VIP Room.
The highest floor of the Underworld Arena, where the entire stadium could be seen at a glance.
A person wearing an eagle mask looked down at the arena with bored eyes.
His name was Karayan.
He was the owner of the 「Ruins Merchant Company 」, which ruled the black market, and the Headmaster who oversaw the Underworld Arena.
‘A predictable match. Nothing worth watching.’
Karayan clicked his tongue.
From the start, this match had been designed so that the slaves could never win.
The slaves went without food for days in their prison. On top of that, all they had been given were rusted weapons.
The chances of such slaves surviving against Human Butcher Barba approached zero.
‘The spectators know that, too. That’s why they’re watching.’
The underdog effect?
No. In the first place, not a single person watching this match was rooting for the slaves.
What the spectators wanted was a one-sided massacre. The slaves’ role here was nothing more than that of living targets.
─Four! Only four slave gladiators remain now! How will Barba dispose of these slaves......
KABOOOOOOOM───!
Was that why?
At the moment an unexpected upset occurred.
─......Huh?
The arena was instantly engulfed in silence.
“What......!”
CLATTER—!
Karayan sprang to his feet.
His eyes wide, Karayan stared at the arena with an expression of utter disbelief.
Sand dust slowly rose into the air.
At its center stood an emaciated slave, holding a one-handed sword without moving.
DRIP, DRIP—.
And one step in front of the slave.
The corpse of Human Butcher Barba, with the entire upper part of his neck gone.
Sway—.
THUUUD—!
The moment the massive body collapsed helplessly onto the dirt floor, the arena froze.
Faced with that shocking situation, which no one had expected in the slightest, the spectators could not even breathe.
The horrific silence created the illusion that time itself had stopped.
“......”
What the hell had just happened?
No one understood the phenomenon they had just witnessed.
Something flashed.
A powerful gust swept through the arena. When they opened the eyes that had been shut by the violent air pressure, Barba had already died like that.
Yes.
That was all there was to it.
Faced with a surreal situation that defied all logical explanation, the spectators looked down at the arena in a daze.
ROLL, ROLL, ROLL.
THUMP—!
At that moment, a dull impact rang hollowly through the arena.
It was the sound of Barba’s head, which had been rolling across the dirt floor, striking the arena’s outer wall.
“Ah......”
Only then could Karayan accept the current situation.
‘......Barba is dead.’
Far too futilely. Without being able to offer any response at all.
“......”
Karayan silently turned his gaze toward the slave who had killed Barba.
An emaciated body. Hollow, unfocused eyes.
At a glance, he was a man no different from the other slaves.
But the movement he had shown moments ago was something an ordinary slave could never display.
Abnormal speed that created the illusion that his body had disappeared.
That was a movement only a High Knight, a superhuman, or a powerful expert of an even higher realm could display.
‘......But why would someone like that be dragged in as a slave of the Underworld Arena?’
He could not understand it.
The slaves of the Underworld Arena were debtors who had been dragged here for failing to repay the Ruins Merchant Company.
Most were vermin who had gone bankrupt after borrowing money recklessly while so addicted to drugs or gambling that they could not even tell right from wrong.
But that man was different from such trash.
‘A fighter with strength equal to that of a High Knight.’
With that level of martial prowess, he could secure a position for himself anywhere on the continent.
There was no way someone like him had failed to repay his debts.
No, he had no reason to owe a debt to the Ruins Merchant Company in the first place.
In a world where strength was everything, how could someone that strong possibly lack money?
‘And even if that man had somehow truly owed a debt to the Ruins Merchant Company......’
It still made no sense that he would willingly allow himself to be dragged in as a slave of the Underworld Arena.
After all, a fighter capable of killing even Barba in a single blow could not possibly be overcome by mere loan sharks from the Ruins Merchant Company.
‘Then......’
Gulp.
Karayan swallowed dryly.
There was only one thing this situation could mean.
‘......That man deliberately allowed himself to be brought to the Underworld Arena.’
