WeTried Translations
Translator: [IncomeElastic]
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ I Became a Genius Engineer That Mega Corporations Are Obsessed With ◈
Chapter 41
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Guard Fees Are Billed Separately, Right?
The light of [Suture Heal] faded.
The towel dropped from Baek So-ha's mouth. For a long while, nothing but breathing filled the room.
"Engineer."
"You talk a lot for someone who's supposed to be asleep."
"Did I not say that it hurts, so I might as well talk?"
Right, she had said something like that.
"Yes. Go ahead."
"Why is a pureblood in a gutter like this?"
'Pureblood talk again.'
Old Man Gordon had said something like it once, hadn't he? Looking at me, with my black hair and black eyes, he'd said life must have been rough.
Probably because things like this happen.
I kept working as I spoke.
"I'm from the bottom you're talking about, client. I've never seen what's above."
"A lie."
"..."
"The color of your hair and eyes is quite deep, even among purebloods. It is nothing like the mongrels mixed down in this gutter."
'What? She's already decided I'm a pureblood.'
Well... if the repair finished well and I survived, this pureblood bloodline might earn me a bigger reward, so I'd keep my mouth shut for now.
While I was thinking that, the client spoke again.
"Right. Come to think of it, to hear your story, I should tell mine first. Only then would the price be fair, no?"
"Huh? I don't really have anything to tell, though."
"It is fine. Just listen. Would you not resent it, dying without even knowing what you were caught up in?"
'Fuck, that came out of nowhere.'
"...Yes. I'll listen."
Not listening wouldn't keep me from being dragged in anyway.
Baek So-ha drew one long breath.
"A fight broke out between my father and my uncle."
"Why were they fighting?"
"My uncle coveted my father's seat. Though the master of Baekdu is already my father."
I'd thought it was a succession dispute, but this went a good deal further. A rebellion, maybe.
Baek So-ha paused for a moment. I couldn't tell whether she was catching her breath or choosing her words.
"The employees of Baekdu split into two factions, and went to war."
Hearing it said outright that employees had gone to war with each other was genuinely shocking. Maybe I should have staged a rebellion at my old company too.
...This was no time for jokes. The person who'd been in the middle of that war was lying on my workbench right now.
I took hold of the next nerve line. Tangled it with telekinesis, wound it with mana thread.
"Joining."
[Suture Heal].
"Guuuh...!"
Baek So-ha's body leapt. She was holding out better than before, at least.
While I prepared the next task, Baek So-ha spoke again.
"...My father put me at the vanguard. As the eldest daughter, naturally."
The residual pain kept cutting her words off partway.
Even so, Baek So-ha didn't stop, and kept going.
"The vanguard on my uncle's side... was my younger sibling."
"..."
"That child volunteered to take me on, I am told."
I didn't answer. Sometimes a client's words were better left unanswered.
"My uncle was a second child as well. He lived his whole life in my father's shadow. So I can guess what he said to that child. Will you live your whole life as a second, like me? Something like that, no doubt."
Rita wiped Baek So-ha's forehead with a towel. Baek So-ha kept her eyes shut and didn't pull away from the hand.
"With both camps watching, only that child and I clashed."
I repaired the next nerve strand. Tangle, wind, heal.
"Hngh... Strong, that child was. Though when we were little... nnngh... all that child did was chase after me."
Even after the pain subsided, Baek So-ha stayed silent for a while.
This time it didn't seem to be only the pain.
"And then, all of a sudden, that child laid a weakness completely bare to me. A perfect weakness, one swing and I could have taken a life. And yet..."
When I repaired the next strand, Baek So-ha began to sob.
"And yet... I could not kill that child. I could not kill that child with my own hands."
"..."
"I hesitated, but that child did not. That was the cause of my defeat."
"That doesn't look like the only cause."
"...What?"
"What I mean is, maybe you didn't hesitate only because of your own heart."
At last, the spine was finished.
I wiped my hands on a towel and asked again.
"Is there a reason you used a Geumgang custom spine instead of a Baekdu one?"
"It was a gift for my fifteenth birthday. Geumgang and Baekdu have been allies for generations."
A spine fitted to her body, given to an ally's daughter as a birthday present.
Better to stay out of whatever megacorps are up to, ideally, but...
...What was I supposed to do? I was already tangled up in it.
And if I didn't fix this woman now, I might be the one who died.
"Do you know what an Anti-Tamper Trap is?"
"Hm? Of course. Is it not the trap that keeps a product from working properly unless it passes genuine-product authentication? We use that function at Baekdu as well."
