The Lord Who Levels Up by Devouring - LLD Chapter 95: The Archmage of the Allied Forces (2) (Part 2)

Her small shoulders trembled as though overcome by a shiver of delight.

Then her eyes flew open wide, as if in shock.

Before she could even swallow the first bite, she stabbed the next piece with her fork.

The knife had long been abandoned.

Without cutting, she shoved a whole piece of steak into her mouth and began chewing like someone who hadn’t eaten in days.

“Mmmmgh!!!”

She trembled as she savored the taste, trying to express it in her own unique way.
It was similar to Serapia’s reaction… yet somehow subtly different.

At some point, the Rex steak had vanished without a trace.

“Wh-what…?!”

Iliana’s expression was a mixture of ecstasy and shock.

“Am I seriously not losing my mind?!”

And it wasn’t just because of the taste of the Rex meat.

Well, at least when it came to intellectual curiosity, Iliana was in a league of her own.
That part hadn’t changed at all from her previous life.

“This was one of the questions proposed as an unsolvable problem by Arcanis…!”

Arcanis Lilseyn, the first mage.

Thousands of years ago, in the distant past—
He was the great sage who invented the method to convert Mana into usable Mana Force.

Arcanis was the first to reproduce the phenomenon we now call magic by using Mana Force.

In other words, Arcanis wasn’t just the first mage—he was also the founder of the field known as Magicology.

Later, Arcanis began contemplating the future development of magic.
He proposed a series of essential problems the magical world would eventually need to solve—

“Have you ever heard of Arcanis’s 23 Great Problems?”

That’s what we call them today: The 23 Great Problems of Arcanis.

These problems, even just by being posed, are considered to hold immense magical significance.

Even the recent birth of the homunculus had originated from one of these 23 problems.

—“Are life and soul one and the same, or are they separate entities?”

In pursuit of solving this question, mages dragged the domain of creating life—once considered the realm of the gods—into the realm of human reason.

And the result of that effort: golems and homunculi.

There were many other problems as well.
I didn’t know them all in detail, but—

“I know the basics.”

Thanks to what I’d learned from Iliana in my past life, I had a vague understanding.
A few that came to mind…

“In regard to the permanence of magic: Is magic everlasting, or does it fade with the flow of time? If the effects of magic can be made permanent, what conditions are required?”

And on the other hand—

“In regard to the influence of magic: How far can magic affect reality? Can magic transcend natural laws, or is it bound by them?”

There were also problems like:

“In regard to the ethics of magic: Can magic be classified as good or evil? When developing powerful spells or incantations, what ethical standards must the creator consider?”

Headache-inducing problems, all of them.

Of these, four had been solved.
Seven were partially solved.
And twelve remained completely unsolved.

Among the four solved ones was—

“The one you just mentioned, Lady Iliana—the question of whether it’s possible to erase monster madness that’s imprinted on a genetic level.”

And, as I said, that problem had been ‘solved.’
The answer: Impossible.
You cannot erase madness that is imprinted on a genetic level in monsters.

That conclusion had finalized it.

But now, that ‘solved’ problem had just been overturned.

To mages—and especially from Iliana’s perspective—it was nothing short of shocking, horrifying, and unbelievable.

“C-could it be… Are you a mage?!”

As expected, Iliana cried out in disbelief.
Her wide eyes held even more shock than when she tasted the Rex steak.

“I’m not a mage.”

“Then… are you a Magicologist?!”

A Magicologist refers to someone who studies Magicology.
A mage is a practitioner.
A Magicologist is a researcher.
That was the rough distinction.

“No. I’m not a Magicologist either. I only have a shallow understanding of magic.”

The knowledge I had came from what Iliana taught me in my past life.
Even then, it had been mostly surface-level, since the subject gave me a headache. Calling myself a Magicologist was a stretch.

But maybe Iliana didn’t see it that way.

“If you don’t mind… could I ask you a few questions?!”

Her blue eyes sparkled like a puppy right before going on a walk.

A few questions, my ass.

It wasn’t a few questions—a few hours had flown by in the blink of an eye.

Seriously…

…My head is about to explode.

Looking out the window, I could see the sun starting to rise.
We’d stayed up all night.
And Iliana? She didn’t look tired at all.

“To think… you could interpret it that way…!!”

She still wore that same sparkly, cheerful puppy face from the beginning.

Up until now, I’d somehow managed to keep answering.
But to be honest, I no longer knew what I was saying.

All I was doing was reciting the things Iliana from my past life had taught me.

In other words, none of what I said had come from my own research.

It was just fragments of knowledge—things she had discovered and explained.
To be more specific, it was magic knowledge I’d been forced to learn just to study evolutionary biology under her.

In short, Iliana—

This was all you.

“You really are a genius!!”

Does she even realize she’s praising herself right now?

In any case, I was at my limit.
There was nothing left in my brain to wring out.

Put simply, I’d been completely drained.

“Then, what do you think about the impossibility of faster-than-light travel?!”

I have no thoughts.
I don’t even want to think about it.

“Why are ancient rune characters more efficient as incantations?!”

I don’t know.
Go ask a dragon or something.

“Why have lifeforms capable of using Mana Force evolved to respond to it? What biological changes occurred during the adaptation process?”

Sorry, but I can’t use Mana at all.

“Light and darkness cancel each other out—so is it impossible to create a neutral spell that uses both simultaneously?”

That might actually be possible.
Because right now, Iliana, you’re making me feel like that.

Chaos.
You’ve turned my brain into a swirling cauldron of chaos.

“Is there a physical difference between naturally occurring lightning and lightning created with Mana? And if so, how can that difference be measured?”

…My head is seriously going to explode soon.

“Undead don’t have life energy—so how do they move? Is there another form of energy we don’t know about?!”

And yet, Iliana’s intellectual curiosity knew no bounds.

Honestly—

Isolde was so much better.

Sure, she tried to kill me on sight…
But at least that could be resolved with a clean fight.

Right now, I was getting mentally bludgeoned to death by endless questioning.

In other words—

“And also, one more thing…!!”

…This girl is way too exhausting to raise Affection with.

Translatin_Otaku

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