The Lord Who Levels Up by Devouring - Chapter 268

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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 268. The Road to The Empire (2)
…Was this a dream?
The thought flickered through Marzen’s mind.
This question had first crossed his consciousness when the Inspection Bureau Chief, Arce, and the Inspection Bureau agents surrounded him to kill him.
But immediately after.
When Kim Fujiwara stepped forward.
And when the Inspection Bureau agent perceived Kim Fujiwara.
Kim Fujiwara’s fist had already crushed the agent’s skull.
Splat!
The agent couldn’t even scream before his breath ceased on the spot.
Kim Fujiwara turned his head with utter composure, then grasped the throat of another nearby agent with a single hand.
Crack!
The sound of bone shattering under the grip echoed through the air.
The agent’s body lifted into the air, then went limp like a dead fish.
…Was this a dream?
The thought flickered through Marzen’s mind.
These Inspection Bureau agents were no ordinary soldiers.
Each one was elite.
Though they couldn’t compare to the Special Operations Bureau operatives, they were unparalleled masters within the Distribution Bureau.
Even a Master-rank warrior couldn’t kill them like this.
And Kim Fujiwara wasn’t even a Master-rank warrior.
He was a mage.
A brilliant intellect who had come to “understand” that a force called aura couldn’t possibly exist.
‘But what…?’
It was simply effortless.
Or perhaps “swift” was the better word.
The Inspection Bureau agents were being swept away helplessly.
Because of this, the Inspection Bureau Chief, Arce.
His expression grew wary.
And then, quietly.
He dragged his foot backward.
He intended to withdraw, having judged the opponent beyond his match.
It was selfish.
Yet simultaneously wise.
Marzen drew upon his mana to block Arce’s escape route.
However.
He soon realized there was no need.
The moment Arce’s feet moved.
Marzen could see it.
The brilliant gleam in Kim Fujiwara’s eyes.
‘Huh…?’
Marzen’s body trembled instinctively.
Arce leaned his upper body back instinctively.
But then—BOOM!
The raging shockwave sent Arce’s torso flying backward despite his attempt to dodge.
“What—what is this! Ugh…!!”
Arce’s body twisted through the air.
The moment he struck the ground.
The sickening sounds of shattering bone and tearing flesh echoed in succession.
Crack, thud! Splat!
Arce’s body lay limp.
His limbs bent at grotesque angles.
His neck was twisted halfway around.
…He did not move.
Viscous blood pooled across the ground.
And then.
“I was planning to keep him alive.”
Kim Fujiwara’s voice reached them.
When I turned to look, Kim Fujiwara was scratching the back of his head as if troubled.
“Controlling my strength is harder than I thought.”
…Marzen simply clamped his mouth shut.
* * *
The Attendant Secretary’s report of what had befallen Arce.
Barelto closed his eyes calmly.
Marzen, who had successfully brokered the Runesteel transaction.
To erase that achievement, Barelto had dispatched Arce and members of the Inspection Bureau.
But what was the result?
Total annihilation of the Inspection Bureau members, including Arce.
A devastating failure.
Though the details of the scene were not reported.
‘It wasn’t Marzen.’
Marzen could not have matched Arce.
In other words.
Someone else had intervened.
And in the current situation, there was only one person.
‘Kim Fujiwara.’
No one else.
Barelto swallowed once.
He had known it all along.
Despite his ridiculous name, Kim Fujiwara was a formidable master of extraordinary skill.
A monster that had pulverized the Distribution Bureau personnel en masse.
An uncontrollable variable.
‘That’s why I sent Arce.’
Yet even Arce was powerless against this existence.
An unexpected variable.
Truly an uncontrollable monster.
‘My calculations were completely wrong.’
Barelto opened his closed eyes.
Before him stood the Attendant Secretary, gauging his reaction.
And the question that followed.
“…What should we do?”
Barelto’s silver-blue eyes gleamed with sharp intensity.
* * *
Mangled corpses scattered in all directions.
…I never intended to go this far.
To be precise, that was never my intention.
Especially Arce, the Inspection Bureau Commander—I meant to keep him alive.
I planned to extract information from him thoroughly.
I intended to wring out everything he knew.
But he died.
No—he’s dead.
…It was because my power was excessively strong.
Or rather, I couldn’t control it.
I barely grazed him.
I held back as much as I could when I struck.
Arce wasn’t even directly hit.
He was merely caught in the shockwave, not by a direct impact.
Yet he died.
Arce’s entire body twisted and broken.
He was a skilled warrior who should never have fallen so pathetically.
‘…It’s too strong.’
The physical stats I gained in the Valley of Kardun.
Transcendent abilities including S-grade muscle cells and more.
I had unconsciously underestimated this uncontrollable weapon-like power.
‘I thought Arce at least could withstand it.’
It was a miscalculation.
My miscalculation, to be exact.
