In the middle of the sandpit at the Kolosseum, the two exhausted fighters were standing still like a pair of statues as they faced each other in a tense standoff after ten minutes of fighting. The wind was blowing dramatically around them while the audience watched with bated breath, waiting for the final outcome of the duel.
"Kuh..." Then the blood-soaked Grodan with too many wounds on his exposed skin suddenly crumbled to the ground and lost his consciousness. The giant of a man had lost too much blood from the hundred cuts his opponent inflicted upon him.
The quiet Zephyr, on the other hand, was not better off, as he suffered many bruises and broken bones from his opponent's vicious counterattacks. He tried to smirk charmingly, but it came out pitiful instead because of both his big red swollen cheeks.
With a difficult breath, Zephyr slowly raised his sword with a trembling hand and declared his victory in this duel to the audience.
"Aaaaaaand—the winner is...! Zephyr, the Silent Gale!!" Almost at the same time, Kobeni, who almost stumbled back in the arena with the medical team, announced the fight result as the audience was now cheering in excitement.
The match was a close one, and victory could have gone either way, as both fighters are evenly matched in skill. They had to put everything they had into this fight, trying to defeat their opponent using their only advantage to the limit.
As the fight ended, the audience started talking with one another animatedly, discussing the fight pretentiously, like they are a bunch of master martial artists themselves. The satisfaction with the entertainment that was promised to them was easily met, and now they are very hyped for the next match to come.
"A-As for the next match, we have a warrior from the western continent and the old veteran mercenary...!" Kobeni continued her announcement duty, doing her best to introduce the next fighters with as much enthusiasm as she could manage.
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"That's a pretty good response from the customers," Mei Mei, who was sitting in one of the VIP boxes a level lower than where Kars was with her old butler Noburo serving her a tea, hummed with satisfaction after seeing the audience's reaction before she turned to look at the man sitting beside her. "Don't you think so, Father?"
"Indeed." The handsome middle-aged man with short silver hair, cold blue eyes, and a neatly trimmed mustache in a white suit with silver embroidery replied without emotion in his tone as he kept his eyes on the spectacle below.
"With this much attention, the battle arena should be the most famous attraction of Jinkai for decades," Frederick Silverveil commented as he drank a black tea from his teacup. His demeanor was that of an aristocrat, refined by the decades of practiced experience. "It's regrettable that we didn't think of this business first, but we also couldn't possibly manage to build and maintain such a facility without straining our own coffers..."
"Well, it's to be expected, especially because of how many resources Mr. Kars was willing to burn away just to keep the business flowing." Mei Mei smiled slightly as she watched the two fighters being carried away from the sandpit in stretchers while the next two fighters walked into the sandy stage where they would fight.
"Speaking about that man, how is your progress on that front?" Frederick inquired while glancing at his daughter. He knew she was rather close with Kars but didn't know exactly how close she was with him. They are business partners, but the power and influence she now holds over Kars' businesses was just too much for such a simple relationship.
"Oh my, is my father interested in my love life nowadays?" Mei Mei pretended to be surprised before she chuckled in amusement, although her purple eyes glanced at her father without much humor in them. The man was trying to assert his meager influence on her again despite knowing full well that she was now beyond his control.
"Obviously, your connection with Kars Aloha would determine our family's standing in the future to come after all." Frederick said without beating around the bush. He was aware that Kars would rise very high with how things were currently going. It's concerning the Silverveil family that one of its members was involved in Kars' sphere of influence while he deliberately omitted the other two who were living under Kars' roof.
"Hehe, I would only say that we are close enough to be good friends... for now." Mei Mei giggled as she narrowed her eyes like a fox. She was not going to reveal much, obviously. Her father could guess all he wants, but she was not going to entertain him more than this.
"Oh, that means you like him...?" Frederick, on the other hand, was quite surprised by what his daughter said, which also made Mei Mei annoyed by his reaction.
"Is that strange, that I like someone, Father?" Mei Mei gave him a side-eye while wondering what this old man was surprised about.
"To think this day would come..." Frederick shook his head slightly as he turned to look at his money-worshiped daughter with a curious look. "The little girl who asked me for gold coins for the first time she could speak, actually liking someone now, huh?"
"How unpleasant of you to think that I am incapable of a simple human emotion, Father..." Mei Mei muttered with a displeased expression as her eyes wandered toward where Kars was and saw him currently messing with Juri's horn-shaped pigtails while the girl was desperately defending herself at the topmost balcony.
"You are not really inspiring any prospect of continuing the Silverveil bloodline from your past behavior, Mei Mei..." Frederick didn't miss where his daughter was looking as he hummed while putting down the teacup softly on the small table on his left. "Your mother will be most pleased if she knows about this."
"Hmph, she would have been horrified if she knew who my person of interest is..." Mei Mei smirked slightly, imagining her nosy mother's predictable reaction to her aiming for not only the most infamous man of Jinkai but also her half-sister's lover. Mei Mei loves to see if her mother could handle such scandalous news.
"You might as well keep it quiet for as long as possible..." Frederick sighed as he muttered before he leaned back in his seat. "It would be troublesome if your mother were making a ruckus about it."
"I might want to see that actually..." Mei Mei said with mischievousness in her tone while the next match began with a roaring cheer of the audience that drowned out her voice...
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"You... stupid! Idiot! Ahhhhh—let go!" Juri cried out inside the topmost balcony of the Kolosseum as she tried to hit Kars with her punch and kick, but her head was being pushed away by the man himself, causing her to be unable to reach him.
