I Became a Genius Engineer That Mega Corporations Are Obsessed With - Chapter 014

WeTried Translations

Translator: [IncomeElastic]

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

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

Chapter 014

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Titan Garage

"Please stay still. It'll be a little hot, no, very hot. Please bear with it."

"...Huh? What are you suddenly about to...!"

I got that far before a grunt cut me off and my mouth snapped shut.

Mana from Vivian's hand had begun flowing into mine.

Mana with a gentle warmth, a soothing quality, crept along my hand and into my mana circuits, working its way inward.

'That feels like a pretty high-tier healing spell.'

I'd thought I knew most of the spells that had appeared in Fupunkalypse, but this one was unfamiliar.

As expected of a mage who could open a clinic in the upper tier.

'But it's not as hot as she said, is it?'

That thought had barely crossed my mind when it happened.

The mana that had run up my hand made straight for the area around my heart, and began to heat it.

"Even if it hurts, you mustn't open your mouth. The mana will leak out."

Vivian's voice came just as a groan was about to slip out.

At her words, I clamped my mouth shut as it started to open.

As the hot energy kept moving through the circuits around my heart, a stabbing ache set in.

Sweat was running down the head of Vivian, right in front of me, holding my hand.

Whatever she was doing, it seemed to be a spell that cost her a lot of both mental energy and mana.

A scalding heat rose, hot enough to make me want to scream, but I remembered her warning that opening my mouth would let the mana leak, and gritted my teeth to hold on.

...How much time had passed?

The mana around my heart began to withdraw. The retreating mana gathered in one place, swept once around my heart, and climbed back up the circuits to my hand.

Then the warm mana flowed back toward Vivian's hand.

Only then did Vivian, who had been gripping my hand for a long while, let go.

"Haah... phew... The procedure is done. You did well."

I stared blankly down at my chest.

Because of the [Heart Mana Deficiency] flaw, there had always been a hollow, faintly tingling pain around my heart, no matter what I did.

Now, astonishingly, that hollow feeling was gone. My heart felt filled with a little more mana than before, even if only a little.

Sweat was pouring off Vivian's face like rain. Fatigue showed there too, probably from pouring out an enormous amount of mana and concentration in one go.

"...May I take my coat off for a moment?"

Her way of speaking had gone back to normal. Maybe because she'd been doing her real job?

With sweat streaming like that, of course she'd be hot.

I nodded.

"Yes. Of course."

At my answer, Vivian took off her coat. The sleeveless blouse that left both arms bare suited her quite well, perhaps thanks to her snow-white skin.

"Phew. It isn't a perfect treatment."

She took out a handkerchief, wiped her face, and went on.

"The damage is too severe for one session... no, honestly, with my skill right now, even dozens of sessions wouldn't fully restore it. Still... someday..."

Vivian's blue eyes turned to me.

A strange sorrow, a sense of duty, and a strange heat as well were all churning in them at once.

An odd atmosphere, this.

"I know I have no right to guess how great your pain is... but it should ease the physical pain for now. It should hurt much less when you use mana, too."

"No, it wasn't as painful as you're thinking. I can get by in daily life well enough..."

"It's all right. You don't need to hold back your pain in front of a doctor."

I swallowed what I'd been about to say.

Right... if the doctor says it hurts, then it hurts.

"By the way, isn't this a hugely expensive spell? I don't think Old Man Gordon would have told you to go this far."

"Ah. That's repayment for freeing me from the mental anguish I'd been under."

Ssss. At that, I took a step back on the subject of the repair fee.

After watching her sweat buckets casting a spell just to treat me, the words wouldn't come easily.

"...So the prosthetic hand really had been broken. Amazing. I used [Life's Warm Current] and my body is still fine."

Ah. So that spell was called Life's Warm Current. Better remember that.

"Of course, it's fixed for the moment, but it's really no more than a stopgap. You need to come here once a week for a checkup. Still, rather than keep coming to a humble place like this, I'd recommend replacing the prosthetic soon."

"...I can't replace it right now. I still have to pay back the startup money I borrowed from Mr. Go Jin-tae. And the building's rent is higher than I expected."

"Ah..."

Not everyone who lived in the upper tier was rich, apparently. Then again, how much money did it take to run a clinic in a nice area? Being strapped for cash was possible.

