortable than when dealing with the sullen workers or the assistants who kept watch from above.

“You’ll fit in well later when you go to confession or something.”

“What is confession?”

“Where are you from that you don’t even know that? Oh, you said Lanka. Well…, if that’s where you’re from, then that makes sense. No, then where did you learn your knowledge of magic engineering?”

Is he the type of person who forgets everything except his interests? Vito muttered to himself. Then he realized that he had missed the point and waved his hand.

“Let’s continue our conversation. I want to go down to the basement.”

“Why?”

The question contained many implications. Just yesterday, hadn’t the corpse been transported by cart to the second basement level? That was the secret workshop.

Vito, who had been avoiding eye contact until now, looked into Alan’s eyes.

“I also know very well that that place is a slaughterhouse. People who have been processed somewhere are dissected like pigs. Why would fish be caught well in the sea off the coast?”

“···.”

“Do you think I like this necklace? That’s why I’m going down to the basement. It’s a disgusting place, but it’s also a place of opportunity. If I catch the boss’s eye there, I might be able to open my own shop like my seniors.”

“Senior? Are there any assistants who left here?”

“Some of the assistant seniors received investments from the CEO and expanded into other regions.”

Vito clenched his fists. There he was, a model of passionate youth.

“Are you close with them?”

“I thought so, but I guess it was just my own thoughts. We kept in touch for a month or two, but now… Or maybe he’s just too busy. Oh, that’s not it. So what I’m trying to say is.”

Vito scratched his head for a moment. His ears also turned slightly red.

“If there are any shortcomings between us, won’t you teach us?”

“I have little experience and little knowledge.”

“Don’t worry about what I said earlier. If you watch what you do, you’ll catch up with knowledge in no time. What I want to learn from you is intuition.”

Intuition. The ability to instinctively perceive an object without prior knowledge.

“I’ve been watching you for a month and I have a rough idea. Even among the seniors who graduated, there’s no one with better intuition than you.”

“Is intuition that important?”

“Of course. Do you know why magic power changes into different properties?”

“no.”

“Yes. No one knows. We just use it because we know that it will happen. We don’t know the intermediate process, we only know the result. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that the ability to figure out that it will happen is really important.”

“You can learn what your intuition teaches you···.”

“Enough with the annoying noises. If I keep watching you and listening to your thoughts, I’ll be able to imitate you. So, are you going to accept my offer or not?”

Alan remained silent and Vito crossed his arms as if to wait.

‘Bomb necklace, assistant···.’

It was clear why Vito was obsessed with improving his skills. The assistants and workers here were slaves or orphans. Knowing the reality of society, he was obsessed with improving his status within the clinic.

‘It’s a much better opportunity than joining a cartel and dying while shooting. If it goes well, you can even get the title of Magic Engineer.’

Alan stroked his necklace. The sign that it was a toy that Novak was particularly interested in felt particularly deep.

Alan made up his mind. He didn’t know what the future held for him, but he knew that if he broadened his horizons, he would have more ways to deal with it.

“proposal···.”

Knock knock.

Alan and Vito turned their heads toward the engine room door. A large, old man was coming in.

“You just happened to be here.”

“Sir, are you here?”

“Thank you for your hard work. Vito, go rest now, and you follow me.”

Novak checked the data on the terminal handed to him by Vito, and Alan followed quietly behind him. It was the first time they had been left alone at the clinic.

Noh Bak, dressed in a black gown, stood in front of the dedicated elevator in the corner of the first floor.

“How is life here?”

“great.”

“Don’t think too hard about it and just talk comfortably. Is there no one bothering you?”

“doesn’t exist.”

Who would listen if you told them to put on a bomb necklace and take it easy? Besides, Alan knew his situation. Novak didn’t seem to want to continue the conversation either.

The elevator stopped at the second basement level. In the very large space, there were several work tables covered with opaque plastic sheets. Despite the presence of ventilators and air purifiers, the smell was strong.

Novak took Alan to a corner of the second floor. A door that seemed to be a wall opened and a pure white laboratory appeared.

The old man who had been pressing the buttons on the machines pointed to the operating table in the middle.

“Lie down over there.”

Alan paused for a moment. The cart next to the operating table was full of instruments, their blades gleaming like ominous spheres.

“Have you learned less in a month? Rule number one here. You must obey my orders unconditionally.”

Novak’s fingers wiggled up and down. The electric shocks didn’t torture Alan. Instead, mechanical arms shot out of the ceiling, grabbed his limbs, and forced him onto the operating table.

Novak approached the operating table, holding a few vials between his fingers.

“Are you afraid I might kill you?”

“···.”

“The magic overload periodically drains your magic power so that it doesn’t harm your body, but you don’t trust me like this···.”

Hypermania is a disease that occurs when too much mana is generated and absorbed, and the out-of-control mana actually harms the body.

One had to constantly expend magical power, pay expensive fees to receive treatment and dialysis, or learn the most exquisite magical power training methods to extend one’s lifespan. The later the method was mentioned, the more effective it was.

“I’ve been busy and haven’t been able to pay attention, so I’ll try harder now.”

Novak spoke like a kind doctor and injected an unknown liquid into Alan’s body. He also dropped a strange liquid into his eyes, and although he felt strong pain, the eye doctor forcibly opened his eyelids so that he could not close his eyes.

“Right. Wake up. How do you feel now?”

“My eyes hurt so much.”

“It’s not about such trivial things, it’s about the magical power inside your body. Well, I haven’t learned the cultivation method, so there’s nothing I can do. This time, lie down over there.”

Where Novak pointed, there was a narrow bed, and at the head of it was a cylindrical machine that looked like a donut.

Alan lay down on the bed, glancing at the ceiling where the robotic arm had emerged. Soon the bed collapsed into the cylinder.

Noh Bak slowly stroked his short beard while looking at the data being input and the pictures being output in real time.

“The mana resonance imaging scanner is working properly. The magical power circuit of the body of the person with excessive magical power… There are severe wounds here and there, but the width is quite large. This will be a good reference.”

After all the tests were over, Alan staggered, exhausted. Novak quickly helped him up.

“Oh, you have to be careful.”

“thank you.”

It was an extremely abominable act, but it had to be endured for now. Alan lowered his head and imagined a whetstone sharpening a knife.

Novak, unusually, escorted Alan down to the basement level.

“Tell Vito that I told him to learn the method. It will help you generate Mana Hearts.”

Alan nodded silently. He turned around only after the door was completely closed. His whole body still felt hot.

‘help?’

Alan snorted. The look in Novak’s eyes as he looked at himself was the same as the Soldosians’ look at the Lankan people. No, it was even more sinister.

It was probably mealtime, and the workers were gathering in the communal dining room. Alan passed them and headed to his room. As soon as he made eye contact with Vito, who was alone, he opened his mouth.

“I will accept your offer.”

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