WeTried Translations
Translator: [IncomeElastic]
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ I Became a Genius Engineer That Mega Corporations Are Obsessed With ◈
Chapter 40
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Sleeping People Don't Answer
"Since you say there's no time, I'll begin right away."
Spine first. Judging by the shape of it, half bent and half shattered...
'She got hit by someone using a similar body arts style.'
Even if I had to force it, the spine needed to be back in its original shape before I could do anything else, so I opened my mouth.
"This is going to hurt a little. You'll have to bear it."
At my words, Rita folded a towel and put it between the client's teeth.
"...Behin."
At that muffled word, I started using [Precision Telekinesis] to set the displaced vertebrae back, one at a time.
Crack.
Crack.
Crack.
Every time a vertebra went back into place, the woman's body trembled hard as I worked.
The work demanded huge amounts of focus and psionic power, and sweat started pouring down my head.
Rita, standing beside me, wiped my face fast, held water to my lips, and popped energy jelly into my mouth, assisting me the whole way.
Crack.
The last segment slid home.
Only then did I let out the breath I'd been holding, long and slow. My head throbbed as if it had been scooped hollow, the price of burning through too much energy.
Chewing the jelly Rita fed me, I leaned against the wall for a moment and held on.
In the meantime, Rita pulled the towel out of the client's mouth. It was stained red again.
"You held up well."
"This much is basic."
My eyes slid to the towel in Rita's hands. It was nearly half torn to shreds.
I decided not to say anything and gulped down the jelly.
My dazed head cleared a little.
"Now, the next job. What we just did was set the frame. From here on, I'll be reconnecting the severed nerve lines."
"Will it hurt more than before?"
"Yes. Since it's nerve work, it'll hurt even more than before. Would you like to be put under?"
"...No. There is a reason I cannot fall asleep right now."
"Then there's no helping it."
The client's shoulders heaved once. Probably a sigh.
Safety goggles on, I started examining the spine again.
Given the direction the spine had broken and the direction the nerves had been severed...
'She lost a fight against someone with almost the same build.'
But that was strange.
A build that uses the legs as the center of attack isn't common. It's a build that requires making the path for mana, from the dantian through the spine and down to the legs, second nature. Which meant training in the same direction from a very young age.
And the place that could fit a body like that with a Geumgang custom spine and top-grade Baekdu Precision legs.
Two people who grew up learning the same thing in a place like that had fought each other hard enough to leave each other in this state.
So it was probably something like a megacorp succession fight. Probably.
'I've gotten tangled up in a headache.'
They'd said it was dangerous, but I hadn't expected it to be on the level of a megacorp succession fight.
This wasn't just the upper tiers. This was a megacorp's direct bloodline. If so much as one line of a client's name like this leaked, their life would be in danger. Warning of danger was probably the most the commission could say.
Which also meant this game was far bigger than I'd thought.
I looked down again at the client lying there.
Not just a connection to the upper tiers. I was repairing the prosthetics of a megacorp's direct heir, right now.
If I pulled this off, my standing would change completely.
Valeria had said she'd take a 50 percent fee because I was an engineer with no name.
But would that reason still hold for an engineer who'd saved a megacorp heir's life?
...Of course, that was a story for after I made it back alive.
With that thought done, I turned to the client.
"Honestly, it's a little surprising."
"What is?"
"That anyone could smash a Geumgang custom spine like this. You must have fought a truly formidable opponent."
"Naturally. In this world, only one person could do this to me, my younger sibling."
Mixed into those words was something odd, less resentment than what sounded like pride.
This was getting more of a headache by the minute.
Do my own job first.
"Rita. A fresh towel, please."
Rita folded a new towel and held it out in front of the client. The client looked down at it for a moment, then bit down on it without a word.
One severed nerve line, caught with mana thread.
"Starting."
With [Precision Telekinesis] again, I tangled the severed nerve line together. Then one loop of mana thread around it, and finally [Suture Heal].
"Aaaaaaaaaagh!"
The client had held up well while I set the vertebrae, but the pain of nerves being rewoven was clearly more than anyone could endure, and the scream tore out of her.
The towel was no use at all. The knuckles of the fingers clutching the blanket had gone white.
The two bodyguards by the door took a step forward on reflex.
"Enough. The engineer is doing what must be done. I can feel it."
At the client's words, the bodyguards froze. The senior one raised a hand to hold back the other.
The light of [Suture Heal] seeped over the nerve line.
