The Lord Who Levels Up by Devouring - Chapter 306

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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 306. A Dragon Has Nothing But Yawns to Discard (2)
Monsters.
In truth, monsters were never native to The Continent.
They appeared suddenly at some point, yet no one could pinpoint the exact moment when their existence became known.
Every scholar held a different view and opinion.
Even those were merely hypotheses lacking proper evidence.
The only explanation available was the vague phrase “ages immemorial.”
But as for the question of “how” monsters came to be—
On this matter alone, all scholars reached a consensus.
Mutation of wild animals.
A whale’s mutation gave birth to the monster called “Ogre.”
A koala’s mutation gave birth to the monster called “Troll.”
A cactus’s mutation gave birth to the monster called “Cactus Knight.”
Thus, fauna and flora underwent mutations, diverging into new species, and through repeated evolution, they became what we know today as the monster race.
And so, the animal kingdom and plant kingdom—
Gave rise to a third biological classification entirely: the “monster kingdom.”
And the mutative factor that transformed animals and plants into monsters—
Scholars named this mutative factor “Madness.”
Therefore, all monsters possess “Madness.”
Madness dwells within a monster’s body.
For this reason, monsters cannot be consumed as food.
Crunch, crunch.
Except for me.
Fafnir’s flesh filling my mouth.
As I swallowed it down my throat—
◆3,511 Kcal has been accumulated.
The calories of the supreme ruler reigning over all things accumulated throughout my body—
◆The Successor’s Will [EX] resists the Madness of Dragon’s Blood!
◆345 Sanity points have been accumulated.
The Madness, concentrated over countless ages, also accumulated throughout my body.
I bit into the piece of Fafnir’s flesh in my hand once more.
“Eeeeeek?!”
Seraphia’s eyes went wide as she cried out.
Then she raised her hand eagerly.
“Me too! Can I try some too?!”
“Nope.”
I shook my head firmly.
“What? Why not!”
“‘Cause the Madness would—”
Gulp.
“Madness is condensed within it. You cannot consume it.”
“But older brother, you’re fine with it!”
“I am fine, Seraphia, but you are not.”
…Or am I?
Could Seraphia also be fine with it?
After all, thanks to our mental resonance, Seraphia was being influenced by the Successor’s will.
In fact, she had even resisted the power of oblivion within the Royal Social Society.
Perhaps she could also withstand madness.
‘But it’s not worth experimenting over.’
She could potentially transform into The Frost Lord.
It was no gamble worth taking just to taste a bit of meat.
“That’s so unfair….”
Seraphia’s small shoulders drooped.
She pouted her lips and made her displeasure abundantly clear.
“Just one bite, really just one bite. Okay?”
“No.”
At that, Seraphia’s eyes looking at me turned sly.
Her cheeks puffed out and her gaze turned pouty.
It was as if she were saying, ‘You’re so mean!’
“Even if you’re being cute about it, the answer is no.”
“Huh, huh!?”
Seraphia trembled visibly.
Her quivering eyes clearly showed panic—’How did you know?!’
“It’s written all over your face.”
“Ugh, ugghhhhh!!”
Seraphia hurriedly covered her face with her hands.
Even so, she kept peeking at me through her fingers—
“Fine… I understand….”
She finally gave up and retreated with a dejected expression.
I tossed the last morsel of meat into my mouth.
Then I spoke to Broombar, whose expression had turned utterly bewildered.
“Broombar.”
“….”
“Broombar.”
“….”
“Broombar?”
“…Ah, yes. Right.”
His face was blank, as if his soul had left his body.
Broombar cleared his throat several times to regain his composure.
“W-what is it?”
“Since we’ve come this far, I was hoping you could help me butcher the Dragon.”
“Butcher…?”
Broombar’s soul departed from his body once more.
And for good reason—butchering referred to ‘the act of obtaining meat or hide’.
Using such terminology for a Dragon, called the sovereign of all creation, felt somewhat crude.
Extraction, disassembly, processing, refinement—
these terms would have been more fitting.
‘Either way, it’s the same.’
In my case, butchering was the more appropriate word.
Regardless.
Even Dwarven craftsmanship couldn’t handle a Dragon.
“If you tell me which parts you need, I’ll butcher it for you.”
I activated my single-molecule blade [S].
* * *
Adrian drew his fingernail across the Dragon’s belly scales.
The Dragon’s scales split open cleanly.
“Whack!”
“Wack!”
The Dwarves shrieked and leaped to their feet.
And no wonder—an aether drill couldn’t even leave a scratch on it.
So what was this?
Splitting it open with a fingernail?
With nothing more than a human’s fingernail?
With a Mohs hardness of merely 2.5?
