The woman led Yuto somewhere other than Ebil's room, which he had entered the day before.
It was a lavish dining room. A crystal chandelier cast light from the ceiling, and a long table draped in a snow-white cloth was laden with every kind of food.
A glistening roast, steaming soup, colorful fruit and bread, and all manner of fragrant dishes. None could compare to the food he had eaten in the prison or in the room he received after becoming a gladiator.
“There you are, my rookie!”
Ebil sat at the far end of the long table. She welcomed Yuto with both arms spread wide.
“Come sit. All of this was prepared for you.”
Ebil spoke with a radiant smile. Her hospitality was hardly unexpected. Of all the matches held that day, Yuto's opening bout had drawn the greatest response from the audience. Ebil was the slaves' mistress, the gladiators' mistress, and the owner of the Colosseum.
A gladiator's quality of life changed according to how much attention they drew from the audience. Ebil had decided that Yuto was worth treating well.
“You can eat all of it. If you want anything else, just say so.”
Yuto bowed his head respectfully. There was only one chair prepared for him, at the opposite end of the table from Ebil. He swept his gaze over the dishes as he sat.
His mouth watered on its own. Yuto made no effort to suppress his desire and immediately reached for the food. There were utensils such as forks and knives, but he made no attempt to use them properly.
It was not because he did not know how.
‘I probably know how to eat with these too.’
Without any need for conscious thought, table manners had become a habit ingrained in his body. Just as when he fought or held a sword, if he picked up a fork and knife, he would probably handle them naturally and with proper etiquette.
Despite sensing that, he deliberately refrained from using the fork and knife correctly. It would be ridiculous for a slave to be well versed in table manners. Yuto bit into bread held in his bare hand, then clutched a fork crudely and stabbed food with it before shoveling it into his mouth. Ebil's eyes gleamed at his ravenous eating.
“You certainly eat well. Were you that hungry? Ah, of course you were. You moved around that much, and the wait was fairly long too, wasn't it?”
“I've never eaten food like this before.”
Yuto answered before he had finished chewing, deliberately spraying crumbs from his mouth. He put on the performance of a loyal but uncouth slave.
“Ahaha! I suppose not. Don't just use your fork and hands. Try the knife too. From what I saw earlier, you're very good with blades.”
“Thank you.”
He showed no sign of arrogance. Yuto lowered his head, overwhelmed by the honor of this treatment. He took the knife in his other hand and awkwardly cut into the meat. Ebil snickered as he scraped it back and forth as if sawing wood.
“Listen while you eat. I was very, very satisfied with your match today. And I wasn't the only one. You heard the crowd cheering too, didn't you? To think the Lower League could draw that kind of response.”
“I'm pleased that Mistress was satisfied.”
“Ahahaha! I was extremely satisfied. To be honest, I didn't expect you to do so well in your first match. Your opponent came at you pretty viciously, but you toyed with him. Keep doing as well as you did today—no, do even better. Then you can eat meals like this every time.”
“Yes. I will do my best.”
Yuto answered with his lips smeared in sauce.
“You saw the guests seated beside me, didn't you? They're all nobles like me. They don't usually bother watching the Lower League, but the Mad Fox's last match was quite a spectacle. Yet even they said your match was more entertaining than the Mad Fox's.”
At the mention of the Mad Fox, Yuto paused with his hand halfway to the food.
“One of them sent you a sponsorship gift. Do you know what it is? A sword.”
Ebil raised a hand with a broad grin. One of the guards stationed at the dining room door approached Yuto and presented the sword he carried. It was an ordinary weapon, nothing that could be called a famed blade. Instead of taking it at once, Yuto looked back at Ebil. She smiled in satisfaction and nodded.
“You can take it. You may draw it too.”
“May I really?”
“Ahaha! Of course you may.”
Even if Yuto held a real sword here, attacking Ebil would be impossible. If he tried, she would immediately activate the choker and sever his neck. Yuto had no intention of attempting something that could never succeed. What he needed to show now was loyalty to Ebil and gratitude for the treatment she had bestowed on him. Yuto scrubbed the sauce caked over both hands against the legs of his trousers, then accepted the sword respectfully.
