‘Is it dinner time already?’ The arenas for the nameless ones’ deadly battles were not limited to a single location; each area had specific families participating. Ellyad had to participate in the arena located on the same bridge both in the morning and at noon. If he was absent from that bridge, he might be disqualified, rendering his previous efforts useless. Therefore, he had to hurry there in advance. Remembering that it took quite some time to walk here, he should have enough time to make it back now.
Ellyad looked anxiously back at Thrett and the assertive Lofisso who was holding onto Thrett. Lofisso was undoubtedly a beautiful woman with her vibrant, black, long hair that complemented Thrett quite well, a thought Ellyad had kept to himself from the beginning. Unfortunately, he didn’t have time to linger now. He turned back to Thrett, and saw Thrett smiling at him.
“Don’t tell me you plan to go by yourself. You know I won’t let you do that.”
“Are you willing to go with me?”
“Of course.” Thrett decisively shook off Lofisso’s hand, walked to Ellyad’s side, and the two headed straight down towards the city.
“Interrupted by that guy again.” Lofisso angrily muttered to herself and decided to follow behind them to see where they intended to go. She believed that Ellyad always interfered between her and Thrett so this time, she decided to forcefully disrupt their plans. At least here, she had a geographical advantage, and she might make Ellyad suffer a bit.
She followed them all the way to the vicinity of the empty bridge where Ellyad was going to participate. When she saw Ellyad standing on the bridge, she was initially reluctant to believe her eyes, but it turned out she wasn’t mistaken.
“He’s actually a nameless one!” Standing there participating in the deadly battle meant Ellyad was a nameless one. Lofisso widened her eyes, finding it hard to believe. Then, she saw Thrett calmly watching from above.
‘Thrett knows he’s a nameless one, yet he still chooses him? I lost to a nameless one?’
The humiliation this time was incomparable to anything she had experienced before. Lofisso, being in the Iron Gray Nation, had deeply ingrained beliefs about nameless ones from a young age. She was well aware of how despicable nameless ones were and was accustomed to treating them like pests, naturally enslaving every nameless one. However, as a noble, she couldn’t believe that she had been opposing and even lost to a nameless one all along. The intensity of her anger broke through her rationality. Lofisso glared upward, realizing the severity of the situation. For her, this was an unpardonable disgrace, a stain that couldn’t be forgiven. Just making Ellyad suffer a bit would not be enough to calm her down.
She immediately turned around and walked back towards her mansion, wearing a sinister and dark smile on her face.
—
Standing on this bridge for the third time, Ellyad was no longer swayed by the clamor and mockery. Continuing his winning streak at his own pace, he took it as a response to Thrett, grateful that Thrett did not disdain him for being nameless.
Ellyad adjusted his breathing rhythm as his opponent stood in front of him. This nameless one from the opposing family was different from the previous ones, showing good physique and a determined posture. Ellyad did not take the opponent seriously and charged forward without hesitation, ready to secure another victory in this deadly fight.
…until the eighteenth opponent.
Ellyad couldn’t restrain heavy breaths. Every opponent he faced had considerable strength, not appearing weak on the surface. Each strike aimed to end Ellyad’s life, and Ellyad had been countering the attacks, knocking opponents unconscious to end the deadly battles. This strategy required more mental effort than the opponents’ straightforward approach, leaving Ellyad exhausted. He had barely rested throughout the battles, almost depleting his stamina in the earlier rounds. Gripping the sword had become challenging, but fortunately, he managed to secure victory in the end.
‘Hold on a bit longer, it’s nothing,’ Ellyad encouraged himself. Checking the time, the post-dinner period was almost over. Ellyad needed four more consecutive victories to achieve his goal, but it seemed unlikely to accomplish it today.
“I have to endure a bit longer,” Ellyad thought, working hard to regulate his disordered breathing and heartbeat, refusing to succumb to fatigue.
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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However, the next challenger was no longer one of the robust nameless ones but the little girl from noon. Her entire body was stained with blood, covered in whip marks from being lashed. Her swaying figure resembled a candle flickering in the wind. Black blood oozed from her wounds, silently dropping to the ground like tears. The girl’s face, twisted in pain, displayed a tangled mess of mucus, tears, and saliva. She still held the dagger towards Ellyad, her whole body convulsing unnaturally, presenting a truly horrifying sight.
