Genius Engineer in the Labyrinth - Chapter 8



Only Noblemtl

Laboratory (1)

Alan stroked the back of his neck. The cold, thick feel of the metal reaffirmed his status as a slave.

As long as the bomb necklace was filled, nothing could be done as one pleased. Learning may seem like a voluntary act, but in reality, it was just like the food that was spread according to the needs of the old man.

At this point, Alan’s ultimate goal was liberation. The first problem he had to solve to achieve that goal was the bomb necklace.

‘But how···.’

Alan’s thoughts and ideas were like an Ouroboros, spinning around and around, constantly spitting out and reassembling clues based on experience.

‘First of all, Nobak.’

Looking at his sturdy body and large build that doesn’t match his age, it was highly likely that he had undergone enhancement procedures or had his body filled with magic wear.

Even if you fight a bear with your bare hands, the bear will be the one taking the beating. Alan was weaker than the bear, so it goes without saying.

‘A head-on confrontation is impossible. We have to strike by other means. Oh, and before that, the necklace.’

Alan’s fingers traced the underside of the necklace and felt the keyhole.

Among the assistants, Alan and the workers were all wearing necklaces. It would be common sense not to have keys hanging all over your head.

‘It must have been stored in a safe place. Much deeper underground.’

Alan tried to recall the time he had boarded the Novak elevator. There were definitely a few buttons below the second basement level.

Even assistants were only allowed to enter up to the second basement level, and below that was an unknown area known only to the clinic owner.

‘How do I infiltrate?’

There were surveillance cameras everywhere, so taking action would have been tantamount to suicide.

And even if he were to find the key, he would not have left it lying around. Given his personality, there was a high probability that he would have kept it in a safe or locker that required special authentication.

Squeak!

Alan, who had been ignoring the sound of water flowing inside the concrete wall, the sound of footsteps coming from somewhere, and the faint sound of tools, suddenly turned his head.

A rat was trapped in a roughly bent square wire trap. The rat was scratching at the wire with its front teeth, as if it was upset that it had been caught on a piece of rice ball.

Alan, who was wondering what to do with the culprit who was nagging at him while looking for a meal, just rolled his eyes.

There was a vent there.

“Okay. I’ll spare your life.”

With the outline of the plan in place, Alan decided to show mercy to the rat. He pulled open the warehouse door and the chain creaked. It was a gap that was impossible for a human, but enough for a rat to escape.

Sizzle!

As the trap was shaken up and down and left and right, the rat screamed, and when Alan freed it from its bonds, it ran away to freedom as if it hated the sight of its eyes.

Soon after, a sharp curse was heard, indicating who the owner of the voice was.

“Ah! Shit! You little rat!”

Vito noticed his own shameful behavior and covered it up with a cough, peeking through the crack in the warehouse door. It was ironic that he was lashing out at the rat while indifferently ignoring the corpse.

“You were watching? Hmm! I brought dinner. The kids under you are more worried than I thought. I thought you would find it funny because you always use formal language.”

“When I first became an assistant, there were signs of that.”

“How did you solve it? Given your personality, I don’t think you would have used a punch.”

“They excluded me from work and made me do only simple labor.”

“oh···.”

All the workers wanted to become assistants. It was a small but upward mobility, and everyone had a desire to move up. It was only natural.

The feeling of being left behind by others was hard for anyone to bear, especially if it was a similar situation to that of a colleague.

Vito, who was impressed by Alan’s manners, handed him a rice ball through the crack in the door.

“Oh, are you okay? I told you to just leave me alone. But the boss doesn’t seem that angry. If it were me, I would have locked you up for a few months. I might have demoted you.”

“I’m fine. But that lady···”

“Okay. Forget about that guy, the boss himself took care of him. Just eat. Drink some water here. Do you need a chamber pot?”

“So that’s how it turned out… I can control my metabolism to some extent, so I’ll just accept your favor.”

If you learn the magic training method, your food absorption rate will increase and waste will decrease. In addition, since you only eat small rice balls, it cannot accumulate.

As he did so, after rubbing his chin a few times, all the rice grains disappeared. After rinsing his mouth with water, Alan took the can out.

“Thank you for coming even though it’s break time.”

“What’s going on between us… Ah, look at my mind. The guys who went out to do collection work today were attacked. Only one out of three teams came back.”

Although the cartel, Novak Clinic’s main client, is the largest crime syndicate in the port city of Aromaa, there are bound to be those who aim for the crown.

“Isn’t this expected, since we live and eat in this world?”

“That’s right, but the accident happened in our area. That’s why the cartel executive came to see me in person and discussed things with the president.”

“That’s interesting.”

“The reaction is dull. If this continues, a war between organizations could break out.”

“Even if we lose, we are technicians and doctors, so we will probably be left alone. The boss will get his head cut off.”

“Boss, no, it’s just that the owner has changed. But it’s just an assumption.”

“The friend who joined hands with the clinic must be very big. Isn’t that right? If they were incompetent people, the owners of the back alley would have changed frequently.”

“I can’t argue with that. I’m going.”

“Yes. Good night.”

Alan turned around. Now that there was no one to break his concentration, it was time to get his abstract plan out there.

Even though this warehouse was called a trash can, it was a treasure trove compared to the garbage dumps of Lanka.

There were golem drones shaped like birds of prey, cat toys that resembled mice, empty memory crystals, and rusty tools strewn everywhere.

Alan first picked up a memory crystal the size of his thumbnail. The crystal wasn’t really a hexagon, but rather a thin, small, transparent plastic-like thing.

