Erecting the Nameless Monument for Whom
—
Infierno recalled that it had been quite a long time ago, shortly after the king of the Iron Gray Kingdom was assassinated by rebellious ministers. One by one, members of the royal family were killed, and the fate of the last heir to the throne remained unknown. The entire country was on the verge of collapse, almost reaching the point of destruction. At that time, Infierno, who was known as the legendary guardian beast pledged to protect the Iron Gray Kingdom, felt that he couldn’t survive through this turmoil.
In reality, the so-called guardian beasts deviated significantly from the written records in books. They were not invincible, lacked extraordinary magical powers in normal circumstances, and even in terms of appearance, physical strength, and intelligence, they were not much different from ordinary humans. The only authentic rule they had was the one concerning the coexistence and demise with the object they guarded.
If they chose not to guard anything throughout their lives, the lifespan of the guardian beast could not exceed twenty years. Conversely, if they chose to guard something, they would have a lifespan equal to that of the object, potentially achieving immortality. Infierno reminisced about why he chose this country in the first place—it was simply because he whimsically believed that a country wouldn’t be so easily destroyed, allowing him to live a little longer, nothing more.
However, after the disappearance of the heir to the throne of this country, his body began to weaken considerably. The instincts of the guardian beast seemed to warn him that if he didn’t intervene and assist in bringing an end to this turmoil, he would soon have to face destruction along with the nation.
Although there might be some unimaginable power within himself as a guardian beast, Infierno had no idea how to bring it out and use it. Thousands of years ago, when the hero defeated the Demon King and painstakingly established the Iron Gray Kingdom step by step, Infierno was merely an onlooker from afar. Having lived for over a thousand years, he was clueless about the idea of saving a country.
Feeling utterly despondent and helpless, or perhaps it was just because Infierno, who had lived for a considerable age and already felt indifferent towards death, encountered Crow at that time. The second prince, whose actual name was “Aeroy Miller Oujianiwenfo,” was arranged by the queen to escape the palace on his first birthday. The queen hoped that he could evade the purge of the royal family and one day reclaim the throne from the rebellion. To avoid detection, the aging maid trusted by the queen, carrying the infant prince, hid in the lower city concealed by layers of empty bridges, posing as impoverished commoners. In this way, they escaped the pursuit of the ministers.
Having hidden for several years, the prince never knew his true identity. Perhaps the maid thought the time was not yet ripe, so she was unwilling to reveal the truth too early.
On a certain day when the prince was six years old, he found a tall man collapsed in a big shape among the garbage piles. The man’s straw-like disheveled hair covered his entire face, and his clothes were dirty. If it weren’t for the grand posture in which the man had collapsed, the little prince probably wouldn’t have paid much attention to him in the gathering of beggars.
Upon seeing the boy, Infierno’s intuition immediately told him that this child was his lifesaver, the sole surviving heir of the Iron Gray Kingdom. As long as this child ascended to the throne, everything in the country would return to its original state.
At that time, Infierno could only think of this much. Guardian beasts were not known for their intelligence, and Infierno had not put much effort into acquiring knowledge. However, the thousands of years of experience had honed his precise intuition in seeing through the ways of the world. Regardless of whether this child, once in power, had the ability to govern the country effectively, as long as the child could become the king, the country would definitely not perish. Infierno wouldn’t have to endure such painful suffering and die. After all, at that time, Infierno was living in a state where he couldn’t die even if he wanted to, in unbearable pain throughout his body.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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After recovering his strength, Infierno didn’t continue playing caretaking games with the little prince. Instead, he began gathering intelligence within the country, preparing for the prince’s return. As he continued his efforts, not only did his physical condition improve, but he also gradually gained the ability to use some simple magic. However, he continued to lead a life that appeared ordinary on the surface.
