The Lord Who Levels Up by Devouring - Chapter 202

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 202. Chasing Two Rabbits (2)
The Aide’s report: all the Werebeast units deployed in Whitewolf Territory had been destroyed.
…But did that even make sense?
The Weretiger alone possessed combat prowess capable of ravaging cavalry units single-handedly.
The Werebear could demolish castle walls on its own.
Even a formidable knight order would struggle against such power.
And yet all of them had been annihilated?
No, more than that—
“What happened to Werefox?”
Werefox was a high-intelligence specimen.
Precisely because of this, she had been deployed not for direct combat, but as a specialized unit for intelligence gathering in Whitewolf Territory.
And for that very reason, she was the specimen Elowin had held the highest expectations for.
Disruption, deception, manipulation—
She had been expected to execute diverse operations as an agent of the Information Bureau.
“That is….”
For some reason, the Aide struggled to continue.
* * *
At that very moment, while patrol and watch units were engaged in combat—
Sarpedon was scattering recruits across the Snowy Mountain.
“Move! Crawl, you bastards!! Who told you to stop?!”
“Ugh…!”
“But the snow is so bitterly cold…!”
“Then is the snow hot instead?!”
Sarpedon’s roar thundered across the landscape.
“Snow is not merely an obstacle! It is an environment where you can take cover and conceal yourselves. If you wish to survive in this place, become thoroughly accustomed to the snow!!”
The recruits, buried in snow, crawled laboriously up the Snowy Mountain.
Then it happened.
“Sob, sob…!”
A weeping sound from somewhere.
“What unlucky bastard is crying and making a fuss?!”
Sarpedon’s eyes widened as he shouted.
Scanning the surroundings, he spotted someone crouched down.
“…Hey, who is that?”
“Looks like a woman, sir?”
“What woman is on this Snowy Mountain?”
“Could she be one of the new migrants?”
“Did she lose her way?”
“Sob… sniff, please help me….”
The woman wept, her body trembling.
Her shoulders quivered, and above them, silver-white hair scattered in the wind.
“What kind of beauty…?”
She was an absolute stunner.
“She’s the ideal woman I’ve only ever dreamed of.”
“Tsk, seeing her tremble like that is breaking my heart.”
Especially with that impression of being both a young girl and a mature woman, she triggered every protective instinct within him.
“It seems she may have lost her way.”
“Brother, let me go bring her back!!”
“…Wait.”
Sarpedon’s eyes narrowed sharply.
“Something about her beauty is too perfect.”
In that instant, the woman’s ears twitched upward.
Sarpedon didn’t miss that moment.
“That woman—isn’t she one of those?”
“One of those?”
“You know. The ones drawn in the field manual.”
Sarpedon unfolded the field manual he carried.
◆Werefox
: A high-intelligence hybrid entity based on fox genetics. Designed with an appearance resembling humans, particularly adolescent females, calibrated to lower wariness upon contact and induce protective instincts.
●Combat Type : Infiltration / Disruption / Psychological Manipulation
●Physical Traits : Concealed Tail / Ear Tissue / Pheromone Glands
●Intelligence Grade : Supreme
“That woman—isn’t she a Werefox?”
“Huh? Now that you mention it, I can see the pointed ears and tail.”
“What does the response protocol say?”
“Let me see….”
==[Werefox Field Response Protocol]==
└Who was that just now asking me for help…?
└That’s not a person, that’s a Werefox.
└But she was crying when she said it?
└She’s too intelligent. You wouldn’t even know if she lived mixed in with human society.
└And her appearance is insane. The beautiful girl I’ve only seen in dreams is approaching me… oh man.
└That’s how Furries were born, after all.
└Furries?
└Anthropomorphic beings.
└Ah, those animal-like companions?
└They said they were mutants freed from dominion.
└No wonder they’re so human-friendly.
└Given time, they’ll probably be classified as a new race like elves. By the way, the top three are fox-kin, cat-kin, and wolf-kin.
└Catgirls! I love you!
└You crazy bastards….
└Anyway, no attempts at conversation. Don’t get caught by appearances.
└By the way, the Werefox tends to captivate The Saint. Information just spills out easily.
“It seems there are occasionally human-friendly individuals among them….”
But that Werefox was—.
SCREEEEEEECH─!!
Not friendly toward humans at all.
In other words, it wasn’t a mutant creature called a beastkin—.
“That… brother?”
“What.”
“Do we really have to eliminate it?”
“What do you mean?”
“We might be able to communicate with it.”
“Did you not hear that ‘SCREECH’ just now?”
“…I did hear it.”
“Then what’s your point?”
“If I take it and care for it properly—.”
“Damn it, you brainless bastard! Your head’s been invaded by lust!”
