“Eldred.”
“What.”
“What's the point of this?”
Riyan held up the bloodstains on his hands as he asked.
Not the blood of monsters, but of fellow humans.
At that, Eldred looked unimpressed.
“And what would you have me do about it?”
“Hunting monsters is fine. But these people.......”
“Deserters.”
“But still.......”
“They are fellow humans, is that it?”
Eldred chuckled.
It was contempt laced with open mockery.
What followed was a kick.
His head snapping to the side, Riyan worked his mouth, then spat out blood-streaked saliva. Yet the gloomy look in his eyes remained.
“You are a funny bastard.”
“What's funny?”
“Who are you to judge another man's life?”
Eldred cast him a cold look.
“Who do you think you are? Insolent. Who are you to decide between life and death? Do you want to be a god? Or now that you can swing a sword a little, does all of creation look beneath you? You carry that half-ripened head around as though it were something to boast about.”
Eldred quietly looked around.
It was a landscape full of corpses.
For all the charges against them—desertion, the looting of civilians, and other vicious crimes—most of them were young and terror-stricken, every one of them.
“Stop racking your brain. It will only drain you. Guilt? You are trying to indulge in a luxury. If you still cannot stand it, turn your gaze. Look at the structure, not the people. And grow the ability to change that structure. I am not telling you to simply grovel and submit.”
Eldred tossed the rag he had been wiping his sword with.
The rag fluttered limply, covered Riyan's face, then slid off.
“I am telling you to see the forest, not the trees.”
***
Riyan gave a slight nod.
‘Yabrik, I'll respect your life.’
The elixir he had drunk took effect quickly.
The aura spreading explosively through him not only restored the strength he had spent against Yabrik a moment ago, but went beyond the limit his body could hold.
The faint blue aura he could sense before his eyes was proof. It meant the power he couldn't contain was spilling out through the glow in his eyes.
The preparations were complete.
At the same time, Riyan felt his head heat up, and his heart began to pound with soaring exhilaration.
It truly was a barbarian tribe's elixir. Hadn't they, too, set their own bodies ablaze with surging vigor as they tore across the battlefield?
He was the same now.
Along with an exhilaration that felt as if it might burn his brain, he felt a desire that would only be sated by charging in right now and tearing out his opponent's throat.
But Riyan bit his lip.
‘Keep the head cold and the heart hot.’
He suppressed the surging emotions.
As Eldred had taught him.
He would crush his enemy coldly.
“I'll chew you up!”
Yabrik charged.
At the sight, like a red wolf opening its maw wide, Riyan concentrated his aura in his legs.
In an instant, a tingling ran through his entire body.
A sensation swept through him, as if he could feel the flow of nerves in every corner of his body, like when drinking strong liquor.
Meanwhile, seeing Riyan standing still, Yabrik smiled in triumph.
He was certain. The one who had been scurrying around like a rat had finally been caught within range.
The experience he had built reigning over the Arena for years whispered to him. That it was time to see blood.
The red trajectory rushed at Riyan.
WHOOSH!
But as always, behind certainty there hovers a shadow named betrayal.
KRAASH!
The axe blade struck the dirt floor and, not content with that, dug in a whole fistful deep.
But of course, what Yabrik had so eagerly wished for—Riyan, his body split in two—was not there.
‘The rat...... where? Behind?’
I didn't even see him?
With chills running down his spine, Yabrik turned, and a figure came into view. A shadow with its left hand planted on the dirt, upper body lowered, right hand letting its sword hang.
Every time Riyan exhaled.
A faint breath leaked out.
‘Dodge.’
Evasion.
As simple as its name: dodging the opponent's attack and taking his back.
‘Charge.’
Flash.
Likewise, as plainly as could be, his body flashed.
‘Cut.’
Slash.
Swinging the sword to spin out a trajectory.
SHLK!
At the eerie sensation catching in his hand, Riyan let out a faint smile.
The Race War.
Over that grueling time, Eldred had taught him many things.
Of course, that learning couldn't be called something carved out step by step with time and care. The battlefield and systematic education were as far apart as searching for chastity in a brothel.
Because of that, what Riyan learned was simple.
Thoroughly practical, destructive, and concise.
Riyan called it the Eldred Style.