“Ah, of course you can't carry that sword around normally. You may only use it during matches.”
“Yes, I understand. Gedrick received his sword with a guard's permission earlier.”
“Gedrick...... Gedrick? Ah, the man you chopped up? Ha, he was a fairly promising prospect in the Lower League. Who would have thought he'd become a cripple today?”
“I apologize for ruining one of Mistress's gladiators.”
“Ahaha! Why apologize for that? I can make as many gladiators as I want. And a broken man still has his uses. Fights between cripples are very popular too. They're more desperate and more brutal.”
Ebil rested her chin on one hand and swirled her wineglass.
“So you don't need to worry about ruining your opponents. Doing it too often would be a little much, but you can even kill them once in a while.”
“Is there a reason it should only be once in a while?”
“If you kill someone every time, it stops being a special match. Deathmatches are popular events at the Colosseum. That's why the Mad Fox is a bit of a problem. Evomon are easier to find than human gladiators, but it becomes troublesome if it kills one every time.”
“The Mad Fox......”
Yuto lowered the sword he had been holding respectfully and glanced at the food. Ebil saw it, snickered, and nodded. Yuto resumed devouring the dishes.
“Will I eventually have to fight that Mad Fox too?”
“Oh, you're far too valuable to use that way. Unless we manage to correct the Mad Fox's behavior a little later.”
As Ebil answered, she brought the wineglass to her lips. Her eyes narrowed beneath long lashes as she stared at Yuto.
“Did you know? We found the Mad Fox in the same forest where you were lying unconscious. My subordinates and I subdued it ourselves while it rampaged around, setting everything nearby ablaze.”
“It was in the same forest as me?”
“Why are you so surprised? That forest has always been crawling with wild beasts and Evomon. Though it is an Evomon we've never found there before, and we don't even know its species.”
“Could it be...... that I lost my memory because that Evomon attacked me?”
Yuto asked cautiously. Ebil shrugged.
“How would I know? But the Mad Fox charged toward the gladiators' barred gate earlier, remember? It did make me wonder if it might have something to do with you. We can't find out, though. The Mad Fox is a mindless Evomon that can't even speak, and you've lost your memory.”
“......”
“Why? Are you interested in the Mad Fox? I have no intention of arranging a match between you two. Right now, it looks as though both of you will grow popular without that. No matter how well you fight, taking on an Evomon without even knowing how to wield aether would be suicide.”
Ebil set down her emptied wineglass.
“I'm telling you there is no need to worry. Your match today showed me a great deal of potential, you know? I think you can quickly string together wins in the Lower League and advance to the Middle League. Do well there and you'll move to the Upper League—and if you do well there too, you can earn your freedom.”
“Freedom......”
“Of course, the louder the audience cheers, the more you'll be able to enjoy in here. Someday, food like this will become an everyday meal. You'll get a larger, finer room too. So keep fighting hard and think it over carefully. To be honest, wouldn't it be better to fight in here and receive special treatment than go ‘outside’?”
Watching Yuto's expression change, Ebil smiled and rose from her seat.
“Well, I'll leave first. You can't eat comfortably with someone watching, can you? If you want anything else, just tell the man standing back there.”
The moment he heard that, Yuto lurched to his feet and bowed deeply to Ebil. She cackled and clapped at the sight.
“Relax and eat. Make yourself comfortable.”
Ebil left the dining room. Only after the door closed behind her did Yuto sit again. Only Yuto and several guards remained in the room, and the sword he had received lay beside him. He did not so much as glance at it before resuming his meal.
‘What a sly snake.’
Yuto muttered inwardly as he chewed. Ebil knew how to skillfully mix the whip and the carrot. In the prison, she broke a slave's spirit through violence and deprivation. In the Colosseum, she trained it through rewards based on ability. All the while, she repeatedly dangled freedom as bait, even as she spoon-fed them comfort within the Colosseum and planted other desires.
The goal was to make slaves abandon freedom of their own accord and remain in the Colosseum. It was a simple but clever method of training. A slave already broken in would turn from distant freedom, whose attainment was uncertain, to the pleasures within immediate reach. They might sincerely long for freedom at first, but as the audience's cheers and a comfortable life conditioned them, their minds would crumble. At some point, even their will to escape might fade.