THWACK!
“Goddammit, you’re impossible!”
SMACK!
“Back in Violess, you whined about following The Saint!”
CRACK!
“Now you want to take a Werefox and raise it?!”
“Agh, ahhh!”
“You’re thinking with your lower half, not your head, aren’t you?”
“P-please stop hitting me!”
“Stop my ass!”
“Just look at this honestly!!”
The soldier being beaten protested indignantly.
And he pointed at the Werefox with his finger.
Snow-white fur. Perked-up ears.
A face like a beautiful girl, with tears glistening in her eyes.
“She’s genuinely beautiful—insanely beautiful!!”
“…What?”
“I could totally—!”
“You crazy bastard!”
THWACK!!
“Just drop dead, you furry fool!!”
Sarpedon beat him as if he truly meant to kill him.
Witnessing such brutal and savage violence, the new recruits watching from afar made a firm, unwavering vow never to provoke him.
* * *
“…We cannot confirm whether Werefox survived.”
The Aide finally managed to speak, his words coming with difficulty.
“You mean she might have been captured?”
“Yes. We cannot rule out the possibility of capture rather than destruction.”
Elowin found herself at a loss for words.
If it was capture rather than destruction, it would become possible to extract information about the structure and weaknesses of other Werebeasts through Werefox.
…It was an agonizing loss.
Considering the astronomical resources invested in the Werebeast, it was more than agonizing—it was excruciating.
But somehow, it was manageable.
Because we had accumulated data.
Failing to recover it was painful, but we should have secured the data—our original objective.
“The records? Did we secure them?”
“We did secure them, but….”
The Aide trailed off again.
What was it this time?
Elowin forced herself to suppress her growing anxiety.
“No data remained at all.”
“…What do you mean by that?”
Elowin’s eyebrows twitched involuntarily.
“You said you secured the records?”
“The battle logs themselves were definitely transmitted. However, the data structure was corrupted.”
“The structure was corrupted?”
“It appears that an unidentified interference spreading across Whitewolf Territory blocked the records themselves.”
“Unidentified interference?”
“It matches what was described in Kalek Veloan’s report.”
Kalek Veloan, whom we had dispatched to Whitewolf Territory.
I naturally knew the contents of his report.
…But it was this severe?
Not merely blocking transmission, but interference that erased the records themselves from existence?
“It appears we must conclude that there is a mage of considerable power in Whitewolf Territory.”
Considerable was an understatement.
A danger rating of at least Grade 9.
Perhaps even Grade 10—such a mage existed in Whitewolf Territory.
Elowin closed her eyes.
Regardless.
It meant we had left no records whatsoever.
A complete operational failure—resources squandered with no data, no results.
But.
…Somehow, this too was manageable.
This operation had yet another objective.
Make contact with the arranged asset, gather intelligence, and if possible, secure her safety.
“What happened to the agents?”
Elowin asked.
“That is….”
The Aide hesitated again, struggling to find the words.
* * *
Jess was an operative of the Information Bureau.
He’d graduated from the training academy at Grade 6 and climbed to Grade 7 through years of fieldwork—an elite agent.
Currently serving as the ‘operation team leader’ for Operation [047-A], he’d planned to infiltrate Whitewolf Territory alongside other Information Bureau operatives, but….
“Team leader, this route is also blocked.”
“There are no alternate paths.”
The security of Whitewolf Territory was far too thorough.
There was no gap to slip through—until that moment.
“Next group, come forward!!”
Whitewolf Territory was accepting migrants at precisely that time.
If they blended into that procession, infiltration would be effortless.
They selected migrants with no local connections.
Silently eliminated them, then assumed their identities.
Thus they naturally joined the migrant column—
“You there. What’s your name?”
…They were caught.
A man with black hair and crimson eyes.
Adrian Whitewolf.
Despite flawless mimicry of speech and accent, Adrian saw through him instantly.
They called him the Saint of Caravana or some such.
Did he truly possess eyes that pierced through people’s souls?
‘…That couldn’t be.’
Jess knew that rumor had been deliberately fabricated by the Empire’s Information Bureau.
‘But how…?’
He was deeply unsettled.
Yet he quickly regained his composure.
Looking at it plainly—
Adrian seemed to be forcing imposters like Jess into conscription as soldiers of Whitewolf Territory.
…This was actually fortunate.
If he served as a conscripted soldier?
Extracting military intelligence from Whitewolf Territory would become far easier.
Adrian approached and spoke.
“I’ll give you a choice.”
First, be beaten to death here.
Second, die as a slave.
And finally, the third option.
“Spill everything you know, and die cleanly.”
“…?”
Before Jess could even finish his question—
Crack!
