Nameless King

Wain slowly opened his eyes as he grabbed his head with a painful look.

'Fuck... How much does it hurt, but... I feel great... How is that possible?' Wain inwardly muttered as he looked around.

He was sitting at the same table in the corner of the bar. At this time, there were three other people in the bar beside him, Osvald, Sven, and Marlis.

Sven and Osvald played chess while Marlis watched them from the sidelines. Osvald was losing, but only a little, it looked like they were playing at about the same level, but Sven was just in control, which was given off by a sly smile on his face.

"Argh... Sven, why do I feel like I've already lost? Although... it happens every time I play with you..." Osvald muttered with a thoughtful look.

"Well, if you keep thinking in that direction, you'll definitely lose." Sven said before making a move, then he turned to Wain, "Good morning, you slept quite a long time, didn't you?"

"Yeah... I didn't expect to see the three of you here... Osvald, did you come here for me too?" Wain asked in a curious manner.

Osvald shook his head, "No, I just wanted to see Sven, but it turned out that Marlis was here as well, then I saw you, so I had no choice but to stay here."

Sven shrugged as he with a serious look made his move.

"Not bad." Sven said with a slight nod, "You get better every time we play. Maybe one day you'll beat me a lot more often, but I think we need to stop the game now, for a while."

"Sure. We have more important things to do now, right?" Osvald smiled as he looked at Wain.

At that moment, Wain had a strange feeling. He couldn't fully trust the three of them, since he didn't even know who they really were, but he felt safe, even though each of these three could have easily killed him.

"Wain, you probably have a lot of questions, so you can start asking them. I'll try to answer as many as I can." Sven uttered in a calm voice, touched the chessboard, and moved it into the ring.

"Who are you?" Wain asked with a serious look as it was something he had long been trying to figure out.

Sven paused for a moment, and said, "You're not ready to hear the full answer yet, so I'll only give you part of it. We are Arkans, however, we are different."

"Hmm? What do you mean?" Wain asked with a confused look.

He wasn't much surprised by Sven's words since he had long assumed it was because of the incident with the Arkan Girl that tried to kill him in that bar, but he wanted details.

"Let's just say we used to be no different from the other Arkans, but we changed our minds about it a long time ago and renounced their ideology, so the three of us are free agents, sort of." Sven said with a calm look.

"I see..." Wain muttered.

He understood that Sven had only told him what he saw fit, but it was a big step forward.

'They're Arkans, and considering that Marlis can invade Dragon World and get away with it without consequences they're incredibly strong... so Sven is probably telling the truth, at least his words make sense. None of them have tried to kill me, unlike the other Arkans, that react to me as if bulls to a red rag.' Wain inwardly muttered while looking at Sven, Osvald, or Marlis.

'Why did you save me? It's already happened twice, once in the Colosseum and now, in Dragon World." Wain asked with a serious look.

"Huh, you're the heir of the Nameless King, I can't let you die." Sven said in a slow voice.

"What? How do you know I'm the heir of the Nameless King?" Wain asked as he frowned.

"Well, the very first day we met I felt strange energy that was coming from you. I couldn't figure out what it was for a long time, but when you got stronger I realized it was the energy of Nameless King." Sven said with a slight smile on his face.

'Sven... to me you say one thing, but a completely different thing to Wain... I wonder why you are deceiving him.' Marlis muttered inwardly while looking at Wain's confused look.

"Hmm? Then why are you protecting me?" Wain asked with a wary look as his aura intensified.

"Don't worry, there are no bad intentions in my actions." Sven said with a sly smile on his face, "The whole point is that I was familiar with Nameless King, so... so I'm looking out for you, it's hard to explain, but you might know what I feel."

'Huh, sometimes the best lie is a half-truth, isn't it?' Osvald inwardly muttered with a smirk on his face, 'Sven, you definitely know this better than anyone else.'

"Were you familiar with the Nameless King...?" Wain asked while in disbelief, "Wasn't that too long ago?"

"Well... When you reach the Fifth Chronicle, you'll be surprised how long creatures that are at that level can live. We've all been known to the Nameless King, however, that doesn't mean we're watching you and will always protect you." Sven shrugged.

He pointed two fingers and said, "These times were just the exception. You were attacked by Dragons, what now, what in Colosseum, that shouldn't have happened. Also, we were able to spot you because you fought with all your might and emitted an energy that was familiar to us."

Wain was silent for a while pondering Sven's words, then he nodded and said, "Fine, I'm sure you've hidden something from me, but that's enough for now. Now, I have one last question, what do we do next?"

Sven looked at Marlis, smiled, and muttered, "As far as I know, you need to reach the Top-10 of the Colosseum, so isn't this the perfect time to do it?"