"Hahaha, it's still a thousand years early for you to fight me, girl!" Kars mocked her with a laugh. It's an obligation for him to bully Juri every chance he gets so she doesn't get too comfortable and become a lazy bum like Kruri. That's right, he didn't oppress the little girl just because he could, definitely...
"Oh my, it's so lively in here..." Elsa, who just arrived after cleaning herself up, chuckled as she looked around before she spotted her daughter Kruri sitting on Kars' seat beside Sophia with a half-eaten cupcake in her hand.
"Mmh? Mommy, you're finally here." Kruri turned back to look at Elsa with bulging cheeks before she got out of the chair and patted the seat a couple of times while she continued to speak. "Come, sitting here, be my cushion, you must."
"Hehe, what a cheeky girl, as expected of my daughter." The assassin giggled as she sauntered to the chair, then she patted Kruri's head affectionately before she sat down on the seat next to Sophia, who glanced at her with a slight frown.
"You're really taking this mother-daughter relationship with Kruri seriously, huh?" The concubine commented as she still found Elsa, who suddenly took Kruri as her daughter and treated her like one, baffling. It's quite a whiplash that an unhinged murderer and shameless homewrecker could also be this motherly to someone.
"Fufu, it's nothing complicated to care for someone that chooses to accept you for who you are..." Elsa smiled with a gentle expression as she let Kruri sit on her lap and wrapped her arms around Kruri, who resumed stuffing her face with a cupcake.
"Mommy is the best Mommy for Daddy, and no one can deny it." Kruri mumbled with her mouth full before the smiling Elsa pulled out a candy from somewhere and put it in the girl's hand, who quickly pocketed her bribe.
The propaganda was delivered so blatantly that Sophia took a second to catch up on what was happening.
"..." Sophia really wanted to sneer at them but was able to stop herself in time. She had never seen such a cheap provocation before. It seems like she has to remind them who is in charge of giving out their allowance soon...
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From the outside, the Kolosseum's walls loomed like a mountain of carved limestone, casting a long shadow over the crowded thoroughfare.
Standing in that shade was a small figure of a young girl around 12 years old, not even tall enough to see over the shoulders of the bustling crowd. She wore a dull red tattle scarf loosely like a cloak that fluttered in the breeze, a white linen shirt with the dark trim of black and green, black shorts, and dark fur boots. Her hair is long and light blue with a black hairband. The girl looked foreign or rather primitive compared to the people around her.
Her name was Esdeath, a young daughter of a Partas clan chieftain from the savage northern wasteland who was currently traveling by herself to find a new home.
Esdeath looked briefly around her before she slipped through the crowd of people with such fluidity that no one ever noticed her presence. Her eyes, a pretty shade of blue that matched the sky, scanned the Kolosseum with great interest.
To the average people, this stadium was just a facility of entertainment, but to her, it was a proven ground of human will, a place where the weak were filtered out by the strong in a most honest fashion possible.
Esdeath stopped at the foot of the grand staircase, her gaze lingering on the massive open arch that served as the entrance to the audience stands. The space here was packed with people, but in the air, she could detect the faint odor of blood drifting from the arena. It was a scent that acted as a beacon, drawing her forward.
She didn't possess money for a ticket, nor did she have any desire to wait in the long lines of people, so she decided to just sneak inside.
With a flick of her wrist, Esdeath summoned small, crystallized balls of ice in her hand with her ice magic. She then used the ice balls as a distraction against the people. And with great dexterity she flicked the balls at the people's heads or their eyes, not enough to injure but enough to make them flinch.
She didn't care for the indignant shouts of the crowd as she bypassed the people under their noses and the ticket checkpoints entirely. Her boots stepped silently against the stone floor as she walked up the stairs, blending in with the crowd.
Esdeath had heard of Kars and the spectacle he was currently hosting, and while the concept of a gladiatorial pit was interesting, she wondered if any of the fighters possessed a spirit that could actually withstand her skill that was honed in the savage northern wasteland.
Mixing in with the crowd on the stands, Esdeath found a spot that offered a panoramic view of the arena. She didn't bother with the VIP sections, as the air there was too stagnant, smelling of perfume and something rotten. Here, amidst the raw fervor of the common people, the atmosphere was lively and real.
She watched as Kobeni, the trembling bunny-girl, scrambled outside the center of the pit after she introduced the next pair of combatants.
"Hm...?" Esdeath tilted her head, her gaze lingering on the retreating back of Kobeni. The announcer was fascinating, seeming to be perpetually on the verge of breakdown, yet the young girl recognized the vicious viper that was hidden behind the weakling mask.
"How strange..." It was a very clever mask she has to admit since it's somehow also a real face but not all of it, a curiosity that Esdeath found quite interesting.
Esdeath's gaze then shifted from the announcer to the center of the sand, where the next pair of combatants had just arrived. One was a muscular man in mismatched armor, clad in thick furs and wielding a greatsword. The other was an old mercenary in dark leather armor and a sword whose eyes held the hollowed-out look of a man who had seen too many deaths and winters.
"Boring..." Both feel too ordinary for Esdeath to show interest in them.
The crowd, on the other hand, was screaming for blood, their voices merging into a single, hungry mass of noises. For Esdeath, however, the noise was merely background static. She was looking around for something more interesting. As she eventually looked towards the topmost balcony, where her eyes met a pair of oppressive amber orbs.
"Ah..." She saw a monster, a great beast in human skin, and the most dangerous thing she ever encountered in her life. Esdeath's smile stretched wide as she finally found the most interesting thing in this city...