Genius Wizard Takes Medicine Chapter 1

Boom!

“Move faster!”

The supervisor roared at the top of his lungs as he stalked through the vast parts room.

Crude metal components rolled and clattered across the conveyor belt that never seemed to stop.

“The union members will be here to collect the products soon! How long are you planning to drag your feet?”

The hairy giant glared at the workers with bloodshot eyes, and the hands of those stationed along the belt began to move a little faster.

Still unsatisfied, he lashed out with the small whip in his hand, striking two or three workers nearby before finally turning away.

“If you fail to meet the deadline, you’d better brace yourselves! I have no intention of giving a place to sleep to trash who can’t even meet their quota!”

Standing some distance away, Lenoch lowered his gaze back to the metal part in his hand.

Three days had passed since he had woken up in this nameless parts factory—simply referred to as “the factory.”

He still knew almost nothing about this place, yet, surprisingly, Lenoch had adapted to its monotonous routine with remarkable speed.

He woke before sunrise, worked until he was on the verge of collapse, received a bowl of gruel that was barely better than food waste, and then went to bed.

The work that devoured his entire day was simple: assemble scattered metal parts and place them on the conveyor belt.

It was a tedious, brutal routine that required no real understanding, and Lenoch had no choice but to follow it.

Even when he tried asking questions, the workers around him stubbornly refused to speak.

It was only yesterday that he realized their gazes were no different from the way one might look at a corpse.

“Huff… huff…”

The parts room had poor ventilation. The workers’ sweat and stench mixed together, rising like steam and clinging to the ceiling.

The lack of fresh air alone was enough to rapidly drain Lenoch’s strength, leaving heat spreading through his body.

More than anything, the strange sense of unfamiliarity he felt toward this body—so different from his old one—tormented him.

The hellish labor continued for more than ten hours without rest, harsh enough to make him feel as though he might collapse at any moment.

If there was one fortunate thing, it was that no one scolded Lenoch even when he occasionally stopped assembling parts.

The supervisor merely clicked his tongue at Lenoch’s pale face, as if he had no desire to waste effort on a body that looked half-dead already.

From the moment Lenoch realized that, he began to slyly take advantage of it, using every small opportunity to endure the working hours.

After what felt like an eternity, the day’s labor finally ended. Lenoch received his scheduled bowl of thin gruel, devoured it in haste, and lay down to sleep.

He closed his eyes beneath the dark ceiling.

But his mind remained painfully clear.

Insomnia.

“Damn it…”

It had already been three days since he had last slept properly.

Lenoch had a rough idea where this severe insomnia came from.

It was one of the many penalties he had chosen when creating his character. The insomnia, severe enough to be considered a full-fledged trait, was now tormenting him in reality.

What made it even more depressing was that insomnia was far from the only penalty afflicting this body.

Various illnesses and symptoms that weakened him by default were eating away at him, dragging Lenoch down little by little.

How long could he last like this?

One thing was certain.

He did not have much time.

There was no way this frail, weakened body could survive for long in such a harsh working environment.

After three days of thought, the conclusion had been obvious from the very beginning.

‘I have to get out of here.’

Whether he withered away inside the factory or was caught and killed while trying to escape, the end would be the same for Lenoch.

He had no intention of making this stench-filled parts room his grave.

The only small mercy was that not everything was working against him.

Perhaps because he was already regarded as a dying man, the supervision placed on Lenoch was far looser than it was for the other workers. The workers themselves also paid little attention to what he did.

If he could make use of that and learn the factory’s layout, he might be able to come up with an escape route.

More importantly, this body was not completely useless despite its weakness.

If Lenoch’s body in this world carried penalties such as insomnia, then the opposite was also true.

It also carried Lenoch’s talents.

The magical talent he had gained by piling on all kinds of negative traits. That potential, pushed to its absolute limit, lay dormant within Lenoch’s body.

If he could somehow awaken it, escaping from this factory would not be entirely impossible.

“……”

Lenoch understood.

Even while pushed to his physical and mental limits by brutal labor and insomnia, he was still calmly analyzing the situation and forming a plan. That alone was proof that he was no longer the same person he had once been.

The version of himself he knew would never have been able to remain rational in a situation like this.

Most likely, this was the result of the mental traits he had maxed out during character creation—composure, concentration, boldness, and the like.

At the time, he had merely invested in the mental abilities necessary for a mage. Yet now, those abilities had become the driving force that allowed Lenoch to maintain his sanity after three sleepless days and nights.

Lenoch did not believe in the romantic idea that a person’s mental capabilities came from the soul.

Rational thought, a calm mind, and logical judgment were all functions of the brain. In other words, they were talents of the body.

The mental strength allowing him to stay composed right now was undoubtedly one of the talents possessed by this frail body.

Accepting that this was Lenoch’s own talent—not merely the will of the person who had clicked the character creation button—would be the first step toward overcoming his current situation.

Until he escaped from this hellish factory, he would not let his guard down for even a moment.

And with that, Lenoch forced his eyes shut, driving himself forward.