Her appearance caused Ellyad to involuntarily gasp, unable to express his shock in any words. What was the meaning behind sending this child back into the arena?
As Ellyad raised his head, locking eyes with the nameless one’s owner on the enemy side, the malicious smirk on their face made Ellyad understand the purpose. It was merely an attempt to extinguish Ellyad’s fighting spirit and add a bit of excitement to this dull competition, pleasing everyone except the nameless ones.
“Not fighting… will… lose… if you win… endure…”
The girl continued to murmur something unintelligible, her unfocused eyes irregularly darting around. The sight was almost like that of a non-human creature.
“If… lose… whip… not win… endure…”
When Ellyad finally understood what she was repeating, he couldn’t bear the surge of anger hitting his chest.
‘If you don’t win the fight, you will be whipped.’
They knowingly instructed a young girl to give impossible commands to an adult male opponent, coupled with an unreasonable punishment. If she couldn’t win, he would have to endure whipping, being thrashed until she was unrecognizable. Even the foolish nameless ones would at least know a few words, and ‘whip’ was one of them. Just mentioning the word ‘whip’ indicated that punishment was inevitable.
Ellyad couldn’t care less about anything else at this moment. He decided to seek help from Thrett, begging him to immediately treat the girl. The guilt and distress about whether this would cause trouble for Thrett had already been cast aside, as they were trivial compared to the life of this child.
Before Ellyad could call out to Thrett. the clock chimed—the sound of the clock and the girl falling resonating simultaneously. Clock towers atop several tall buildings began to ring in succession, signaling the end of the post-dinner break. The emaciated body hitting the ground made little sound, drowned out by the tolling of the bells and the ugly cheers and mockery from the crowd.
The girl couldn’t hold on any longer; her life was forcibly pushed to its limits.
Ellyad’s vision turned white, and his feet seemed rooted to the ground, unable to move. He desperately wanted to rush over and pick up the girl.
The crowd dispersed, and the girl’s body was wrapped in a cloth bag and dragged away by other nameless ones. It wasn’t clear how they would handle the body, but one thing was certain—they wouldn’t leave any dignity for the nameless one.
Ellyad clenched his fists so tightly that his fingernails dug into his flesh, puncturing the palm and causing several droplets of blood to seep out.
“Because they’re nameless, it doesn’t matter if they die. Is this the world protected by the goddess Elena? Don’t be ridiculous!”
“Ell!”
Suddenly, Thrett’s call echoed in Ellyad’s ears. Ellyad glanced at him from the corner of his eye, and his silent demeanor seemed to be an attempt to completely seal off his emotions.
Thrett placed both hands on Ellyad’s fists, one by one prying open his tightly clenched fingers, allowing both of their hands to interlace their fingers tightly. Even so, Ellyad deliberately exerted force, gripping Thrett’s hand tightly, expressing his reluctance and anger.
Thrett allowed Ellyad to tighten his fingers, the force so strong that Thrett’s eyebrows slightly furrowed. However, he remained silent, choosing to let Ellyad vent rather than allowing him to harm himself.
“Just don’t hurt yourself,” Thrett softly spoke to him, and only then did Ellyad ease the tension in his clenched teeth.
“Do you want to go back to the tea shop?” Thrett asked, and Ellyad nodded in response.
As the sky gradually darkened, Thrett walked ahead, leading Ellyad back to the tea stand.
Although things were unpleasant with Snowlight during the day, Ellyad wouldn’t simply abandon the promises he made before. He would still stay to help Snowlight and Crow escape from the Iron Gray Kingdom.
Faint footsteps and conversations could be heard from the second floor of the tea shop as they approached. It seemed that Snowlight and Crow were already preparing to rest upstairs. Some bread and dry rations were placed on the table, apparently prepared as food to fill the two’s stomachs. The morning’s events had made the atmosphere awkward, so both sides chose to temporarily avoid each other as a way of easing tension.
