A terrible stench assaulted his nose.
The smell of rotten straw, excrement, and bodies that had gone unwashed for a long time mingled together. The reek bored into his nose and seemed to turn his stomach inside out, making the boy hold his breath without realizing it.
“Ah......?”
His head throbbed. Still lying on the floor, the boy clutched his head and groaned. The floor against his back was damp and cold, and his entire body ached as though he had been beaten.
“Ugh......!”
After he groaned for some time, the headache slowly subsided. The boy squeezed his eyes shut and panted. The stench seeped deep into his lungs with every breath, but he could not simply stop breathing.
Once even that agonizing struggle for air calmed, his senses slowly returned. Sob, sob. He heard the weeping voices of children. The boy barely managed to open his eyes and look around.
The first thing he saw was a set of rusted iron bars. He was inside a prison without a single window. The only light came from torches beyond the bars.
Boys dressed in rags huddled inside the cell. Most of the boys' eyes were stained with despair and fear as their gaunt bodies trembled. Others were too vacant to contain even those emotions, staring blankly at the ceiling or beyond the bars.
‘Where...... is this......?’
The boy who had opened his eyes stared blankly and wondered. ―He had no memories from before he awoke. He did not even know why he had been locked in a prison like this.
‘Why?’
The question lingered. The boy clutched his head and searched through the blank expanse of his memory. Throb. When he tried to force his way toward memories that would not surface, his head began to feel as though it would split apart again. At the same time, an emotion bubbled up from deep inside his chest.
He could not remember why he was imprisoned here. But he knew what emotion was boiling within his chest.
Rage and hatred. He did not know whom they were aimed at. The only thing certain was that the anger and hatred lurking deep inside him were far too vast for a boy to bear. He clenched his teeth and pushed himself up.
Step, step.
Footsteps came from beyond the bars. The boys' sobbing stopped dead. Trembling all over, they shrank into themselves. Their terrified eyes darted toward the outside of the cell.
The shadows cast by the torches revealed a figure descending the stairs. A burly, muscular man with a thick beard swaggered down. Swigging straight from a bottle, the man flared his red nose as he approached the cell. His eyes gleamed when they settled on the boy who had awakened.
“What, you're awake? I came to see if you'd croaked. Guess I won't have to haul out a corpse.”
The burly man grinned, exposing yellow teeth. The boy stared blankly at him for a moment before parting his parched lips.
“Wh......ere is this......?”
His voice was so cracked that it hardly sounded like his own. The burly man snickered at the boy's confusion.
“Where do you think, bastard? You've got eyes, don't you? It's a prison. A prison.”
“Why...... am I here?”
“Still half-asleep? Or is your head broken?”
The burly man tilted his head, pulled a ring of keys from inside his clothes, and opened the barred door. At once, the frightened boys hurriedly shuffled backward until their backs were pressed flat against the wall.
Only the boy lifted his head and looked up at the burly man. The man flashed his yellow teeth again at the sight of his eyes.
“Looks like no one taught the new blood his place.”
WHAM! The burly man's foot drove into the boy's solar plexus. The boy flew backward, rolled across the floor, and retched up sour bile. The man strode over and seized him by the hair.
“Listen well, bastard. This is a prison, and everything in it is a slave. Why are you here? Because, fucker, we found you and threw you in here.”
The burly man guzzled from his bottle and let out a belch.
“You should be grateful, bastard. Your parents threw you away anyway, didn't they? We picked you up before you froze to death naked in the woods or got eaten. We even gave you the rags on your back.”
Tap, tap. The burly man tapped the boy's cheek with his bottle and whispered.
“So show some fucking gratitude. What kind of bastard raises his head and stares at his elder? Know your place and crouch down on your own, like those brats over there.”
WHAM! The bottle that had been tapping his cheek smashed across it. The burly man spat on the back of the boy sprawled on the floor, then glared at the other slaves.
“You fucking bastards, shouldn't you have taught the new blood the rules yourselves? Do I have to tell you something this obvious?”
“W-we're, we're s-sorry......!”
The slaves stammered as they planted their foreheads against the floor. After glaring at them with murderous eyes, the burly man spun around and left the cell.
“If that bastard's still raising his eyes next time, I'll gouge out one of yours. Fucking bastards. We feed you and give you somewhere to sleep, so you ought to be grateful.......”
The guard spat those words and climbed the stairs. Only after his footsteps disappeared did the slaves lift their heads. Several of them hurried over to the boy.
“H-hey......! You heard him, right? You...... keep your eyes down next time the guard comes. And don't answer unless he asks you something......!”
“Ugh.......”
Clutching the stomach that had been kicked, the boy barely managed to sit up. Blood streamed from his split lip, and the bile he had vomited left a foul taste in his mouth.
“A...... slave? Me?”
“Damn it, you still don't understand what's happening? Don't you know what a slave is?”
“You're lucky, though. For someone dragged in here, you don't look sick anywhere...... and it looks like you ate...... properly. That's why you weren't punished too badly.”
Unlike the other slaves, who were skin and bone and covered in bruises, the boy was in good condition. That meant he had value as merchandise.
“Anyway...... if you want even one extra piece of bread in here, you'd better listen to the guard....... O-okay?”
“What's your name, anyway?”
His name.
Holding his aching stomach, the boy thought about his name.
“......Yuto.”
Only that name surfaced in the blankness of his mind.
No other memory existed.
***
There were things he learned over the three days after waking in the prison.
The only memory of himself he could recall was the name Yuto. Nothing else came back to him. Why he was imprisoned here. Where he had been and what he had done before arriving. No matter how hard he thought, no answer surfaced.