Still, wasn't she being a little too honest? Was this something I was even supposed to hear?

I was still wondering about that when she spoke.

"Which brings me to this. Could you possibly put back the parts you fixed, the way they were?"

All I could do was blink.

Was this the same person who'd been choking up over the prosthetic being fixed just a moment ago?

"Huh? Why on earth would I do that?"

"I'm going to sue. Because there was a defect in the megacorp's product."

Hearing that, I let out an "Ah!" of realization.

Right. This wasn't Fupunkalypse. This was 300 years before that, when society was still running in a reasonably sane way.

"So please restore it to how it was, and write up a document laying out the defective parts."

"Huh? What kind of document?"

"I need a brief technical opinion on this defective product that defeated Arcana Tech's standard inspection. A legally valid opinion would have to come from a garage in the upper tier, but... they might not find the fault either."

"As you can see, there's nothing here to write something like that on."

At that, Vivian pulled something like a tablet out of the coat she'd hung up behind her and held it out to me.

Nothing hard about it. It wasn't as if I'd be saying anything untrue.

I wrote the opinion as Vivian asked and handed it back. Any engineer from the upper tier would understand at once what it meant.

Taking the tablet back, Vivian touched her fingers to her own wrist, then swiped it toward me.

"This is payment for the consultation."

Ding.

[ Vivian has sent you 200,000 credits. Accept? ]

Oh. I'd thought I wouldn't get paid for the repair, but I'd gotten a consulting fee instead.

After taking cash and credit cards all this time, getting a deposit straight into an account felt fresh. The upper class really was different.

With that thought, I accepted the money.

"Naturally, this isn't all. If the suit is won, I'll pay you more on top of this."

Oh. A bonus if she wins the case? Thank you very much.

For now, I restored my repair to how it had been.

"And for the next year, I'll visit once a week and continue to check on your physical condition. Of course I won't be charging for the exams. Consider it payment for lifting the burden from my heart."

"Huh? Ah, there's really no need for that."

"No. Your body needs care, my patient. And it needs it continuously."

"Ah... is that so."

If the doctor said so, I'd better accept it. And honestly, living in Ground Zero, the lowest district of all, in this feeble body, I was sure to fall ill sooner or later.

When that happened, knowing an upper-tier doctor like Vivian would be far better than hunting for one around here.

"Um... so... could I possibly get your name and contact information?"

Right. We hadn't introduced ourselves yet.

"Ah. My name is Dex. My contact is..."

Vivian reached a hand toward me.

I took it and shook.

[Vivian's contact has been registered.]

Through the electronic circuits in our wrists, each other's contacts were registered automatically.

Hm. Convenient in a lot of ways.

"Then I'll contact you ahead of time about the next visit."

I nodded.

"Okay. Thank you. You've worked hard."

After seeing Vivian off, I realized night was starting to settle over the city.

"Has the day already gone by?"

I had to finish what needed doing before dark.

Things had been dangerous around here lately, with a terrifying amount of gunfire every night. Better lock the door at night.

"And now... it's almost... in sight."

The cleaning of the building's interior, which had gone on for days, was finally coming to an end.

The odds and ends and trash inside had been sorted, the junk thrown out, and the usable items organized by where they'd be used.

First, the dented steel workbench that had been shoved into a corner of the storeroom got repaired and stood upright. The tilted legs were reattached, and the dented parts were flattened as much as possible with Precision Telekinesis.

Above the workbench, a perforated pegboard was fitted over the wall.

On it hung old hand tools: wrenches, nippers, vises, pliers, and the like.

Realistically, there'd be almost no occasion for me to use hand tools like these, so they were decoration for the interior mood.

Even in the game, whether you looked after the interior mood or not had quietly made a big difference to trust.

The fallen shelf was stood back up and filled too. Copper wiring, nuts, bolts, springs, insulation tubes, and other parts decorated the shelving.

'Not bad.'

In front of the main door, I'd built and set up a second door for business use when customers came.

The main door was so heavy and sturdy that it was hard for customers to go in and out.

During business hours, the business door could stay open, and once the day was over, the main door could be closed.

Last of all, I took the neon sign reading Titan Garage that had been stashed in a corner and mounted it on the building's wall.

"Titan Garage, huh. It does remind me of Old Man Gordon."

He really was as tall as a titan, after all.