To be precise, there was an unexpected variable I hadn’t anticipated.
None other than the surging Rilseinium energy roiling within my body.
Kwaaaaaarrrrrrgh─!!
The tremendous calories required for Choi’s muscle fibers [S-].
I supplied it all at once.
This allowed my physical abilities to remain constantly at 100% capacity.
In fact, I oversupplied it, pushing my output beyond 100%.
Craaaaaaaaaaaash─!!!
My body was absolutely raging out of control.
Rillenium’s vast energy was forcibly amplifying my body.
Constant metabolic runaway [U].
That’s what it was.
But the problem was—
‘This is way too much.’
My current heart rate had reached 600 beats per minute.
The excessive blood flow tore through my blood vessels.
A pain like my nerves were being ripped apart surged to the top of my head.
The vessel to receive this power was too weak.
The power was shattering the vessel itself.
‘I need to push my stats even higher than this.’
But wait.
Is this even right?
Strength/Agility/Endurance.
Each pure stat alone was 5,000, 4,000, and 6,000 respectively.
By stats alone, that was equivalent to 15,000 adult men combined.
Yet my body couldn’t withstand it.
Did that even make sense?
Then how much higher would I need to push my stats to handle this?
‘Still, it’s holding up fairly well—’
At that moment.
A hot, metallic taste surging into my mouth.
“Gack…!”
A handful of blood spilled from my lips.
Great power brings great responsibility? That was nonsense.
Great power required great stats.
“…Ugh.”
I barely managed to catch my breath.
True to my words, my body was holding up fairly well.
In other words, it wasn’t purely a matter of physical stats.
I calmly examined my body.
And soon.
I understood the cause.
‘…A bottleneck phenomenon.’
Rilselenium’s vast energy wasn’t circulating properly through my body.
And that made sense—the maximum calories my current body could accommodate were:
◆Current maximum storable calories: 1,692,500,000 Kcal.
Roughly 1.69 billion calories.
A figure that held its own even when compared to the storage tank of the Arcanoheart, a mana thermonuclear fusion device.
But a single milligram of Rilselenium contained:
◆81,500,000,000 Kcal
A staggering 8.15 billion calories.
More than a fifty-fold difference.
And the calories I could actually utilize were absurdly lower still.
◆Current maximum usable calories: 1,628,000 Kcal.
Approximately 1.628 million calories.
In the end, my body could only absorb 1.69 billion calories out of the 8.15 billion available.
And even then, I could only channel roughly 1.628 million calories through my system.
What happened to the remaining calories?
They simply detonated on their own.
Boom! Kaboom! Kaboom!!
They were tearing my body apart.
What kept me from shattering entirely was my physical stats.
And various transcendent abilities like my S-rank muscle cells and others.
In other words, my current body could ‘manage’ Rilselenium reasonably well.
But my storage capacity was too small.
The conduits were impossibly narrow.
‘I need to increase my maximum caloric capacity first.’
After that, I’d have to widen the conduits.
The method was Predation [S+].
I could acquire various genetic abilities from living organisms.
‘But is there a creature that can accommodate 8.15 billion calories…?’
…Did one even exist?
I wasn’t certain.
Within the scope of evolutionary biology I knew, there wasn’t one.
Therefore, there probably wasn’t.
Even if one did exist?
Who knows.
It would have gone extinct long ago.
‘It would have already destroyed the entire ecosystem.’
If a creature that powerful had existed, the ecosystem couldn’t possibly have remained intact.
So there were only two possibilities.
A legendary monster from mythology.
‘Or an artificially created organism.’
Not evolution, but a monster born from someone’s intent and design.
A lifeform that cannot be explained by biological evolution.
‘In the end, there’s only the Beast Lord.’
Irreducible complexity.
(Irreducible Complexity).
There was nothing else.
In that sense.
‘It would be nice if I could access the Imperial Palace Underground Laboratory.’
The Emperor’s laboratory for creating the Beast Lord.
That place was teeming with all manner of rare monsters from across the Continent.
That’s precisely why Marzen needed to be elevated to the upper echelons of the Empire.
‘It’s unfortunate for now.’
The path to the Empire.
I’ll have to be satisfied with being able to devour [S+] a rare monster that hasn’t gone extinct yet.
* * *
The cargo wagon carrying the rune iron ore drew closer to the Empire Border.
Marzen’s tension grew correspondingly taut.
Even a passing breeze made him flinch.
His eyes trembled.
His hands were already wreathed in mana.
Every sense mobilized in preparation for an attack, when—
“I’m back.”
A familiar voice reached his ears.
Kim Fujiwara emerged into view.
Where had he gone—
No, what had he been doing? Blood was smeared across his lips.
Marzen’s vigilance deepened further.
Kim Fujiwara then tilted his head and asked.
“Why are you so on edge?”
“Did you have a skirmish?”