After returning to the tea shop, Ellyad stood alone in the overgrown small front yard, looking up. Through the myriad bridges of various thicknesses crisscrossing each other, the moonlight was faint, yet those scattered and faint points of light could still evoke emotions, causing people’s gazes to linger uncontrollably.
Thrett originally wanted to say something to comfort Ellyad, but Ellyad told him that he just wanted some quiet time. So, he sat on a broken stone wall, staring at the sky as if he had lost his soul.
─ People are so cruel to me, to all the nameless ones, but it doesn’t matter. The world… “this world” is gentle to me, so as long as I have this place, it’s enough.
Ellyad habitually tried to pull up the scarf around his neck but found his hand grasping at thin air. He was startled at first, then remembered that the scarf was with Thrett. He turned to Thrett standing behind him and said, “Can you return the scarf to me?”
Never before had Ellyad sounded so weak and helpless, revealing all his frustration and regret at his own powerlessness. However, Thrett truly didn’t understand. Why was Ellyad so devastated when the human girl was killed? In Thrett’s eyes, regardless of the species, as long as it possessed life, it would eventually die. The only difference lay in the time and manner of death. Even if the little girl hadn’t been killed today, she would still die someday. If Ellyad had seen her die on that day, would he still be so upset?
Not understanding the difference between these two scenarios, Thrett took off the scarf and wrapped it around Ellyad from behind, asking, “Humans will all die someday, so why are you so sad?”
In the instant those words fell, Ellyad suddenly turned around and glared fiercely at Thrett.
“Because everyone will die, does that mean it’s okay for you if that child is killed?” Ellyad questioned Thrett.
The anger suddenly turned towards him, and Thrett couldn’t help but be startled. Ellyad continued, “Is it because she’s a nameless one, so she doesn’t have the right to live?” He clenched his fist again, trembling with force.
“Ellyad?”
“As long as someone dies, there will be another person mourning for them. If Thrett, the person most important to you, were to die, wouldn’t you be sad?”
── If the person most important to you, Thrett, were to die, wouldn’t you be sad?
Chewing on this hard-to-digest statement, he thought to himself, did he have someone he considered the ‘most important person’?
In an instant, the answer flashed in his mind, equating the “most important person” with Ellyad.
‘If Ellyad were to die, would I be sad to the point of grief, maybe even crying?’ Although Thrett didn’t believe that he, as the Demon Lord, would feel sorrow for the loss of life, he still tried to imagine the scenario of Ellyad’s death… His body was suddenly gripped by a terrifying chill he had never experienced before, and Thrett immediately halted his own assumption, afraid to continue thinking about it!
“I won’t let him die as long as I’m protecting him!” He roared in his mind to dispel the fear.
While Thrett battled the fear in his heart, he momentarily forgot to respond to Ellyad. Ellyad interpreted it on his own, concluding that Thrett still couldn’t understand such emotions. He directed his gaze straight at Thrett and said,
“If Thrett were to die, I would be very sad.”
‘I think, if Ellyad were to die, I would also be very sad, but how sad would I be?’
Contemplating, Thrett involuntarily asked, “How sad would you be… to what extent?”
Ellyad remained silent for a long time this time before answering cautiously, “Sad enough that if you were killed by someone else, I’d kill that person.” No matter how many people would cry and mourn for that person.
At this point, Ellyad’s emotions had calmed down somewhat. He seemed reluctant to continue the conversation with Thrett and got up, walking into the room.
After a hasty dinner, Ellyad wrapped himself in a cloth, leaned against the wall, and fell asleep. It seemed that his temper today had really taken a toll on him, and his mood wouldn’t improve for a while.
Just like the previous night, Thrett silently covered Ellyad with a cloth and sat beside him.
Ellyad’s attitude of keeping him at a distance left Thrett feeling inexplicably frustrated. Left pondering, Thrett couldn’t come up with a solution to deal with this situation.
Ah, Thrett is killing me. Thanks for the chapter.
ˁ•ᴗ•ˀつ～ 💞
The wicked Loffiso strikes again! I hope Thrett destroys you girl 🥳🥳