But for what purpose?
“......”
After pondering for a moment, Karayan quietly muttered.
“Loren.”
“......Yes, my lord.”
The moment Karayan called for someone, a figure abruptly emerged from the shadows.
“What did you make of it?”
At that brief question, the man wrapped in a dark robe hesitated for a moment before answering.
Not long afterward, the man called Loren muttered in a voice tinged with confusion.
“......I could not react at all, either.”
Karayan’s expression darkened at that answer.
Loren, his bodyguard.
He was the most accomplished swordsman in the Ruins Merchant Company.
He had lasted four minutes against one of the continent’s Twelve Swordmasters, the 「Violent Dragon Swordmaster」. There was no reason to doubt his ability.
And yet, even Loren had been unable to follow that man’s speed with his eyes.
“Hah......”
Karayan let out a hollow laugh.
His evaluation of the man who had killed Human Butcher Barba rose sharply.
After a brief moment of consideration, Karayan opened his mouth.
“......Prepare a place, Loren. It seems that I should speak with that man directly.”
***
Inside the waiting room after the match.
When I casually looked ahead, I saw a full-length mirror.
On its surface, my appearance—something I had not yet had the chance to inspect—came into view.
Meeting my own face for the first time, I let out a sigh of relief.
“Phew......”
Dark-blue hair that slightly covered my eyes.
Golden irises that faintly revealed their presence through the strands.
And skin so white that it appeared pale.
‘Good thing I left the appearance customization at the default setting.’
It was the protagonist’s default appearance, the one displayed on the original game’s title screen.
Although I now looked a little unpleasant because I was painfully skinny and my eyes were hollow, I knew that the protagonist’s original face was handsome, with a boyish quality to it.
In any case, it was an immense relief that I had not used my usual veteran-player customization this run.
Had I customized my appearance as I normally did, would I not have been mistaken for a monster and executed before I could even be dragged in as a slave of the Underworld Arena?
‘Still......’
With a dazed expression, I repeatedly clenched and unclenched my hands.
‘......That sensation from earlier.’
It still felt vivid.
The electrifying omnipotence that had wrapped around my entire body immediately after using the skill.
How should I describe it?
It truly felt as though I could do anything with a sword.
As though I could cut down everything in this world, as long as my will reached it.
......The problem was that it had only lasted 0.01 seconds.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Active Effect]
While the skill is active, you will attain the ultimate realm.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
‘Anyway, now I know exactly what the skill does.’
At first, the abstract skill name and description had made it difficult to even guess at its effects.
The Soul of the Swordmaster, the ultimate realm, and so on. How could I possibly understand the skill’s effects from descriptions like those?
But after using the skill myself, I realized its effects at once.
‘While the skill is active, I become a Swordmaster.’
A Swordmaster.
The highest realm a human could attain.
According to the original setting, only twelve people had reached that realm in the present day.
That was how rare Swordmasters were.
A knight born with talent that appeared only once in a century would have to strive to the point of death just to barely reach that realm.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
You possess the greatest talent among tens of millions—no...... hundreds of millions—of Swordmasters.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
......And among those Swordmasters, I was an utterly unparalleled existence.
‘Talent that might only appear once among hundreds of millions of Swordmasters.’
At least during the moment I activated 【Soul of the Swordmaster 】, it meant that I became the strongest in this world.
The problem was that the time only lasted 0.01 seconds...... Ah, forget it. I am sick of repeating that.
【Lv. 1】
‘......But as expected, killing Barba did not make me level up.’
Well.
Considering Lost Elder’s “setting,” that was only natural.
This game’s growth system had always differed from those of ordinary RPGs.
More specifically......
Knock, knock—.
“......?”
It happened right then.
A knock came from outside the waiting room.
Not long afterward, a woman dressed as a maid carefully opened the door and entered the room.
“The Head of the Ruins Merchant Company summons you.”
The Head of the Ruins Merchant Company.
In other words, the Headmaster who ran this Underworld Arena had summoned me.
