Level Eater - Chapter 9: Manaless

A Federation Colonel with abnormal thoughts was locked in a dark room and met a little looney.

“Your whole body emits a scent that I dread (covet) and fear (desire).”

A frigid Colonel X little looney roommate: A sweet story of interstellar travel

- Description from Novelupdates

“Ah, him? He’s just Daeyeong’s acquaintance.” He hated those words. Choi Seolwoo is trying to leave behind his teens and twenties, which he spent as Won Daeyeong’s shadow. Won Daeyeong (gong), the national team captain who became the first Korean track and field athlete to qualify for the Olympics in the 400m, and Choi Seolwoo (soo), a newly qualified Certified Public Accountant, are childhood friends of over a decade. Choi Seolwoo, weary of the pain of his obsessive unrequited love for Won Daeyeong, impulsively enters into a contractual relationship with a sub-seme and declares a break-up with Won Daeyeong, intending to completely remove him from his life and start anew. Won Daeyeong is displeased with Choi Seolwoo trying to end their friendship over a relationship. Just how much attention had he demanded since they were young? Even he himself acknowledged how incredibly well he’d treated him. It wasn’t as if he had expected anything in return for looking after him, but still, this is absurd. To take him for granted and push him aside like this. Won Daeyeong proposes that if Choi Seolwoo appears on five episodes of a segment called “An Acquaintance” on his Xtube channel, which has 1.1 million subscribers, he will agree to the break-up. The filming of a variety show exposing every detail of Won Daeyeong’s life begins. Unexpectedly, the view count explodes due to the spicy and entertaining talk with frequent bleeps, the genuine bromance chemistry and realistically fierce fights, and Choi Seolwoo’s idol-like visuals. Choi Seolwoo, the “break-up guy,” ends up advertising himself to the entire nation as Won Daeyeong’s best friend. Wait, somehow this… seems to be moving further away from a break-up…?

Bestselling author Elias Vayne has spent years writing stories to escape the horrors of his past. As a child, he was the sole survivor of a massacre that wiped out his entire orphanage. He doesn’t remember how he survived—only that when the slaughter ended, he was the only one left standing.His latest work, The Arcane Academy Chronicles, takes place in Veylin Academy, a prestigious school of magic and combat. But one night, after finishing the final chapter, Elias wakes up inside his own book—not as the hero, not as the villain, but as an extra. Worse, he’s been reborn as Kael, the very same orphan who survived a similar massacre in the story.But something is wrong. The academy isn’t as he wrote it. Characters are acting off-script, unknown forces are rewriting events, and the mystery surrounding Kael’s survival mirrors the one in Elias’s real life. The more he tries to regain control of the narrative, the more he realizes this world may not be his creation at all.

For ten long years, Adam was a prisoner within his own body, paralyzed and helpless, silently observing a world he couldn't interact with. As his life finally ebbed away, connected to hospital machines, his last conscious thought wasn't one of peace, but a desperate, burning wish hurled into the void: If I get a second chance, let me be the strongest.The universe, in its mysterious ways, answered. Adam was reborn, not into light, but into an infinite, suffocating darkness. Yet, within this void, he discovered an astonishing truth: he possessed unimaginable power. Reality itself seemed to bend to his mere thought; he could conjure wonders or horrors with a whim. He was, by all measures, the most powerful entity imaginable. But this godlike power came with a cruel twist – he was utterly trapped, unable to escape the encompassing darkness.His prison, he soon grasped, wasn't empty space. It was the consciousness of another being. He was an unseen passenger, a silent god locked within the mind and soul of Eric, the unassuming Third Prince of a kingdom unknown to Adam. Eric, frail and seemingly ordinary, was completely unaware of the cosmic powerhouse dwelling within him.Adam's initial goal was simple: escape or seize control. But a chilling revelation halted his plans – his existence was inexplicably tethered to the prince's fragile life. If Eric died, Adam's own newfound power, perhaps even his very being, might shatter. A reluctant protector was born from a desperate prisoner.Now, Adam walks a razor's edge. He subtly guides and shields his unwitting vessel, Eric, from the dangers of court intrigue and hidden enemies, intervening with earth-shattering displays of power only when Eric faces certain death. These brief, terrifying moments where the “weak” prince unleashes godly might leave the world baffled and fearful, whispering legends of the prince's hidden potential.To navigate this precarious existence and perhaps forge a path to his own freedom or dominance, Adam devises a unique tool: a 'System' granted to Eric. Is it a gift to empower his host, a means to strengthen the vessel for eventual takeover, or a dangerous gamble with unforeseen consequences?As Adam fights unseen battles, protecting Eric while plotting his own endgame, questions linger. Can he ever break free? Will Eric discover the terrifying truth of his inner 'guest'? And what will happen when the world realizes that the power shaking kingdoms doesn't belong to the prince, but to the ancient, godlike entity trapped inside him? His journey is one of immense power bound by frustrating confinement, a hidden war fought within a single soul, where the fate of a prince and the ambition of a captive god hang in the balance.