“A skirmish, you say?”
Marzen gestured with his eyes toward the blood at Kim Fujiwara’s lips.
“Ah, this?”
Kim Fujiwara wiped away the blood from his lips with the back of his hand.
“I did have a skirmish, that’s true.”
Wipe, wipe.
“But not the kind you’re thinking of.”
“What do you mean?”
“It wasn’t an attack from Barelto.”
Kim Fujiwara smiled.
Every time I saw her, I felt dizzy from her beauty.
But Marzen did not lower his guard.
Instead, he grew even more alert, scrutinizing his surroundings.
Kim Fujiwara asked, observing Marzen’s demeanor.
“Are you anxious that Barelto might attack again?”
“…Yes.”
Marzen answered briefly.
It was the truth, after all.
Even the sound of wind made me uneasy.
Then Kim Fujiwara spoke with a smile on his face.
“There was once a young man in a village who farmed with an ox.”
“…?”
Marzen’s eyes filled with confusion.
What? Why now?
Was he really telling a folktale at a time like this?
Marzen’s brow furrowed.
But Kim Fujiwara continued undeterred.
“The ox worked very well, but it had one flaw.”
“….”
“The horns on its head were crooked.”
“….”
“The young man was displeased with this.”
“….”
“So he bound the horns with cloth and pulled with all his might, straightening them this way and that.”
But days later.
“The horns were torn out by the roots, and the ox died.”
“….”
“Had he simply left it alone, the ox would have plowed the fields its entire life. What was so important about crooked horns?”
“….”
“He tried to fix something needlessly and ruined the important harvest, destroying the young man’s life entirely.”
“…What are you trying to say?”
Marzen asked.
Kim Fujiwara replied.
“This rune steel transaction is a very great harvest, one that even the current ruler takes interest in.”
“….”
“It’s just.”
Kim Fujiwara pointed at Marzen with his finger.
“The ox’s horn called Marzen happens to be crooked in a displeasing way.”
“….”
“So Barelto tried to straighten the horn, but look what happened.”
“….”
“Why does the ox throw a tantrum? In the end, it only injured its own hands.”
“….”
“From the start, horns like that couldn’t be straightened merely by binding and pulling with cloth.”
“….”
“And since it will surely go mad again, we’ll need to employ a more drastic method this time. Generally speaking, when an ox throws a fit, a cudgel is the cure.”
Kim Fujiwara dropped his smile and continued.
“What do you suppose Barelto would do?”
Marzen understood.
The hidden intention behind Kim Fujiwara’s words, spoken as though in jest.
“Would he employ even more drastic methods to straighten the crooked horns of an ox named Marzen once again?”
Or perhaps.
“Would he leave the crooked horns as they are and focus on the harvest instead?”
Marzen answered calmly.
“…It seems he would focus on the harvest.”
“Well, I’m not entirely certain myself.”
Kim Fujiwara smiled broadly.
“For Marzen to become Chancellor, you must know when to pluck the fruit you cannot eat, but also when to abandon it boldly if it cannot be taken.”
“….”
“Do you understand?”
Marzen nodded slowly, but with absolute certainty.
* * *
Kim Fujiwara’s words proved true.
Barelto made no further attacks after that.
As though he would focus on the great harvest called Rune Steel.
As though he would boldly abandon the fruit he could not eat.
Until now, standing at the very threshold of the Empire Border, there had been no attacks, no pursuit, no surveillance.
Marzen gazed at Kim Fujiwara.
…It was truly astonishing.
No—it had become miraculous.
That impossible beauty to begin with.
Impossible martial prowess.
Impossible insight.
Impossible discernment.
“We shall soon enter the territory of the Empire.”
And even that impossible composure.
One could believe him to be a dragon rather than a man.
No—even a dragon would not be this formidable.
“For now, we shall proceed directly to the Distribution Bureau headquarters.”
Marzen nodded in agreement.
A strange energy coursed down my spine.
My shoulders tensed with anticipation.
Because this was where the real game began.
Runesteel—a vast fortune at stake.
And Barelto—a formidable opponent.
Not a single misstep, not a moment of carelessness could be tolerated.
Yet I felt no anxiety.
Strangely, I remained composed.
Kim Fujiwara Bloodhound.
The mere fact that he stood on my side was enough to steady my nerves.
“Once we arrive at the Distribution Bureau headquarters, we’ll meet with Barelto immediately. Steel yourself for what’s to come.”
I nodded silently in acknowledgment.
A confrontation with Barelto.
In essence, it was a direct clash against the entire Distribution Bureau of the Empire.
Yet Kim Fujiwara showed not the slightest sign of tension or fear.
As always, he remained unhurried and composed.
Once again.
I could truly comprehend it.
…exactly who I had chosen to stand beside.
And so.
The carriage bearing the Runesteel safely crossed the Empire Border.

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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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