Adrian tore the heart from the agent standing beside Jess.
The agent couldn’t even scream before his breath stopped.
Adrian carelessly hurled the severed heart aside and pierced another agent’s chest.
Crunch!
With a sickening sound of tearing flesh, another agent’s heart was ripped free.
“W-what is this…!”
Soldiers from Whitewolf Territory surrounded the area.
Whether the migrants had been evacuated beforehand or not, the throngs that had filled the space moments ago had vanished.
‘…When did this happen?’
Only then did Jess grasp the gravity of the situation.
The encirclement was already complete.
There was no escape route in sight.
If that was the case, at least one of them had to survive.
Jess clenched his teeth.
“All units, combat formation!”
At Jess’s command, the agents drew their concealed weapons.
Every single one of them was a Grade 5 agent.
Elite operatives capable of annihilating an entire battalion.
These formidable agents moved into formation.
But then—
An agent in the front line collapsed.
His heart torn out, blood sprayed across the ground.
There had been no warning whatsoever.
Jess’s eyes widened in shock.
Boom—!!
A deafening sound followed belatedly.
No one had seen what attacked.
The agents in the front reflexively swung their weapons.
Their blades traced different arcs as they maintained formation.
Boom!
Another thunderous crash that made ears ring.
…The formation shattered.
Jess’s eyes widened in utter horror.
“…!!!”
A gust of wind swept across the obscured field of vision.
Adrian’s black hair fluttered in the breeze.
After that, little else was needed.
Adrian extended his hand forward with casual ease.
In that instant, something compressed violently erupted—
Three agents were sent flying through the air.
There were no screams.
They had either lost consciousness before their bodies hit the ground.
Or they were already dead.
…It was combat prowess that defied all reason.
Jess Ramora’s blood ran cold.
His face went rigid.
‘The rumors weren’t exaggerated after all…?’
If anything, they had been understated.
“T-Team Leader…!”
“What do we do now….”
The agents looked to him for guidance.
But Jess Ramora had no answer to give.
He himself had no idea what to do.
No, that wasn’t true. He did know.
They had to flee.
But how…?
The agents were being utterly decimated by Adrian.
The encirclement formed by the Whitewolf Territory soldiers was flawless.
If anything, they were steadily tightening the noose in perfect coordination with Adrian.
And so.
…they were all finished.
Only Jess Ramora remained standing.
Adrian approached, his footsteps deliberate and heavy.
He would have to take his own life.
But as if crushed by some invisible weight, Jess Ramora couldn’t move a muscle.
In that moment.
“Jess Ramora.”
His true name fell from Adrian’s lips.
Could it be that he had known everything from the start?
…How was that even possible?
“From now on, I will ask the questions. As for what answers you give, that is your choice.”
….
“However, should you speak lies, I will sever one of your fingers or toes.”
In other words.
“That means you can spout nonsense a total of twenty times.”
“….”
“Unless your fingers and toes don’t add up to twenty?”
Adrian examined Jess’s fingers and toes carefully.
“Ten each, all accounted for. Then let’s begin immediately.”
“….”
“First question.”
Adrian seized Jess’s thumb.
“Why did you kill innocent migrants?”
The moment the question left his lips, Jess’s thumb bent backward.
Crack!!
His thumb, wrenched against the wrist.
Excruciating agony surged through Jess’s spine and into his brain.
“Aaaaaaaaahhhhh!!!”
A scream tore from his throat involuntarily.
He… he couldn’t breathe.
Only the sound of choking filled his throat.
Adrian showed no reaction whatsoever.
No compassion, no anger, no disgust.
Even at the grotesque sight of bone protruding from flesh, he didn’t so much as furrow a brow.
He was disturbingly composed, as though torture were second nature to him.
“I should have mentioned—screaming now counts as nonsense too.”
Jess clamped his mouth shut.
The searing pain of shattered bone continued to claw up his throat.
Yet his lips remained sealed.
Adrian’s presence alone had made it so.
…Goosebumps erupted across his skin.
This was nothing like the rumors.
Not the reckless fool of Count Whitewolf’s House.
Certainly not the Saint of Caravana.
A demon of the battlefield.
Adrian was a beast who had trampled countless battlefields, staining them crimson with blood.
“Second question.”
The moment Adrian reached for another of Jess’s fingers, his body recoiled instinctively.
“Where is the Beast Lord Laboratory located?”
Jess’s eyes widened in an instant.
But he quickly caught himself and hastily composed his expression.
He feigned a pained grimace while his mind raced to fabricate an answer.
But.
“Thinking things over counts as ‘nonsense’ too.”
Crack!!
Another of Jess’s fingers snapped against the back of his hand without hesitation.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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