WeTried Translations

Translator: [IncomeElastic]

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◈ I Became a Genius Engineer That Mega Corporations Are Obsessed With ◈

Chapter 010

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Examination and Diagnosis

Morning came, and as always, my stomach woke up with a racket.

This body had to eat the moment it got up.

One of the nutrient tubes bought yesterday went back in my hand, and I opened it again.

"Now that I've got money, it's disgusting how much I don't want to eat this."

Still, it was all the food left in the place. Chewing on the tube, I started to feel a little bored.

"Ah. Right. Maybe I'll try the radio?"

While cleaning the building yesterday, I'd found an old radio. I'd fixed it up well enough to run, but would it pick up a broadcast?

With the tube still in my mouth, I eyed the radio's panel and tuned to the frequency the general store owner had told me.

Crackle... crackle!

Maybe because it had been switched on for the first time in ages, a burst of static came first, then a booming man's voice poured out of the radio.

[ "You Ground Zero rats! Welcome, all you lucky bastards who woke up again without dying last night! This is Stan from 'Radio Zero'!" ]

DJ Stan's opening spiel. Checking the mana battery, I listened to the broadcast with half an ear.

The battery itself was fine, but something seemed off with the mana charger. It had quit about halfway, leaving the battery short of a full charge.

Probably because the circuit for the mana coil I'd built yesterday had been too simple.

The battery had picked up a little charge anyway, so it was time to make a new one.

I was working a mana coil into shape with telekinesis when the broadcast cut in again.

[ "This morning's first story is a straight-up bomb! A huge bloodbath went down near District 5 last night! The star of the show is none other than Mantis Crew, the ones running District 5 in Ground Zero!" ]

Thudding effects and gunshot sounds blared through the speaker, laid on thick.

[ "In last night's raid, Mantis Crew's garage was hit, every engineer inside got killed, and everything in the place got cleaned out. Word is Red Thorn, a Mantis Crew executive who was at the garage, died in the process too." ]

Stan clicked his tongue.

[ "Naturally, Mantis Crew has lost their goddamn minds and declared all-out war on Black Dog! They say Silver Thorn, known as Red Thorn's closest friend, is furious, so all you bastards living in Districts 3, 4 and 5, don't get yourselves shot in a gang fight for nothing, and keep your asses holed up at home! Now then, on to the next news..." ]

Hearing it, I knew at once.

The woman I'd repaired last night had done this.

Right after leaving my place, she must have gone straight to her crew's main workshop. And then she'd killed the betraying maintenance team and the executive who'd been her rival, with her own hands.

But she hadn't stopped there. She'd gone one step further and pinned what she'd done on the Black Dog gang.

'She was scarier than I thought.'

The picture she'd been aiming for took shape in my head.

Cleanly remove the rival inside her own crew, and at the same time pin the death on an outside enemy, Black Dog, to tighten the crew's unity.

"No wonder she made me swear to keep quiet."

I turned it over carefully and sorted out where things stood. Was I in danger right now?

'Doesn't look like I'm in any danger.'

If she'd meant to kill me to shut me up, she should've done it after the repair last night. Nobody hands 500,000 to someone they're going to kill, either.

On top of that, with the crew's engineers dead, there was a good chance she'd need me.

'Customers will be coming again, so I should get ready for them.'

I had funds now, anyway. This time I'd do another round of shopping, and handle the old man's assignment while I was at it.

Coat on, I headed outside.

* * *

First stop was the general store I'd visited yesterday. The door swung open under my hand.

Nutrient tubes, honestly, weren't something a person should live on. Dog food.

I gathered the daily necessities I'd put off for lack of money, along with a week's worth of the nutrient jelly I'd eaten yesterday.

"Back again?"

No answer. I just set the shopping on the counter.

"Ha ha. Liked what I gave you for free yesterday, didn't you? Got you good."

The shopkeeper's words drew a snort of a laugh out of me.

"Yeah. People's mouths are fickle like that. My taste buds got fancy for no reason, and now there's no way I can bring myself to chew that old lump of grease."

"Ha ha ha! Once you know that taste, of course you can't go back to the tube! The jelly costs double, but honestly, it's a whole different league from nutrient tubes."

Beep. Beep.

After scanning every barcode, the shopkeeper took my credit card for payment, and once again set a small bottle on top of the pile.

"This one's a bonus. Take it."

"What is it?"