Though Eldred himself, who had taught it, never set it in any fixed form, those fragments had gathered in Riyan's head and been established into a single path.
SPLURT!
Yabrik's severed left wrist flew through the air, raising a spray of blood.
Feeling a searing pain along with an emptiness, Yabrik's eyes blazed red.
“KRAAAAGH!”
A roar mixed with pain and fury.
But Riyan, no different than before, took his stance again.
A brief moment to catch his breath passed.
Then the enraged Yabrik saw something flash for an instant within the rising sand and dust.
Amid the dark-red aura, two faint blue points revealed themselves for a moment.
Yabrik fleetingly wondered if they were glowing eyes. Of course, he soon dismissed it as an illusion and focused.
‘A monster, that bastard's a monster. Dodging won't work. Neither will dragging it out!’
Still, he was an old master who had once reigned over the arena.
Yabrik gave up on a perfect response. Of course, since he had already lost a great deal, it was a belated regret, but at the same time, it was a fitting response.
Resolved to take flesh even if it meant giving up bone, he swung the battle-axe.
Then, for the first time since he had stepped into the arena, Yabrik felt something catch in his hands, and at last, he felt elation.
It bothered him that the force had landed on the haft rather than the blade, and that he had felt a sting around his ankles in the meantime, but so what? To Yabrik, what mattered was that he had landed a blow.
‘Got him!’
Of course, right after that, he felt the world tilt regardless of his will and wondered why.
FLUMP!
Yabrik's knees buckled.
With the Achilles tendons in both feet severed, Yabrik couldn't support his massive bulk and toppled over sideways.
THUD!
At the same time, Yabrik's Masterpiece, dropped as his strength left him, fell onto the Arena with a heavy impact.
Yabrik wore a hollow expression.
Of course, his opponent likewise staggered and flopped down onto the ground, and at that sight, Yabrik felt a thrill even amid his wretchedness.
Of course, that was also because he didn't know what Riyan was thinking.
‘My ribs...... three or four are broken, I think. I can't even breathe.’
Riyan had avoided the razor-sharp edge and given his body to the relatively dull axe haft instead.
He could have dodged if he had wanted to. But then things would get tricky afterward. There was a plan in place, and this was merely a step in it.
Fortunately, the countless spars with Haral had helped. Those spars with him that ended in neither victory nor defeat had been for this very moment.
The subtle, razor-thin sense he had honed back then was a great help right now.
Of course, the price was shattered ribs and the brutal burns left by the Blood Wolf Axe's dark-red aura.
“......What are you?”
Yabrik's weak voice came.
The blue glow that had risen in his eyes had vanished at some point. The sand and dust that had covered the Arena and Yabrik's dark-red aura also slowly began to clear.
“Who am I?”
Of course, Yabrik, who should have heard that answer, had already lost consciousness.
At that, Riyan slowly raised his head.
The afternoon sunlight poured down over the open Colosseum.
Looking up at it, Riyan murmured softly.
“Knight Riyan.”
***
The Colosseum fell silent.
Though tens of thousands had gathered, it was like a single living creature following a single will.
In truth, it was hard to react at all. The eerie aura Yabrik had given off and the sand and dust had clouded the Arena.
Even so, there were things they had clearly seen.
Riyan lowering his upper body now and then to take his stance, the few exchanges that followed, and finally, the sight of Yabrik falling to his knees and collapsing.
“The Butcher...... lost.”
“Yabrik, Yabrik lost.”
Someone's murmur was the start.
It began with people covering their mouths or clutching their heads, then went on to strange, inexplicable groans and exchanged glances.
— WAAAAAH!
And in the end, heaven and earth shook with a roar.
— Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!
— Finish him! Butcher the Butcher! Feed him to the pigs!
— Off with his head! Off with his head!
The cries of the crowd, witnessing the fall of the old master and the end of his reign of oppression, were fierce.
And where that longing turned was the gladiator standing tall on the Arena, his white hair dulled by the dust.
But instead of executing Yabrik, Riyan—
“.......”
slowly raised his sword and returned it to its sheath.
At that act, whose intent was plain to see, the crowd was instantly steeped in silence.
“Th-that brat......!”
The Supervisor, watching from the balcony, gripped the railing hard.
A gladiator who fights in the arena ends up one of two ways.
Winning and surviving.
Or losing and dying.