"As an engineer, if I had to name the company that uses Anti-Tamper Traps most viciously, I'd say Geumgang."
As soon as I got that far, the color drained from Baek So-ha's face.
"What? Do you know what you are saying? Are you telling me that Geumgang, our ally for generations, is after Baekdu?"
'Quick on the uptake, at least.'
"I found traces of an Anti-Tamper Trap having activated in your spine. Probably during the last fight."
Baek So-ha's lips trembled.
"Impossible. That was a genuine unit, sent directly from Geumgang."
"Yes. That's why it's strange."
A genuine unit has no reason to set off an Anti-Tamper Trap.
Unless someone made it.
"...I wondered all along where my uncle drew that kind of strength from."
Baek So-ha's hand clenched the blanket. Not from pain this time.
"Engineer. Can you remove it?"
"...Yes. I can remove it. But. I'll do the legs first, and take it out last."
"Why?"
"It's the hardest job, and it takes the most out of me. I'd feel better with the legs already repaired."
Baek So-ha didn't ask anything more.
"Zino. How much mana is left?"
"Uhhmm... About half left, I think."
'Tight.'
Unlike the spine, the legs detached freely, so I separated both.
First, the ankles that had bent on both sides, back to how they'd been. Mana thread and [Suture Heal] had already roughed them into shape, but they'd probably never be as smooth as before.
A temporary fix was all I could call it.
The right leg's caved-in knee I forced straight with precision telekinesis.
The bundle of artificial muscle fibers jutting out of the left leg I repaired the same way I'd repaired the spine's nerves.
With no patient writhing in pain this time, it was much easier.
Not perfect, but I managed to get the legs usable.
"Unfortunately, you know there are no materials or parts here, right? It's a patch job however I could manage it, so it's best not to use them too hard."
Saying that, I set both legs down in front of the woman.
"I'm attaching them now. It'll hurt a bit at the moment the joint touches the nerves."
"...Do it."
I pushed the right leg into the thigh joint.
Click.
"Hngh...!"
Baek So-ha's body flinched. Then the left.
Click.
"Guh...!"
A few rough breaths came and went. Then they settled.
"Can you try moving your toes?"
Baek So-ha swallowed once.
Under the blanket, her toes wriggled.
The right. Then the left.
"...They move."
"Glad to hear it."
I wiped my sweat away. Honestly, if it weren't for the Anti-Tamper Trap, the repair could have ended here.
But I couldn't send off a client who'd already lost once to an Anti-Tamper Trap, not like this.
Besides, the client would probably want the trap removed too.
"Client. From here on, I'll be removing the trap. It won't hurt as much as before, but..."
"There is still a problem?"
"...Yes. You absolutely can't move in the meantime. And I can't break off midway either."
Through the safety goggles, I switched on the Spellbreaker's Magic Eye.
Inside the control unit of the spine, security circuits lay coiled thick. An authentication circuit, a monitoring circuit, a security circuit, and wrapped tight around all of them, the trap.
Valeria's prosthetic eye had been Geumgang-made too.
Back then, I'd flatly declared that I'd never get a trap like this off with the mana I had.
But now was different. The core drive had raised my mana, and I had our Zino to regulate how much I used.
Given enough time, I could definitely break it.
I'd just started the work, thinking that, when it happened.
Thud.
Something boomed dully from above the ceiling. A little dust drifted down.
Thud. Thud.
The sound grew closer, from the direction of the stairs.
Crash! Bang!
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat!
The vibrations of a gunfight and a violent brawl reached all the way down here.
The bodyguards who'd gone to deal with it upstairs seemed to have been pushed back this far.
Baek So-ha's body flinched. She tried to push herself up on both arms.
"Please stay still."
"...Those are the ones who came for me."
"I know. But you know, don't you? If you go out there now, the same thing will just happen to you again."
If the Anti-Tamper Trap went off again, she'd freeze up again, and this time Baek So-ha would really die. Probably me along with her.
Baek So-ha seemed to have thought the same, and ground her teeth. Then she lay back down.
'Ha. Fuck. What do I do? Can those people hold out until I've fixed all of Baek So-ha?'
I was thinking exactly that when it happened.
"Boss."
Rita stood in the doorway, a hand on the suppressor at her neck.
"So our guard fee gets billed separately, on top of everything, right?"
I couldn't help snorting at that.
"You'll cover it, won't you? Right, client?"
"Of course. I shall see that you are not disappointed."
Click.
A small sound came from Rita's suppressor.
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