"Spice syrup. Even if the jelly beats the tube, it's tasteless and odorless, so you get sick of it after a while. Drop just one drop on the jelly each time you eat. It'll lift your mood a bit."

"Is this another one of your tricks?"

"Leave it if you don't like it."

"No. It's not that bad. Anyway... thanks. I'll try it and come back."

A moment ago, I'd been listening to news about two gangs at war, who died and how many.

Here in this shop, though, I felt a little more at ease. It was a decent, warm-hearted kind of place, like the world I'd come from, and it made me think ordinary people could still get by here.

Even an ordinary person, if they were a little careful, could get by. That kind of world. This one too.

"Right. Don't die, and come again next time."

The shopkeeper threw up a thumb as he said it.

I nodded with a snort of a smile.

"Right. I'll come back without dying."

* * *

Out of the store, hands shoved in my pockets, I walked slowly.

For the old man's assignment, building a tech that could make money, I needed materials.

At first I'd thought about a weapon with real killing power, or modified parts for firearms.

In a hellhole slum like Ground Zero, what else had demand as sure as weapons?

'The thing is, I'm short on materials to work with.'

The higher the unit price, the higher the startup cost.

Even with the 500,000 credits I'd busted my ass for yesterday, I'd barely manage to build one and barely manage to sell one.

That was far too inefficient.

"...Come to think of it, I'm not even selling it. I'm handing it in to the old man as an assignment."

Weapons, or prosthetics and gear in general, were out for now.

I was mulling it over as I opened the door, and that was when it happened.

A face I didn't recognize was waiting inside my workshop.

"Ah. You're back?"

At the back of the workshop, a strange woman who'd been sitting neatly on a dusty wooden crate stood up and gave a light nod.

Wait, what? Wasn't this old man Gordon's secret safehouse? Why were people who could pick this lock turning up two days in a row?

"...Who are you? How did you get in here?"

"There's no need to be wary. I know it's rude of me, but the door was shut, so I used the key Mr. Go Jin-tae gave me."

She was a woman in a white coat, with deep pale-blue hair trimmed into a tidy bob. Late twenties to early thirties, maybe?

She answered in a calm, gentle voice and took a thin, chip-type business card from a high-end leather wallet.

...If the landlord gave her a key, there was nothing to be done.

I'd have to make money fast and move out, for crying out loud.

"My name is Vivian. I run a private mage clinic in Sky Nexus, Upper District 2. I'm an old acquaintance of Mr. Go Jin-tae, and also the physician he's commissioned."

'Upper District 2...?'

Directly beneath the Big Three Megacorps that split Gaon Mega City in three, it was the upper-class zone, packed with the headquarters of top-ranking corporations and their finest research labs.

A place where anyone below Citizen Grade B couldn't even pass entry screening.

For someone to run a clinic there, this woman had to be one hell of an elite.

"Why would a doctor from the upper tiers come all the way down here...?"

"To be precise, a mage-physician. Mr. Go contacted me directly. He asked me to check the condition of a patient here."

A mage-physician.

In other words, a mage who'd honed healer tech to the extreme.

This was a world where medicine and artificial organs had advanced enormously. Use drugs, swap in an artificial organ, and most illnesses could be dealt with. In truly extreme cases, there might even be nanomachines.

In a world like that, a mage-physician was an extremely rare kind of doctor, the one people sought out for incurable diseases that ordinary medicine couldn't touch, or when a precise diagnosis was needed.

"...I don't have money to pay for treatment, though?"

"No need to worry. I owe Mr. Go a great debt from before, and this is only me paying it back. There's no consultation fee. Now, would you take a seat over here, patient?"

My estimate of old man Gordon went up another notch. Having connections enough to put a top-tier mage-physician from Upper District 2 in his debt.

I went and sat in the seat Vivian had indicated.

"It's the first time in years that Mr. Go has personally asked me to examine someone. I was curious whether you were worth postponing my entire appointment schedule to come down here."

That put some quiet pressure on me. It was far too generous a benefit for a mere contract hire.

"I'll only be doing a light mana scan to start, so please just relax. Excuse me for a moment."

Vivian came up to where I sat and reached out her right hand.

I stared at her wrist, noticed something, and before I knew it, my own hand shot out and snatched her right hand.

"Eh... Ehh? Wh... What is this?"

The sudden physical contact flushed Vivian's composed face with confusion.

I answered.

"Did you know this prosthetic hand is defective?"

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