Thump, thump, thump.
Listening to his heart pound wildly, Yuto looked up toward the wall. The spectator stands were empty. Crimson sat alone, gazing down with a chilling smile.
The situation itself was no different from when Yuto had first stood in the Colosseum. Everyone inside had to struggle for the sake of a single spectator.
Unlike Ebil, who had been the spectator last time, however, Crimson's words were nothing short of cruel.
She had said she would spare them if they entertained her. In other words, if they failed to entertain Crimson, they would die. The lives of the more than 100 gladiators in the Colosseum depended solely on Crimson's mood.
No, it was not just the gladiators. Crimson sat comfortably and swirled her wineglass, but her scarlet whip continued moving. The employees guarding the entrances to the stands could not even flee. The whip caught them and threw them into the Colosseum, just as it had Ebil.
“L-Lady Crimson......?”
Ebil called the name with her entire body trembling, but Crimson did not answer. Those red eyes did not pay Ebil any particular attention. Crimson was looking at the Colosseum itself—everything within it. To her, distinctions between Ebil, the guards, gladiators from different leagues, and Evomon did not exist.
Ebil shuddered throughout her body. On the heels of her fear of Crimson came the thrill of finding herself standing upon the stage Crimson had created. Breathing hard, Ebil swung her hand.
“Aaargh!”
Sharp wind sliced apart the body of a gladiator who had yet to grasp how he should act in this situation. Blood and entrails spilled out in a pattering shower.
Everyone turned toward Ebil in horror at the sudden murder. Ebil herself ignored the corpse she had created and looked up at Crimson with a radiant smile.
“I-I will entertain you. Since that is what you desire......!”
If the stage Ebil had prepared failed to please Crimson, then Ebil naturally had to perform on it herself. She wanted to see the Crimson she had always admired smile in delight.
She was confident she could show Crimson that. The gladiators gathered here were all commoners and paupers who had not even contracted with a Constellation. They were vermin found everywhere across the continent of Callisto, so common that no one would care if they vanished. Abandoned by the Constellations in the heavens, they were lowly things that could hardly be called fellow humans. They were not even armed.
And what of Ebil? Born to a noble house, she had undergone the ceremony at the age of 12 and been chosen by a Constellation. Not only that, she had studied magic from childhood.
The disappearance of the chokers posed no problem. Of everyone standing in the Colosseum, Ebil was the most exceptional.
“Waaaaaargh!”
The first murder Ebil committed transformed the atmosphere in the Colosseum. The gladiators roared and charged at nearby opponents. Only then did they understand what they had to do, what was required to survive. If they did not kill someone else, the monster above would kill them.
Yuto.
He stood motionless and glared at Crimson. Even without his memories, he was certain. Yuto knew that woman, that monster. At the same time, terrible revulsion and hatred welled within him.
He wanted to kill her. He had to kill her.
‘No. No, I......’
His head ached as though it would split apart. Surrounded by roars and screams, with death blooming everywhere throughout the Colosseum, Yuto saw a scene that did not belong to the present.
‘I...... killed that monster.’
In the heart of the hell that monster had desired and created, where beings killed one another to prolong their own lives, Yuto had severed her neck. He had brought that hell crashing down.
‘I did......?’
A past whose time he could not place. No—or was it the future? The scene he recalled was fragmentary, broken into disconnected strands. It only left Yuto more confused. How could someone as pitifully weak as he was have killed that monster?
“Aaargh!”
A roar sounded nearby. Someone was trying to kill Yuto while he remained lost in thought. Before he could respond, Rugil hurriedly stepped in front of him.
The attacker was a Lower League gladiator Yuto had seen several times. With his face twisted by fear and desperation, the man grabbed Rugil's shoulder.
“Get out of my way, you one-eyed bastard!”
The gladiator's reason for attacking was simple. Yuto was the most promising newcomer in the Lower League to which the man belonged. The last person he ever wanted to meet on a match roster was standing there in a daze for reasons unknown.
That was why he attacked. Going after a gladiator from one of the higher leagues would only earn him a dog's death.
“Hey, snap out of it!”
Gaon shrieked. Limping over, he seized Yuto's shoulder. His voice held concern. Far from attacking Yuto, both Gaon and Rugil were trying to protect him.
“Why didn't you attack me?”
Yuto looked at Gaon's face as he asked. Gaon released Yuto's shoulder and stared at him as though the question were absurd.
“What do you mean, why? You're the strongest among us! If we know that, why would we attack you?”
Gaon's answer was simple and perfectly rational. His leg had not fully healed, and neither had Rugil's eye. Even when both had been uninjured, their records held more losses than victories. The only opponents in the Colosseum they stood a chance against were candidate slaves who had not yet become gladiators.
Or people with even worse injuries. Gaon swallowed and looked in their direction.
People tended to think alike. Gaon was not the only one who had attacked someone he believed he could beat with certainty.
“Grrrk......”
Gedrick, whose ankle Yuto had severed, was already dying with his neck twisted. Beside him, the gladiator who had killed him was being strangled by another.
“W-weapons......”
Gaon stammered.
“We need weapons. Y-your sword—where is it?”
“In the waiting room cabinet.”
Yuto answered while calming his turbulent heart. He glanced at the waiting room gate and found it closed. Gaon followed his gaze, and despair covered his face.
“Fuck, why didn't you bring it?!”
“Because they didn't open the gate.”
Yuto answered impassively and strode forward. All the while, Rugil was still locked in a contest of strength with the gladiator he had blocked earlier.
“Thank you.”
Yuto said the words as he intervened between them. Once. His fist moved. WHAM! The blow struck the gladiator squarely on the jaw. His eyes lost focus, and he crumpled to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.