One strand was joined.
The client's body went slack. The towel dropped from her mouth, and nothing but ragged breathing filled the room for a long while.
"...Would you like to be put under now? It would go much faster."
"No. I cannot. They are searching for me. If I fall asleep, it will be too late. From now on, work as though you have put me under."
"Pardon?"
"Whether I scream, thrash, or beg you to stop... do not stop your hands. That will not be me."
An annoying demand from a client, but I could feel the resolve in it.
And clearly, the better this person got fixed, the better my own odds of walking out alive.
In this situation, this person and I were in the same boat.
"Understood. Then from now on, you're asleep."
"...Fine."
"Sleeping people don't even answer."
"..."
The client bit down on the towel again without a word.
I caught the second nerve line.
Tangle it with telekinesis, wind it with mana thread, [Suture Heal].
"Hnngh... Guuuuhh!"
Then the third.
"Aaaaaagh!"
Each time a scream burst out, the client's body jerked upward, and each time I pinned her lower back down with telekinesis. Sweat or tears, impossible to tell which, soaked into the blanket.
With one hand Rita wiped my sweat, and with the other she silently held the client's shoulder.
How many strands had we joined like that?
Both bodyguards put a hand to their ears at the same time.
Then one of them came over to the client and spoke.
"Miss. Something seems to have come up that we need to go upstairs and look into. It shouldn't be anything serious, so please stay here and receive your maintenance. We'll deal with it and return."
"Gh... ugh... Ve-very well. I trust you will deal with it and, aaaagh, return. Nnngh!"
The two bodyguards opened the door and left.
...If it wasn't serious, there was no way both of them would go up at once.
Fucked. Truly fucked.
Which left me exactly one thing I could do. Repair the client's body as fast as possible.
Next strand.
"Guuuhh-!"
The client's body jumped again. I pressed her lower back down with telekinesis, and Rita tightened her grip on the shoulder.
The light of [Suture Heal] seeped in, and the client spat out the towel.
"...Engineer. No, Seol Gye-hyeon, was it?"
"Sleeping people aren't supposed to talk."
"It hurts too much, so I must talk. And judging by the situation, you and I seem to have become a shared fate."
"..."
"I have heard your real name and never offered mine. That goes against the manners I was taught. My name is Baek So-ha. Baek, as in Baekdu."
Fucked. I really didn't need to be told that much.
Now I even knew the company name.
So it was a Baekdu Precision succession fight.
Baek So-ha said nothing more. She picked up the towel herself and bit down on it again.
I hooked my thread onto the next nerve line.
"Going in."
* * *
Every time a nerve reconnected, it felt like a red-hot iron skewer being driven down her back.
Baek So-ha clenched her teeth.
The sensation of something forcing its way down along her spine. It wasn't her first time.
It was the pain she'd gone through every night, when she was very small.
The children of Baekdu learned Jangbaek-gong from the moment they started walking.
A technique for boring one long mountain ridge through the body, from the dantian along the spine to the tips of the toes. Only once that road was fully open were you granted the right to learn Cheonji-gak.
Baek So-ha had started Jangbaek-gong at six. Her sister, two years younger, followed two years later.
Her sister's first night had been unusually long.
A raging fever, a nosebleed that wouldn't stop. The mana was stuck halfway down the spine and couldn't go any lower.
The elders said that a child who couldn't get through it would not be recognized as a child of Baekdu.
That night, Baek So-ha slipped into her sister's room in secret.
She laid a hand on the back of the girl lying face down. Then she fed in her own mana, a tiny bit at a time, and pushed the blocked mana down.
Along the spine, slowly. Past the waist, down to the legs.
"...Sis, your hand is warm."
"Stay still. If we get caught, we'll both be punished."
Guiding someone for the first time was harder than she'd expected, since she had to open the channel of a sister whose channel had never opened at all, and so she had to feel every bit of the pain her sister felt.
Even so, Baek So-ha didn't take her hand away until her sister fell asleep.
* * *
"......"
No scream this time.
Earlier she'd screamed loud enough to make the room ring, but now only breath leaked out around the towel in her mouth. The hand gripping the blanket was still bleached white, yet her body wasn't moving either.
The pain couldn't have eased. Nerves only get more sensitive the more you reconnect them.
She was just enduring it. It was the only way this would be over quickly.
Rita was still holding Baek So-ha's shoulder with one hand.
I hooked my thread onto the next strand.
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