‘Yeah. Just as I expected, this is how it goes.’
It was something I had anticipated to some extent.
Rising from my seat, I followed behind the maid who guided the way.
Toward the highest floor of the Ruins Merchant Company, where monsters capable of taking my life with the mere flick of a finger lurked.
“......”
Even in this skin-crawling situation, the reason I could remain calm was......
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Passive Effect]
The ‘Mental Strength’ stat is permanently set to ‘MAX’.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
......Perhaps because of 【Soul of the Swordmaster】.
***
Was it because I had spent five days imprisoned before taking part in a blood-splattering match?
I looked worse than a sewer rat.
My body was caked in dirt, dust, and bloodstains, and a horrible stench rose from me.
The maid seemed to decide that meeting the Head of the Ruins Merchant Company like this would be impossible, so she first led me to a makeshift bathing room.
SHHHHH—.
After taking a quick shower and changing into clean clothes, I followed behind the maid once again.
As I walked through the dark corridors of the Underworld Arena, the setting of this game suddenly came to mind.
【Ruins Merchant Company】
That was the name of the people I was going to meet.
They were an illegal guild that ruled the continent’s black market.
No matter how generously one looked at them, the Ruins Merchant Company could never be called good people.
They were a group that pursued nothing but “money,” engaging in everything from human trafficking to drugs and all manner of illegal activities.
The Underworld Arena itself, operated by the Ruins Merchant Company, showed just how vicious a guild they were.
‘The Headmaster of this guild is someone named Karayan.’
Karayan.
With nothing but his inborn insight and business acumen, he was a major figure who had seized control of the continent’s black market.
He was also an extraordinary merchant, the only person in Lost Elder’s world—where martial strength itself became wealth—to build power through wealth alone.
‘That is all the official setting known to Lost Elder’s players.’
As I walked while thinking that, I eventually arrived before my destination.
“We have arrived.”
The maid stopped and carefully opened the room’s door.
CREEEAK—.
The first thing I saw through the door, which opened with the sound of old hinges, was a translucent level window.
【Lv. 84】
Level 84.
It meant that this person was one of the continent’s leading fighters.
I lowered my gaze a little farther.
A person wearing an eagle mask was seated in a chair, staring directly at me.
“Yes.”
“......”
“Are you the gladiator who killed Barba?”
A male voice flowed from behind the mask.
At that chilling voice, which carried an air of charisma, the servants in the room flinched and trembled.
But why was that?
Even though this was clearly a situation that should have made me tense, my heart was perfectly calm.
Perhaps it was because Karayan had acted exactly as I had expected.
“I have no desire to speak with a puppet.”
“......What?”
The instant I finished speaking, a flustered voice leaked from behind the eagle mask.
Paying it no mind, I once again looked closely at the level window above the eagle mask.
【Lv. 84】
Had I not just said it?
Karayan was a merchant who had attained the lofty position of Head of the Ruins Merchant Company with nothing but his inborn insight and business acumen.
‘Karayan’s martial ability is not high at all.’
Karayan’s level was no different from that of an ordinary person.
The reason he had risen to become the Head of the Ruins Merchant Company was because of his exceptional sense for seeing the flow of money.
Therefore, the Level 84 monster seated over there was not Karayan.
‘Given the circumstances, there is a high chance that he is Karayan’s bodyguard, Shadow Knight Loren.’
There was nothing particularly strange about that.
Even in the original game, Karayan had always lived hidden behind his own puppet.
And above all......
“If you invite a guest, then show the courtesy befitting one, Karayan.”
“......”
“Do not borrow your puppet’s mouth. Come forward yourself.”
......Having played Lost Elder for two hundred runs, I knew Karayan’s true identity concealed behind the veil.
I turned my head behind me.
More precisely, toward the “maid” who had guided me here.
“Surely, after I have gone this far, you do not intend to stand there and keep pretending innocence.”
“......!”
“......!”
The moment I finished speaking, the pupils of everyone in the room began to shake.