Several years later, Infierno suddenly felt discomfort in his body and immediately suspected that something had happened to the young prince. When he went back to confirm the prince’s situation, he coincidentally encountered the prince stealing food from a shop due to unbearable hunger. The shopkeeper, in a fit of anger, beat the little prince mercilessly. Infierno deliberately transformed into the appearance of a young girl to shield the prince, thinking that he could gain the shopkeeper’s sympathy and let them go. Unfortunately, they still endured a considerable amount of punches and kicks. Infierno couldn’t help but sigh at the time, realizing how poverty had made people forget how to cherish precious things.
Subsequently, Infierno immediately discovered that the prince had become a Nameless, and it was uncertain when it happened. The elderly maid responsible for taking care of the prince passed away due to illness, leaving the prince, who had always been pampered and carefully cared for, alone in the lower city. The prince, lacking any common knowledge of life, quickly became regarded as an orphan, falling into the ranks of the Nameless and branded with their stigma, ultimately reduced to begging on the streets for survival.
The existence of the Nameless, from ancient times to the present, is inherently abnormal, and its definition is quite blurry. Adults who lose their families later in life don’t become Nameless, but children who lose their support at a young age are condemned to carry the stigma of the Nameless for a lifetime, never able to turn their fortunes around. This strange rule led Infierno to speculate only once that the concept of the Nameless seemed like the curse of some malicious entity, an inexplicable and unreasonable curse.
When he saw the Nameless mark on the prince’s body, Infierno was utterly shocked. A country would never acknowledge a Nameless as its king. Faced with this dilemma, Infierno felt at a loss and tried various medicinal herbs in an attempt to treat the scar, but all his efforts were in vain.
Misfortune never comes alone. At this moment, the minister finally realized that the royal family was missing one last heir. Consequently, he intensified the search within the country, and even inspections in the lower city became more rigorous.
Infierno, in a moment of urgency, cleverly used magic to transform himself into a petite girl with flaxen hair. He intentionally spread the rumor, saying, “The fugitive member of the royal family is a girl with flaxen hair, the illegitimate child born to the former king and a woman from the north.” This deliberate confusion led to chaos, and the minister was unable to determine whether the fugitive was the prince registered in the royal lineage or the princess rumored among the locals and witnessed by many. The final target evolved into “anyone with flaxen hair is a suspect,” successfully diverting people’s attention to himself. Therefore, every now and then, he had to make a brief appearance outside to prevent the rumors from dying down.
He gave the girl’s appearance the alias “Snowlight” because this name was quite common on the Sipistole Continent. Children born under the blessing of the Light Snow were often named such as Lamp of Snow, Snow’s Lamp, or Snowlight.
Subsequently, he gave the prince the code name “Crow” to keep a low profile. For several years, Infierno tried to erase the Nameless mark on Crow’s body. Since being marked, Crow had completely identified himself as a lowly Nameless, abandoning his own thoughts and wholeheartedly obeying his savior, “Snowlight.”
This aspect left Infierno quite vexed, as this appearance was definitely not fit for a king. Unfortunately, he had no idea how to raise a child to become the ruler of a nation, so he ultimately let things be, thinking that as long as the person was alive, it was good enough.
Perhaps the miraculous power of some legendary sacred beast came into play, or the effects of years of treatment finally took hold. The Nameless mark, despite Infierno’s diligent care, eventually vanished from Crow’s body. This signified that Crow had been freed from the curse of the Nameless, possibly the first Nameless miracle in thousands of years!
Next, Infierno had to eliminate the ministers in the royal palace and, with the future king, ascend to the top chamber of the palace that required the “royal key” to unlock. There, they had to prove that Crow was the true heir by the bloodline. Only then would Infierno consider his hastily undertaken mission of saving the country complete.
Sometimes, Infierno truly wanted to curse, “Legends are a burden on sacred beasts.” The reason was that the so-called sealed chamber and the nonsense story about the bloodline of the hero were all fabricated by the royal family to mythologize their lineage.