Perhaps his head really was broken, just as the guard had said. Had they not told him he was found lying naked in the middle of some unknown forest?
“They say people forget when something too horrible happens to them.”
Jackie, a painfully thin slave boy, spoke while nervously working his lips.
“Maybe that's what happened to you. You said you don't remember anything but the name Yuto, right? Maybe being abandoned by your parents...... was so awful that you forgot it.”
Jackie was the only person in the cell to introduce himself to Yuto. It was not because Jackie had an especially kind personality.
It was because Jackie was the smallest and youngest of all the slave boys in the cell. If the guard returned and found the new boy's education unsatisfactory, Jackie would be chosen from among the slaves to have an eye gouged out.
“I've been here for a week. They say the oldest boy has been here for a month.”
Jackie spoke in a whisper.
“They just lock us up and don't make us do anything else. The guard beats us depending on his mood, but if you stay still and keep your eyes down, you get hit less. You understand, right? You can't draw attention.”
They ate twice a day in the prison. Their meals consisted of bread so tough it made their jaws ache, carrying a stale odor, and watery white soup made from unknown ingredients.
There was only one toilet in the cell where fifteen boys lived, and even that was nothing more than an open hole. Once a day, the guard brought a bucket and a filthy rag, which the slaves used to clean both their bodies and the toilet.
Naturally, cleaning the toilet fell to Yuto, the newest arrival. Even for a prison holding slaves, the conditions were appalling.
‘It's conditioning.’
Although he could recall nothing but his name, Yuto sensed that this environment existed to break the boys' spirits. Imprisoned in a place like this, their minds would deteriorate until even the guard's footsteps were enough to make them piss themselves.
‘The longest-held slave has been here for a month. They're locking us in the cell and making us do nothing, breaking only our minds. That way, we'll obey whatever they order us to do later.’
What did they intend to order? Yuto wondered, but the slaves in the cell were just as ignorant as he was. Nor could he ask the guard.
“Come out.”
On the third night, when their meal should normally have been brought in, the guard opened the cell door. Unlike usual, he was neither drunk nor carrying a bottle.
“Follow me. Try anything stupid and you die.”
His face was twisted more viciously than when he was drunk, and his voice brimmed with murderous intent. As if to prove it was no empty threat, the guard even held a brutal-looking sword.
The slaves, worn down in both body and mind by their miserable imprisonment, did not dare defy him. Though no shackles bound their hands or feet, the environment and violence they had endured had become invisible chains around their hearts. Their bodies shook as they followed the guard.
Yuto walked with them. As he did, he glanced behind him. Stairs led upward. Even if he sprinted with all his strength, escape did not seem possible. He did not know what lay at the top, or whether the stairs truly led outside.
‘I'll follow for now.’
He could not attempt to escape yet.
They arrived before a huge iron door. When the guard opened it, a wide open space spread out before them. Tension showed in his breathing. The slaves glanced around as they followed him forward.
‘A colosseum......?’
A circular clearing surrounded on all sides by high walls. Spectator seats had been built atop them, and a blonde woman in splendid clothing stood leaning against the railing.
“All fifteen are present.”
The guard spoke cautiously as he looked up at the woman.
“Is that the one? The boy they found naked in the woods?”
The woman pointed at Yuto with a ringed finger and grinned.
“He's got a decent face. Did some noblewoman play with him and throw him away?”
“His mind seems broken. He doesn't remember anything but his own name.”
“Really? Well, it doesn't matter. A slave's past isn't important.”
The woman waved a hand as she looked over the slaves.
“Hello. You're all hungry, aren't you?”
The prison gave them one piece of bread and watery soup twice a day. Even then, they had eaten only once today. Hunger growled in every stomach, but the slaves did not dare answer and merely trembled with unease.
“You want a proper bath too, don't you? Ugh, I can smell you from up here. You stink worse than a sewer.”
The woman snickered and pinched her nose.
“You want to sleep soundly in a bed instead of on the floor, with a pillow under your head and a blanket over you. Don't you? Imagine it. You eat until you're full, take a bath, fall asleep in a bed, and wake up there. It'd be fucking great, wouldn't it?”
At those words, the slaves began raising their eyes toward the woman one by one. Even an idiot could understand.
That woman could give them everything she had just described.
“One person.”
The woman raised her index finger and wagged it from side to side.
“I'll give all of that to just one of you― the last one standing.”
The slaves' mouths fell open. Their muddled minds kept them from thinking creatively. The woman laughed loudly at the hesitant slaves.
“What are you doing? Only the last one standing gets it?”
“Aaaaaah!”
The first to understand and act was the slave who had been imprisoned longest and deprived of the most.
WHAM!
His fist smashed into another slave's jaw.
“Ah, aaaaah!”
“Yaaah!”
That was the beginning. The fifteen slaves charged at one another for a proper meal, a bath, a bed, and sunlight.
“Aaaah!”
Jackie was no different. His eyes opened wide as he swung a fist at Yuto, who stood nearby.
Whoosh.
The fist he had thrown with all his strength sliced uselessly through the air. It was a reckless attack that gave no thought to what came after. His own fist pulled him off balance, and he staggered before falling flat on the floor.
His jaw hurt where it struck the ground. Tears pooling in his eyes, Jackie looked up at Yuto. Having evaded the attack with the slightest twist of his body, Yuto was staring blankly into the air.
[Starting Quest.]
[Escape from this place.]
[Reward: ???]
A pitch-black screen floated in the air.