There could be nothing else. That was all too obvious, and it was a rule every gladiator was aware of.
Of course, there are exceptions everywhere, so it couldn't be said that the loser never survived that quagmire.
But that was strictly for the lawful and lofty powers of the Empire to decide, not something a mere gladiator could weigh in on.
All the more so considering this match's format was a Victory Streak Match.
And yet, to ignore that.
With reddened eyes, the Supervisor shouted toward the door.
“Guards! Go at once and bind that gladiator......!”
“Shut your mouth.”
Someone quelled the Supervisor's fury.
The Supervisor whipped around, and Marquis Fenric Noveil came into view. Seeing his cold expression, the Supervisor's Adam's apple bobbed.
“I apologize for the disturbance, Lord Treasurer. I will take responsibility and make sure that bastard is caught and held accountable for his crime.......”
“Crime? What crime?”
“......Pardon?”
“It seems you have sat in that seat for too long. Have you grown so complacent that you cannot see it?”
“I don't understand what you mean.......”
“If you have eyes, shut your mouth and look.”
The Supervisor's eyes turned to the Colosseum.
More precisely, toward the frenzied crowd.
— Mercy! It's mercy! Mercy!
— Gladiator Riyan has shown mercy!
The Supervisor's mind spun rapidly.
The masses had long been sick to death of Yabrik's brutal, merciless executions. In that situation, Riyan's action had been the detonator that released their pent-up discontent.
As proof, the crowd that had been calling for Yabrik's beheading a moment ago had now changed its attitude and was sending praise even more fervently than before.
Having sorted out his thoughts, the Supervisor nodded.
He had only been confused for a moment; at his core, he was a crafty old hand who had knocked around the arena for decades.
“I will go and settle the situation.”
“Getting a feel for it now?”
“May I dare borrow the name of the Imperial Capital?”
“Do so. In the name of the Empire.”
Marquis Fenric Noveil nodded.
As if he had received a divine revelation, resolve filled the Supervisor's face. Bowing deeply at the waist, the Supervisor hurried out.
The Marquis, who had watched him go, turned his gaze outside again. Toward the Arena where the hot fervor swirled, and toward the figure standing there.
“A fine gladiator.”
In this arena, which could be called the milk and honey of the Imperial Capital, a gladiator who captivated the Empire's subjects was a precious thing.
Human senses are sometimes born with a sharpness that cannot be explained by theory. And the subjects, steeped in blood and steel, had developed an instinct for telling the fake from the real through long years of watching life-and-death battles.
To them, an artificially made gladiator meant nothing.
To draw out fanatical adoration, one needed innate talent and an aura. And that was a domain that even the absolute power of the Imperial Treasurer could do nothing about.
A being that could not be made, no matter how one tried.
It was the birth of such a being.
Amid those crossing emotions, Marquis Fenric Noveil saw a figure hurriedly climbing the Colosseum's podium.
Red silk and fox fur.
The showman who had earlier announced the start of the match calmed the crowd's excitement. Then, with a disciplined posture, he raised his right hand high and spoke. In a booming voice.
“Behold! The sword that was born by slaying a monster has this time saved a lost gladiator of the Empire! For death, a mere instant, is far too short to wash away a fallen life steeped in wretched arrogance and devoted only to cruelty! Is not living and breathing, chewing over one's sins until the day one dies, the only treatment befitting so sacrilegious a life?”
After catching his breath for a moment, the showman bulged his veins once more.
“Today, Gladiator Riyan has brought the soul of Gladiator Yabrik to its knees before the Empire's seat of judgment, to receive just punishment! Is that not the perfect ending befitting those sins? It is nothing less than the strictest mercy and the most lenient punishment! Therefore, the Empire, honoring that will, shall shed no fleeting blood on this day!”
THUD! THUD! THUD!
Hundreds of imperial guards stationed throughout the enormous Colosseum to keep it under control struck the ground with the spears in their hands, sending up a heavy sound.
Emboldened, the showman raised both arms at once and shouted resoundingly.
“In the name of the Empire, the Victory Streak Match is concluded! The victor is Gladiator Riyan!”
When the close of the Victory Streak Match was declared, despite the premature ending, the entire crowd leapt to its feet.
— WAAAAAAH!
It was a roar that shook heaven and earth.