The so-called “royal key” was nothing more than dripping a few drops of blood onto the magical array on the door handle, using the bloodline of the royal family to open a door. In reality, the sacred beast that should have been inside had been wandering freely throughout the Iron Gray Kingdom for thousands of years and had never set foot in that damn room from start to finish.
At the same time, the opportunity Infierno had been waiting for finally arrived. He chanced upon two travelers passing through the country, and they would become the perfect instruments to restore Crow to the throne. These two individuals were Thrett and Ellyad. Initially, Infierno accidentally sensed a particularly strong magical fluctuation from a wandering mage. Subsequently, he discovered an interesting fact: the seemingly powerful mage was remarkably protective of his human companion with ash-colored hair. The human companion, in turn, harbored a sense of justice that made him prone to causing trouble for those around him. Recognizing this, Snowlight’s plan was to intentionally frame Ellyad, causing the ash-haired mage to be captured by soldiers in place of the rumors Infierno had fabricated before. At that moment, the mage would undoubtedly go to his aid. To save someone, a morally indifferent and merciless mage would not hesitate to take lives. Infierno wagered that the dark-haired mage would ruthlessly slaughter the courtiers involved in the rebellion. When the order was given to arrest Ellyad, those ministers would certainly not escape their fate of punishment. With these two individuals as scapegoats, responsible for leading the charge in wiping out the rebel forces, Snowlight would be able to easily ascend to the throne with Crow.
The timing Snowlight spoke of was waiting for the moment when Ellyad was mistaken and captured. However, Infierno never expected that Ellyad would be a Nameless. If more people knew that Ellyad, as a Nameless, had participated in the deadly duel on the bridge, the chances of him being captured by soldiers would be even slimmer. A Nameless could never become a king, even a three-year-old understood that.
What’s even worse is that he seemed to have already provoked the dark-haired mage, who, beneath that composed smile, had seen through all of Infierno’s plans. The mage probably refrained from taking action only to comply with the human’s wishes.
Infierno was left with blind prayers at this point, hoping to initiate the operation smoothly before everything completely fell apart. He hadn’t considered a second contingency. Now was definitely not the time to argue and break ties with Ellyad. Infierno transformed back into the appearance of Snowlight, deciding to endure through today. The first “mealtime” tomorrow morning would be the implementation of the plan.
—
From the street, a noisy commotion began to reach them. Ellyad found the clock on the square, and the time displayed was approximately half-past twelve.
“That ‘event’ has started again,” Ellyad muttered to himself. He hadn’t forgotten Snowlight’s strong opposition just now, but he couldn’t resist going to the bridge where he had fought during the daytime. It seemed he hadn’t spotted the figure of the Nameless under the bridge.
Ellyad anxiously stood, looking up. Snowlight was right; if he drew too much attention now, people around him would be affected as well. This reminded him of the merfolk incident, where he had been warned not to cause unnecessary trouble for Thrett. Moreover, as he stood on the bridge, it was also the moment he would admit his Nameless identity to Thrett. Would he lose sight of Thrett after descending from the bridge?
Frowning again, Thrett’s face suddenly appeared in front of Ellyad, who immediately stepped back several paces.
“What’s happening? Is there something up there?” Following Ellyad’s gaze upwards, on that narrow bridge, two ragged figures were engaged in a fight. The awkward attack movements made even Thrett sneer, uncertain whether to consider it a fight or comedy. On the higher bridge, a crowd had gathered, seemingly crazily fixated on this ludicrous brawl.
Ellyad didn’t answer Thrett’s question but instead countered, “Thrett, what’s your opinion on the Nameless?”
Not understanding why Ellyad was asking this now, Thrett honestly replied, “Not interested, so no special opinion.”
‘Sounds like something Thrett would say.’ Ellyad’s expression seemed to relax a bit, but his gaze remained fixed on the bridge.
Ah so Crow is the heir! I wonder when Infierno’s identity will be found out!
Ellyad should really have a bit more trust in Thrett’s lack of interest in human affairs. 😌