The Lord Who Levels Up by Devouring - LLD Chapter 10. A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing (1) (Part 1)

==[Don’t be mistaken. This alliance is for this time only.]==
[Objective] – Earn Kai’s acknowledgment.
[Reward] – Increase in Kai’s Affection
[Failure] – Death

Lines of translucent text filled my vision.

But both the objective and the reward…
It wasn’t just unimpressive, it was downright useless.
Except for the fact that the failure penalty was death, which made it hard to simply ignore.

It seemed like the quest had been force-accepted.

This was the third time such a quest had appeared—after the Tutorial Quest and the Main Quest—this one being an “Affection” quest.

“Affection?”

The moment I asked, more translucent lines of text unfurled in front of me.

Affection represents how a specific character perceives the [Player].

It serves as a measure of the [Player]’s relationships and is divided into 3 tiers, with 9 status levels.

First is the Conflict Tier.
Characters in this tier dislike the player. It includes:
[Hatred, Loathing, Anger, Discord] (4 stages).

Next is the Neutral Tier, where the character has no particular feelings toward the player.
This tier contains only one state: [Indifference].

Finally, the Interest Tier, where the character takes a positive interest in the player.
This includes: [Familiarity, Favor, Trust, Affection] (4 stages).

Listed in order, the states are:
Hatred < Loathing < Anger < Discord < Indifference < Familiarity < Favor < Trust < Affection

The explanation went on for quite a bit.
I read through it calmly.
It wasn’t difficult to understand.

But… that was it.

“So what?”

Raising Affection didn’t seem to have any particular benefit.
It didn’t grant additional stats.
It didn’t unlock artifacts like [Inventory].
It didn’t even offer any unique abilities.

There was no reason to waste time trying to raise Affection.

…Or so I thought.

◆ So you’re thinking, “What good is raising Affection?” huh?

As if it had read my thoughts, more translucent lines of text appeared.

You couldn’t be more wrong!

Characters in the Interest Tier may offer very special rewards, so it’s highly recommended to build Affection!

On the flip side, characters in the Conflict Tier may pose a lethal threat, so again, we strongly encourage building Affection!

Please note: characters at the extremes—[Hatred] and [Affection]—may be unreachable no matter what you do, so proceed with caution.

After all, truly hating someone enough to want them dead is hard.
And truly loving someone more than your own life is even harder!

“Hmm…”

So maybe it wasn’t completely useless.
As the system said, there were “very special rewards.”

Whether those rewards came from the quest itself or the person whose Affection was raised, I didn’t know.

But clearly, they weren’t rewards to be ignored.
And there was another matter.
If Affection dropped to the Conflict Tier, I could be risking my life.

In other words, managing Affection was important.

On that note, Kai’s Affection toward me was: [Hatred].
The very bottom. The status of someone who really hated me—

◆ Kai possesses aggressive intent to destroy and kill you!
◆ Given any excuse, Kai will absolutely kill and erase you!

…Or so it says.

The system was adamant about making sure I fully understood what [Hatred] meant.
It felt like it had been reading my mind since earlier.

“So what do you want me to do about it?”

I waved my hand and scattered the hovering messages in front of me.

Sorry, but I have zero intention of raising Kai’s Affection.
Naturally, I also have no intention of doing Kai’s Affection Quest.

Quests merely offer direction.
How I achieve the objective is entirely my call.

And there’s no rule saying I must follow the quest’s direction.

In other words, not doing a quest is also my freedom.
Even if a quest is force-accepted, whether I perform it or not is my choice.

Of course, I’ll bear the consequences of that choice.

So be it.

◆ Waaaahhh! Waaahhhhhhh!!

The system started screaming at me with warning chimes, urging me to raise Kai’s Affection.
It shouted things like “You couldn’t be more wrong!” trying its best to persuade me.

I ignored it.

I’m the one who couldn’t be more wrong? My ass.

“I want to kill Kai too, you know.”

I also had an aggressive desire to destroy and kill Kai.
If given the right excuse, I would absolutely kill and erase him.

Which means my Affection toward Kai was also [Hatred].

Even if the failure penalty of the quest was death, I could just kill Kai first and remove the quest entirely.

I never had any intention of letting Kai live in the first place.
Why the hell would I let the Commander of the Frost Legion live?

If Kai’s fall had been caused by Serapia, maybe I would’ve reconsidered.

Then I could’ve spared him.
Just killing Serapia would’ve been enough.

Without Serapia, Kai wouldn’t have been corrupted.
And by raising his Affection, I could’ve recruited him—he would’ve been a huge asset.

But Kai didn’t become a Death Knight because of Serapia.

He became a Lich on his own.

He transcended everything with his own will.
Even without Serapia, he could have corrupted himself alone.

Which means both Serapia and Kai had to die.

Most of all, Ian only regretted killing Serapia.
He didn’t utter a single word of regret about Kai.

So there’s no issue killing Kai right now.

Honestly, I wanted to kill him earlier during that standoff.

The only reason I didn’t was simple.

“You’re still too strong.”

Because I couldn’t kill him.

He was too powerful.

It was only because he held back, aiming to subdue me.
If he had drawn his blade with the intent to kill, I wouldn’t have even had time to react.
I would’ve died instantly.

Hell, even in my past life, when I was the United Forces’ Predator, I couldn’t handle Kai.

As the special ops commander, I had completed countless missions.
I’d killed more than my fair share of imperial legion commanders.

I definitely possessed power above the level of a commander.

But Kai, the Commander of the Frost Legion, was an exception.

There was one mission where I encountered him…
All I could do was run away with my life.

If I couldn’t handle him in my past life, there was no way I could now after regressing.

Of course, Kai had also regressed.
Now, he was no longer a legion commander, just the chief knight of the House of Whitewolf.

Even so, a monster is still a monster.

“It’s true then. The Royal Guard really did send a love call.”

At this point in the regression, Kai was now twenty years old.
Two years older than me—but his talent and achievements weren’t the kind of thing that could be bridged by two years… more like twenty.

Of course, that’s assuming I hadn’t acquired Ian’s ability.

But I had.

Thanks to Ian’s ability, Solo Leveling [EX], I could grow infinitely stronger.
Thanks to Ian’s ability, Player’s Will [EX], I could endlessly use Predation [S+].

So I didn’t have time to waste on things like favorability or whatnot.

“I need to get some nutrients in me first.”

Ignoring the loud messages that flashed before me, I headed toward the dining hall in the Lord’s castle.