The Lord Who Levels Up by Devouring - LLD Chapter 74: Threads of Fate (Part 1)

Before heading to the lawless city of Baoless—

I stopped by the commercial city of Frecce first.

The reason was none other than Serapia’s medicine.

Currently, Serapia was unconscious.

Fortunately(?) she wasn’t in immediate danger.

That’s because the 241 days spent inside the Infinite Labyrinth only applied to the Labyrinth itself.
Outside, barely two days had passed.

Still, I needed to check whether the medicine had been completed before I left.

Commercial City, Frecce.

It had been eight months since I last came to Frecce.

But nothing had changed.

Again, because only 241 days had passed in the Infinite Labyrinth.
It would’ve been weirder if things had changed.

As I strolled through the streets of Frecce—

“It’s been a while since we came to Frecce.”

Someone suddenly stuck close to me and started speaking.

The blonde-haired knight with swaying locks—Kai.

“I told you to go ahead to the County. Why did you follow me?”

“I had no particular reason.”

He obviously had a reason.
I just couldn’t read his mind.

If I could understand a madman, wouldn’t that make me one too?

“Let’s go.”

…Whatever.

I shook my head and continued walking.

Eventually, we arrived in front of Adelon’s store.

When I opened the door—

Adelon, who had been sitting at the counter, suddenly jumped to his feet.

“Welcome—!”

Then he saw my face.

His eyes widened in surprise—

“You’ve returned!! Lord Adrian!!!”

He immediately bent at a 90-degree angle—

Thunk!

And slammed his head into the counter with force.
Hard enough to make me wonder if his skull cracked.

“Owww…”

Thankfully, it didn’t seem like it cracked, as he raised his head while rubbing his forehead furiously.

Then he noticed Kai standing next to me and tilted his head.

“And the person beside you is…?”

“A leech.”

“Pardon? A leech…?”

“You don’t need to pay attention. Just treat him like one.”

Kai gave me a sour look, but I ignored him.

“Anyway, what happened with what we discussed last time?”

“If you’re referring to your sister’s medicine… Ahem!”

Adelon cleared his throat, straightening his posture.

Just from the look in his eyes, I could tell he was about to go into a long-winded explanation—

“When Lord Adrian left, I thought to myself—how should I handle this matter most quickly and efficiently—”

“Just the result.”

“…We still haven’t found an alchemist willing to take the commission.”

Adelon answered with a deflated look, like a scolded weasel.

“I even distributed flyers at the Mage Association, but no one wanted to accept the request…”

He bowed deeply, as if utterly ashamed.

“Was there a specific reason?”

“The consensus was that the difficulty was simply too high.”

The cause of Serapia’s illness—Curse of Frost [P].
It was a symptom of something called supernatural thermal energy deficiency.

Clearly, it wasn’t a common condition.
Creating a cure for it was far beyond ordinary capabilities.

More than that, the required ingredients were no joke either:

• Heart of Flame, an essence of condensed fire energy.
• Sun Grass, a rare plant that absorbs solar energy.
• Magma Heat Tonic, a mineral condensed from magma deep inside a volcano.
• Flame of Dawn, a rare essence that can only be collected at certain places during sunrise, and only for a limited time.

Each of those ingredients cost a whopping 20,000 gold.

“If they messed up the ingredients, the compensation alone would be unaffordable.”

Just a single mistake meant up to 80,000 gold in damages.
No wonder no one dared touch the job.

“I’m sorry…”

Adelon bowed even lower, blaming himself.

But this wasn’t his fault.

Curse of Frost [P]—the [P] signified Primal.
It wasn’t part of the typical ranking system for biological evolution skills (F to S).
Instead, it denoted a special class of powers.

So far, the known hierarchy of these was:

Rare [R] < Unique [U] < Epic [E] < Legendary [L] < Mythical [M] < Primal [P]

Primal [P] was the absolute peak.
Treating an illness at that level was no simple task.

‘If I knew it would come to this, I should’ve had Avarus make the medicine.’

The mad alchemist, Avarus.

But as crazy as he was, Avarus was the real deal.

There were almost no alchemists on the continent who could rival him.

Creating homunculi wasn’t easy.
You had to be a high-level mage who had mastered alchemy.

In other words, now that Avarus was gone, the cultists who worshipped corrupt souls could no longer produce homunculi either.

Which also meant that Avarus had enough skill to create Serapia’s medicine.
In that sense, the Infinite Elixir could even be seen as a prototype of the medicine Avarus had been crafting for Serapia.

But thinking about it again—

‘It wouldn’t have mattered.’

There was no way Avarus would’ve obediently made the cure.
Besides, he’d already lost his mind.
In his state, he couldn’t make anything.

“Did you look into the Magic Tower?”

“Of course. But even they…”

Apparently, the Magic Tower had also declined the request.

But there wasn’t just one tower on the continent.

“What about the Langrid Magic Tower?”

The Langrid Magic Tower—
It was founded thousands of years ago by the great sage Arcanis Lilseyn, who first devised how to convert Mana into Mana Force, a usable energy source.

Arcanis was the first to reproduce the phenomenon of magic using mana.
He is known today as the First Magician and the founder of Magicology.

He taught magic to humanity, hoping to bring change to the world—
and made sure anyone who wished to learn magic had the opportunity to do so.

That was the founding spirit behind the Langrid Magic Tower.

The tower had carried on for millennia, producing countless sages and mages.
It became the birthplace of all magical knowledge on the continent and the cradle of magicians everywhere.

“…Langrid doesn’t normally accept outside commissions.”

Adelon replied with a troubled look.

That didn’t mean they never accepted requests.
As he’d said himself, they rarely did.

“With the power of our Merchant Guild, it’s simply impossible…”

That’s right—what power the Guild had wasn’t enough.

The Langrid Magic Tower was a holy ground for all mages across the continent.

Even just the overwhelming flood of requests from all the prestigious noble houses and kingdoms scattered throughout the continent was immense. It wasn’t a place you could even step into unless your name carried serious weight.

Even a Merchant Guild only held influence within the Free City.
It didn’t have the kind of power necessary to commission the Langrid Magic Tower.

Of course, it wasn’t like I didn’t already know that.

I reached into my inventory and dumped a pile of gold coins onto the counter.

Clink-clatter-clank—!

A torrent of gold coins spilled out from the Infinite Inventory,
piling into a mountain on the counter—

“One thousand platinum coins. That’s a million gold.”

Adelon’s eyes bulged wide.
A merchant through and through—he wasn’t staring at the Infinite Inventory, but at the one million gold.

There’s an old saying:
If something can’t be done with money, maybe you just don’t have enough of it.

“Put it all up as the request fee.”
“Eek—?!”

When I spoke as casually as if I were placing a bounty, Adelon jumped in shock.

A ridiculous sum for a request to make a single medicine.

But I had no choice if I wanted to heal Serapia.
And if it meant getting a chance to speak face-to-face with the Archmage of the Allied Forces, it was neither excessive nor a waste.

Besides, I still had more than twenty million gold left in the Infinite Inventory.

“There should be a mage named Iliana at the Langrid Magic Tower. Put out the request and make sure to get in contact with Arch—no, Mage Iliana.”

As for justification—

“Tell them the Predator Merchant Group is willing to sponsor it.”

Gulp.
Adelon swallowed nervously and gave a nod.

“And one last thing.”

I pulled out another 100,000 gold from the inventory and placed it on the counter.

“W-What’s this for…?”
“Adelon, that’s your compensation.”
“……”

Translatin_Otaku

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