“What kind of alloy is that fingernail made of?”
“Is it an aura blade or something?”
“Even an aura blade can’t do that!!”
Every Dwarf’s jaw hung slack.
Regardless of their shock.
Adrian calmly butchered (?) the Dragon’s corpse.
Peeling away the scales.
Incising along the tendons.
Organizing tissue along the nervous system, separating joints, removing ligaments….
“Y-you’re skilled…?”
This was no novice’s work.
He was actually better than the Dwarves themselves.
Even a master craftsman who had honed his disassembly techniques for decades would have been left speechless watching Adrian’s work.
It made sense.
No one in the history of The Continent had ever disassembled a Dragon before!
There had never been a Dragon corpse to begin with.
And the very tools needed to mar such a corpse don’t exist in this world!
“This… this is absurd….”
“How is this even possible….”
The Dwarves erupted in exclamations—whether of admiration or shock, none could say.
In the meantime.
The byproducts of the Dragon I had butchered (?) were being stacked neatly one after another.
Scales, claws, bones, teeth, tendons, muscle fibers, ligaments, and more.
Every single piece was a treasure beyond waste.
Yet among these treasures, there existed one supreme treasure above all others.
That which I was now extracting from within the Dragon’s body.
A mass the size of an entire building.
And that structure—composed of blood vessels and tissue clumped together—was.
“Is that… the Dragon’s heart…?”
A Dragon Heart.
The source of energy that had endured thousands of years.
The highest-grade mana core on The Continent—capable of storing, with only slight exaggeration, enough energy to power the entirety of The Continent itself.
A heart that proved mythology itself through its very existence.
Therefore, among the Dwarves, few possessed the skill to refine and craft such a thing.
In fact, there was only one.
“Broombar.”
The master of Arcane Engineering, Broombar.
I exhaled sharply and continued.
“Could you craft a magical staff from this?”
“….”
Broombar fell momentarily silent.
Not because it was impossible.
It was possible, and he could roughly ‘envision’ what manner of magical staff would emerge.
Amplifying the user’s mana was merely the foundation.
Distorting time itself to enable spell pre-casting, and.
Even forcibly warping certain laws of the world—such an ultimate staff would be born.
Yet conversely.
“It could be crafted in other forms as well.”
It need not be a staff—something else would serve just as well.
Something equally powerful and mythical could emerge.
For instance, a core for the Whitewolf Territory that would endure for centuries.
Or perhaps.
A power source for a mobile Arcane Engineering fortress.
Whatever form it took, something mythical was assured to manifest.
“But I thought it would be best to give it to Iliana.”
I intended to bestow it upon one person alone.
No, it wasn’t just one person.
“Soon I’ll need to work on the Dragon’s lungs, but I’m planning to leave that task for Rielin.”
A Dragon’s lungs were the organs that circulated the flow of mana.
They were powerful catalysts for spirit magic in their own right.
“The teeth would be perfect to give to Kai….”
Dragon teeth possessed unparalleled mana affinity and hardness.
Weapons crafted from them would amplify the user’s aura, and they were the finest material for someone like Kai who imbued his will into his blade.
“The bones and claws would be suitable as weapons for the soldiers.”
Dragon bones and claws rivaled aura blades.
Moreover, they didn’t repel mana, so soldiers who had just awakened their aura could now see a wide path open before them toward becoming true masters.
“The wing bones would be best used to craft bows for the Elves….”
Dragon wing bones retained the characteristics of avian creatures—hollow yet possessing remarkable rigidity.
Since birds were descended from Dragons in the first place, their light and flexible wing structure was perfectly optimized for spirit archery.
Thus, I methodically organized my plans for utilizing the Dragon’s byproducts.
And yet.
“The rest, please feel free to use as you see fit, Dwarves.”
For myself, there was nothing.
I hadn’t set aside a single thing for myself.
Even before treasures that could be called the greatest in all of Continental history, I distributed everything to others rather than keeping anything for myself.
Broombar’s eyes widened noticeably.
Rielin bit her lip.
The Dwarves too fell silent, not uttering a single word.
Only one person.
“What about me?!”
Seraphia alone shot her hand up.
Everyone around was filled with admiration and emotion.
But not Seraphia.
It was already frustrating that she couldn’t eat Dragon meat, and now she had no Dragon equipment either.
For some reason.
Seraphia felt like she alone had been left out.
“Don’t I get anything?!”
“Seraphia, you don’t.”
“Huh?”
“It means you have no use for it.”
“What?”
“Did you see the Dragon use magic?”
“…?”
It didn’t use magic?
It absolutely did! Tremendously! Incredibly! Didn’t it use magic spectacularly?
Wasn’t that why Dragons were called the originators of magic?