“I'll find weapons. Stay alive until I return.”
“W...... weapons? Where? The gate's already closed......?”
“Then I'll take them from someone who has them.”
Yuto answered coldly.
The assembled gladiators had not been issued weapons, but there were armed people inside.
The guards who managed them. Cast down here by Crimson, they swung their weapons without hesitation at the gladiators they normally controlled. They too were struggling to survive.
‘I can't die here.’
He did not want to die before even remembering who he was. He must—not die.
‘I have something I must do.’
Even if he did not know what that was. Yuto bit his lower lip and began to walk. As he did, he glanced toward the place that concerned him.
The Mad Fox.
Other Evomon were attacking it. The Mad Fox, which mindlessly rampaged and killed any opponent it faced, was their common enemy. None would have dared confront it alone, but together, they believed they could kill it. And so the Evomon had decided to eliminate the most dangerous foe first.
It did not look easy. True to its name, the Mad Fox resisted ferociously, breathing fire in every direction. Even with more than ten Evomon attacking together, they were only barely suppressing it.
Yuto had the insane thought that he should help the Mad Fox, but for an unarmed human to interfere in a fight between Evomon would be suicide.
‘Those Evomon can't kill it.’
Strangely, he was certain of that too. Holding it down was the best they could do. Before long, the Mad Fox would escape those Evomon.
Yuto believed it.
‘First, I need a weapon.’
Turning away from the Mad Fox, Yuto headed toward a familiar guard to whom he owed a debt.
The prison where he had first awakened. In the midst of his confusion, the guard had kicked him in the stomach for being untrained.
The guard whose name he did not know was busy killing the slaves he had managed. He too was struggling to survive.
“Ugh, ughhh......”
Jackie was still alive. He lay beneath the body of a slave boy who had just been cut down, covering his mouth and trembling.
Jackie spotted Yuto approaching. Yuto saw him too. The body sprawled over Jackie belonged to the boy who had been imprisoned the longest, the one who had attacked Yuto until the very end.
“......”
As Yuto looked into Jackie's terrified eyes and the dead slave boy's sightless ones, his gaze grew bleak.
The guard's sword began to descend toward a blood-soaked slave. Yuto intervened. The guard's swordsmanship was far superior to that of the gladiators Yuto had fought in the Colosseum—but to Yuto himself, the difference did not feel particularly great.
By Yuto's instinctive standards, swordsmanship at this level was inadequate. A hand darted into the path of the descending blade and seized the guard's wrist.
“Huh......?”
The guard had not even noticed Yuto's approach. Yuto's presence was that stealthy, and his intervention that bold. He pulled hard on the captured wrist and twisted the joint.
“Urgh?!”
The guard's thick wrist wrenched around with shocking ease. Yuto snatched the sword as it slipped from the suddenly weakened hand. WHAM! The hilt drove into the guard's solar plexus.
“Ghk!”
The guard's mouth gaped open. Yuto withdrew the sword hilt. Bent double, the guard staggered backward.
“Y-you......!”
Wide eyes stared at Yuto. Without a word, Yuto swung the sword. SLASH! It was a clean cut, but not a deep one. It did not need to be. Yuto's blade sliced exactly one-third of the way through the guard's neck.
“Grr...... uh......!”
Blood frothed in the guard's mouth. Unable to remain standing, he dropped to his knees. He tried to clutch the wound in his neck, but it was pointless. Yuto had grazed an artery. The guard would now bleed profusely until he died.
“Jackie.”
Yuto turned away from the guard and spoke.
“Stay still.”
The exact words he had said before. Still covering his mouth, Jackie nodded rapidly.
“Y-you crazy fucker?!”
For the first time, a guard had been killed. It enraged the others, though not because they felt any camaraderie. They might call those men gladiators, but in the end, they were merely slaves. A slave killing a guard was something that could never be allowed.
This place, in particular, was a stage created by the Crimson Ringmistress. If a slave who should be unilaterally slaughtered dared kill a guard, Crimson would naturally take notice of him.
That could not be allowed under any circumstances. Three guards joined forces and charged Yuto.
First, they would kill that slave trying to stand out, then dispose of the others. After that—they would kill Ebil, the one responsible for creating this fucking situation. There was no longer any reason to obey her.
That crazy bitch was rampaging around, attacking not only the other slaves but the Evomon as well. She might be blessed by a Constellation and capable of using magic, but her power could not be infinite. After running wild to that extent, she would eventually exhaust herself.
Then they would kill Ebil, and after that—
‘After that?’
The guard charging Yuto and swinging his sword suddenly had the thought. To consider what came after, he had to survive until then.
If he did not survive, there was no need to consider what came next.
‘Ah.’
The reason that thought had occurred to him was simple.
Thinking about what came next had become pointless. The light faded from the eyes of the guard whose neck had been severed. Yuto guided his sword onward as he passed the body falling forward.
Another guard's wrist came off. Yuto had not cut his neck because no opening had presented itself, so he severed the wrist to create one. But there was no need to rush into the opening once it yawned wide. With his wrist gone, the man could no longer attack.
Instead, Yuto responded to a sword coming from the left. He evaded the slash with a slight step, rotated, and swung his own blade. SLASH! The guard whose side had been opened screamed.
In an instant, one man was dead and two had been mortally wounded. Just as Yuto moved to finish them.
A chill.
His body flinched and froze beneath an intense gaze.
“Hmm.”
It was Crimson's. She lowered the wineglass she had been bringing to her lips and stared at Yuto with her chin resting on one hand.
“There's a strange one mixed in down there, isn't there?”
Crimson muttered with a giggle.