‘Not me.’
Yuto thought as he swallowed the food. The treatment he enjoyed now was nothing more than bait. Even if he ate more delicious food tomorrow and someday lived in a finer room, Yuto would ultimately remain no different from a beast in a cage.
Someone above taming someone below. Yuto instinctively hated it. He did not know why he hated it so deeply or felt such revulsion toward it.
‘I...... know how to use a sword, know table manners, and understand the minds of those looking down from above.’
In contrast to his empty memory, far too much had been engraved into his body. The disparity confused Yuto, but he continued putting food into his mouth, eating ravenously and playing the loyal slave. At the same time, he packed as much food as possible into his stomach.
Ebil had already left the dining room, but plenty of her eyes still remained inside.
‘The Mad Fox......’
The image of the little Evomon bound by a blindfold and chains kept floating through his mind.
‘She said it was found in the same forest as me.’
Was it a coincidence?
No. It could not be.
He could remember neither its name nor any time they had spent together—but Yuto was certain he knew that fox.
***
Several days passed after Yuto became a Lower League gladiator. During that time, he fought two more matches and drew the audience's cheers each time, just as he had in the first.
He could have finished both fights quickly, but deliberately chose not to. Ending a match too soon was bound to leave the audience disappointed. And so Yuto intentionally staged ‘entertaining matches.’
He entered carrying a sword but deliberately refrained from using it at first. Instead, he made a show of planting it in the ground and retreating, allowing his opponent to take it. At other times, he left the blade sheathed and swung it like a club, beating his opponent with it.
The spectators cheered even harder at his practiced showmanship. More nobles occupied the VIP section for his second match than his first, and more still came for his third.
Whenever a match ended, Ebil summoned Yuto and treated him to a meal. After his second match, he received a helmet as a noble's sponsorship gift. After his third, he received leather armor.
The rest of the sponsorship gifts furnished Yuto's room. First, his bed was replaced with a larger, softer one. Then came a new chair and desk, followed by paper, pens, and other tools to relieve the boredom of his hours inside. Naturally, the meals delivered to his room also changed.
“I'm so fucking jealous.”
Gaon's voice drifted through the wall. Whenever the three daily meals were served, he pressed himself against the small gap in the wall and ate his own food with the aroma from Yuto's room as a side dish.
“If you're jealous, try fighting better.”
“You think I lose because I want to?”
Gaon and Rugil had lost their previous matches. Fortunately, their injuries were not severe enough to hamper them in their next fights, but both still had more losses than wins. For gladiators at the bottom of the Lower League, never knowing when they might be dragged into a Deathmatch was a source of dreadful fear.
“Don't just lie around in your room. Practice. Want me to teach you a little?”
“Oh, really? And how are you going to teach us?”
“I'll mention it the next time I dine with Mistress. She'd be pleased if someone other than me started fighting entertaining matches in the Lower League.”
“Are you serious?”
Rugil asked in surprise from beyond the opposite wall.
“Of course I'm serious.”
Yuto was still performing the role of Ebil's loyal slave and gladiator, but his offer to train them was not made merely to earn her favor. After several days of exchanging trivial chatter through the walls, he had grown fairly close to Gaon and Rugil. If the two of them were dragged into a Deathmatch and killed—he suspected it would weigh on him.
“Ahem...... If you're willing to teach us, I suppose we'll learn.”
“Thank.......”
Just as Rugil began to answer, pounding footsteps approached. Guards did not usually pass by at this time, and the sudden footsteps sounded intensely urgent.
“Y-you—get ready to come out right now!”
The voice was as frantic as the footsteps. Yuto tilted his head and approached the door. Lower League gladiators were not usually permitted to question the guards, but Yuto already enjoyed various privileges within the Colosseum.
“What is it?”
“A-an honored guest has arrived! I'll give you 10 minutes—no, five minutes. Get ready! Hurry!”
The guard shouted, stammering.
‘An honored guest?’
It was already long past noon, and no Lower League matches were scheduled that day. Puzzled, Yuto stepped back from the door.
‘I don't know who it is...... but someone far more important than the nobles who usually come must have arrived.’
Perhaps a great opportunity would present itself today.