Hoping that it would be okay, I reached for the next object. With a twist of my wrist, the shell of the falcon-like reconnaissance drone disintegrated in an instant.

After picking up the circuit board, I turned it around in the dim light coming from the hallway.

‘All the parts on the circuit board are burned, so it’ll be difficult to repair. Should I try carving some runes while I’m at it?’

Runes.

This was the reason for the existence of the Magic Engineer. The mysterious language used only by wizards was revealed to reality through the hands of the Magic Engineer.

Unlike mass-produced magical tools assembled from mass-produced parts, runes engraved directly on circuit boards by magic engineers demonstrated far superior performance.

As the number of runes engraved on the magic tool increased, instead of having a synergistic effect on each other, the difficulty of the task increased squarely as each rune increased.

Alan’s limits now are.

‘Maybe one···.’

Even one of them was pretty good, because even those who had spent years as assistants couldn’t draw a single rune.

I even thought that it was a good thing that I was locked up now. Even if I failed, I didn’t have to worry about what other people thought, and a week of free time wasn’t easily given.

Alan picked up the magic soldering iron with the cut code. He forced magic into it, and the metal part became hot.

‘Let’s focus. Even if we fail, there are still many opportunities. The rune we need now is [Record].’

The skills required to carve runes were dexterity and the ability to sense the changing flow of mana in real time.

He was born with dexterity, and his sensing ability was acquired thanks to the mana training he learned at the clinic.

‘Here, apply force in a clockwise direction… mistake… calmly. This time, slowly from the bottom up… ‘

Alan’s hands moved without rest. Sometimes they were almost still, sometimes they moved as quickly as a ray of light. After bowing his head for a long time under the dim light, Alan finally straightened his back.

Next up was the cat mouse toy. It has the ability to move in a different direction when it hits a wall, so it could be quite useful when combined with the drone’s circuitry.

After assembling the mouse, circuit board, and memory modification, Alan breathed magic into it.

Squeak.

Fortunately, the rat, which looked like a mess from all the messing around, responded. When I put it on the floor, it started moving around slowly.

Alan put the rat into the vent.

‘Please, let the runes work properly.’

Since the ventilation shafts are connected to places that cannot be seen, analyzing the information would increase the probability of finding out where Novak’s secret research lab or information storage room is hidden.

Of course, even if you know it, you can’t go in right away, but wouldn’t you be able to prepare countermeasures if you knew anything?

Alan leaned against the overturned refrigerator. He planned to go to sleep since the reconnaissance wouldn’t be over any time soon.

A week later, it was Liberation Day.

Alan extracted the memory crystal from the body of the rat he had taken out of the vent. He scattered the remaining parts separately to erase any traces.

A person who has undergone brain augmentation would have a socket behind the ear or near the neck where the crystal could be inserted, but Alan was purely physical, so he needed the help of other equipment.

‘There is a risk of surveillance, so let’s get another terminal and check.’

After gathering his thoughts, Alan went out into the hallway through the door that Vito opened for him.

“Nice to meet you?”

“If you become friends with me, won’t you get on the boss’s bad side?”

“Isn’t that okay? The boss didn’t look that angry back then…”

Vito mumbled, as if he wasn’t sure, but instead brought up a different topic as they walked down the hallway.

“And they cleared out all the attackers. It seems they weren’t an attack by another organization, but robbers who came in from outside without knowing what was going on. They must have been tempted by the magicware loaded on the wagon.”

“Then I’ll go out to collect it again.”

“You too. Starting today. If you listen carefully, I’ll send you back to your office work.”

“It might be better to work outside. Then I’ll see you later.”

He was a very frugal boss. Alan fiddled with the necklace for no reason. He probably let out people he had locked up for a week without any problems because he trusted the necklace’s function.

It was actually good for Alan. Inside the clinic, he had to watch out for surveillance cameras and other people, but outside, he only had to watch out for three workers.

Alan went into the room, packed up his gear, and headed out. As Vito had said, Alan’s men were waiting in the clinic’s vacant lot with a cart.

“I’m glad you look healthy.”

“Nice to meet you too.”

Alan was greeted by the workers. They welcomed Alan with sincerity. Normally, workers would look over their shoulders and learn things, but Alan answered their questions sincerely.

“Then let’s go.”

The workers moved first, and Alan followed slowly behind. He lowered his gaze, trying to make his messy hair look as neat as possible. The port city was still vibrant and beautiful, no matter what it looked like.

As we visited the places listed in order, the sun rose high in the sky. The place that Alan and his workers arrived at was a park in the middle of a wealthy neighborhood.

One of the workers asked Alan.

“Mr. Alan. It’s 12:30.”

“Then let’s take a rest here for a while.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m in the bathroom.”

Alan headed to the restroom at the corner of the park, but turned around when the workers disappeared from sight. The reason he came here during lunchtime was to collect the magic tools that the wealthy were throwing away.

Alan quickly scanned the inside of the large trash cans, looking for the item he was looking for, and reached into the fourth bin.

After finding the terminal for video playback, Alan went straight into the bathroom and sat on the toilet. When he disassembled it, he found that it was not a major problem, but the covering of the wire connected to the battery had been peeled off and was touching the circuit.

‘This isn’t a problem. Just move the line slightly to the side. … That’s it.’

I closed the lid again and inserted the memory crystal I had brought into the terminal. Then, a black and white image that looked like pixel art appeared on the screen.

Alan’s fingers, which had been quickly flipping through the video, stopped. The place, which was presumed to be on the fourth basement floor, had one floor of a laboratory.

And in the center of it all. Inside the cylindrical tank, which looked precious to anyone, was something.

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