“I’ve skipped over quite a bit, but to put it simply, Seraphia—your power surpasses that of a Dragon.”
“Eh?”
“Therefore, Dragon equipment cannot fully contain your strength. It would only serve as shackles upon you.”
…Is that… really so?
“In the first place, no equipment in this world exists that could contain your power.”
“….”
“Just as the Dragon channels the energy it would use for draconic utterances into its own evolution, so too would it be far more efficient for you, Seraphia, to hone and refine your own strength.”
“Ah….”
Seraphia blinked her eyes.
To be honest.
‘I don’t understand a single word of this!’
Draconic utterances? Energy? Evolution?
It was all terribly confusing.
Yet still, I could grasp the meaning.
Even Dragon equipment could not contain the authority of the Frost Lord, so I should not rely upon equipment but instead focus on refining that authority.
So while it made sense, somehow…
“…Yes, I understand.”
I felt just a tiny bit disappointed.
Seraphia swallowed her disappointment and nodded.
In that moment.
“With that in mind, from now on I shall teach you how to wield your authority.”
“What? You will, brother?”
“Yes.”
“You’ll teach me directly?!”
“Yes.”
“Really?! Truly?!”
“Yes. I shall teach you, step by step, how to control your power and draw it forth even greater.”
“That’s absolutely amazing!!!”
Seraphia could not contain her joy and bounced excitedly.
Whether it was a Dragon or a lizard or whatever else.
None of it mattered to me anymore.
For there was nothing in this world better than time spent with Adrian.
“When do we start?! I’m ready right now!”
“Not right now. I must butcher the beast first.”
“Then when shall we begin? In thirty minutes? Or an hour?!”
“Neither thirty minutes nor an hour will suffice.”
“Then when?!”
“I must prepare myself to teach as well… Seven days hence should be suitable.”
“Yes!!”
Seraphia clenched her fists tightly.
Adrian let out a soft chuckle and spoke.
“Make sure the administrative work of Whitewolf Territory doesn’t pile up before then. Well, Yggdrasil will probably handle most of it anyway.”
“Yes!! I’ll go right now and work super hard to finish a whole month’s worth of work!!”
Seraphia dashed toward the Administrative Office.
* * *
Seraphia rushed into the Administrative Office, her silver hair streaming in all directions.
Judging by her enthusiasm alone, she looked ready to finish not just a month’s work, but a year’s worth.
I watched her for a moment before returning to my work.
A body length of a mere 100 meters.
Butchering it had taken an enormous amount of time.
There were countless byproducts, but not all of a dragon’s byproducts were useful.
Since it had been dead for so long, there were patches of necrotic tissue throughout.
Particularly the stomach, pancreas, and spleen.
The digestive organs had begun decomposing from within, their tissues blackened and ruined.
‘I can’t use this.’
Sensory organs like the tongue and nose, whose primary function relied on sensory cells, were difficult to utilize as weapons, armor, or alchemical materials.
Normally, I would have had to dispose of everything—
‘But I can just consume all of this myself.’
It was perfectly suited for accumulating Sanity points to transcend Predation [S+].
Truly.
This dragon had almost nothing to waste.
‘In that sense, it’s fortunate I didn’t predation [S+] Fafnir.’
More accurately, I hadn’t been able to.
But thanks to T-Rex extracting Fafnir’s essence, I hadn’t lost the mutant [S+] genetic factors.
As a result, I was able to obtain the dragon heart and other byproducts as well.
Two rabbits.
Or rather, I had caught both dragons.
‘I was just wondering what to do about equipment for Whitewolf Territory’s soldiers.’
Soldiers who had recently begun wielding aura.
Equipment made from my biological resources wasn’t suitable for them.
Anti-Mana.
My biological equipment didn’t merely reject aura—it actively ‘repelled’ it.
It corrupted aura and blocked its flow.
If they used aura?
Their combat power would actually diminish.
But dragon equipment was different.
Dragons were beings that wielded Mana itself.
Aura, sorcery, magical power, divine energy, ether—
It was compatible with any form of energy.
Therefore, not only could I strengthen Whitewolf Territory’s overall power, but I could also elevate the growth potential of my heroes far beyond their current limits.
I should make equipment for Isolde as well.
The Ogre gear I’d given her before was serviceable, but it couldn’t compare to Dragon equipment.
They weren’t even in the same league across every metric.
◆In exchange, I could give Isolde something hot and rich like a k—!
…but I’d already preemptively blocked such thoughts.
I carefully butchered the Dragon’s muscle fibers with precision.
Then, suddenly.
A question surfaced in my mind.
“Ah, now that I think about it.”
I immediately asked Broombar.
“What happened to Feractrum?”

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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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