Ch 21

I did not see Legger again. I do not know why I bothered to keep an eye out for his return today, it was pointless to engage with people who could die at any time. He had told me that he was here eight days already and that was yesterday so if he had won today and tomorrow he could have gone back to his master and any friends he had among the other slaves there but since he did not come back it meant that one of today’s new faces would be alive because Legger had been to slow, to weak, too cocky, or too stupid.

This was not a fair way to look at things but in my mental state at that time, I had just killed my second person and this time, rather than trying to defend myself initially I had gone in with the intention of ambushing him in order to ensure my victory. There was no honor in the way I had just done, and I was not thinking about things in terms of honor or respect or even kindness. The only thing I had room for was survival because emotions and attachments were only going to make me weak when those people died here. At that time, I committed not to make any friends here during the initial phase of the arena.

I spent the rest of the early afternoon hours laying around on a cot and performing mental preparations to become the person I would need to be to survive here. After the last of the fighters had filtered in through the door from the arena, a few goblins also filtered in and distributed bread and water and a bit of cheese again while the accountant also went around and informed us of our earnings. I don’t know why they bothered telling us again after the first day because it was the same amount during the first ten days, we were forced to remain here, but nobody ever said goblins were very smart. As a matter of fact, other than the goblin I encountered when I first entered the arena who had been reading, every goblin I encountered spoke in a greasy and uncultured sort of way that made my head hurt if I thought of all the grammatical flaws in it.

I was happy enough for the bread and cheese, and of course I had not drunk anything but water since coming here, but I was starting to miss all of the protein that I had enjoyed before while living at the home of Silvan. My existence here was altogether more pleasant if you looked past the fighting to the death thing but my body was starting to crave protein and the meager portion of cheese, they were giving us was not satisfying it. I decided that after the ten days I would need to return to my master’s house whether I liked it or not because otherwise I would start to waste away. Maybe that was why so few slaves made it through to the tenth day.

After more time had passed the lights were extinguished and it was time to sleep. This time I went to sleep easily, I was simply too exhausted from the killing to spend time thinking about things any further.

The next morning the goblins once again came in screaming and yelling about waking up and getting in line. I waited a moment and then lined up with the others. Once again, we were led to the room where I had waited the previous day and again given bread and water in exchange for our names going into the bag that determined our order by lotto. This time I was the first person called from the winners’ side, I looked up in surprise that my turn had come so soon but then decided that it was better to have it done with and walked to the door.

When I went through the door it was the same as before, A goblin in a leather tunic and cloth pants handed me a teka, hilt first. This one was made out of what looked like obsidian strapped to a stick with some leather cord. Shit, I was only going to get one try. I took it in my hand and walked up to the gate. Soon, the rhythmic sound of the drums began, and the gate started to open. As before I quickly darted under it as soon as I could but as soon as I got out into the arena I stopped in my tracks. My opponent, despite it being his first fight had also ducked under the gate and so I had lost the advantage of time. Also, my luck seemed to be failing because today it was overcast and so the sun was not there to blind him either.

I looked at the man who I would be fighting as he began walking towards me. As soon as he saw me duck under the gate and then stop, he began smirking and walking forward slowly. He had short brown hair and seemed to be a human as he did not have any animal features that I could see nor the elfin qualities that I had come to associate with Silvan. On the other hand, he was wearing cheap cloth pants instead of a sack cloth tunic and was holding the teka as if he had practiced holding a dagger before at the least. I decided that I needed to be careful as this man would probably have some combat experience even if he was new to the arena.

As he got closer, I moved towards the center of the arena so that I would not end up boxed in against the gate that had already closed again behind me. When we got near each other he began circling around to my right, so I circled left in order to keep distance between us. His smirk grew wider when he saw this, assuming probably that I was afraid rather than merely being cautious. After a full circle he suddenly darted in at me, I saw his balance shift a moment before he lunged and so had just a moment’s warning of the incoming attack. As he lunged with his teka held in his right arm, aiming for my throat, I grabbed his wrist with my left hand, pulling it over my head while ducking slightly and then punched my teka into the side of his ribs just below his armpit. I thought that I definitely had him but after going in an inch or two the obsidian blade snapped and fragmented. He gasped when he felt the strike but then used his free hand to begin a barrage of blows to my head and face. After a moment I had to release his wrist and back up to escape the attack.

I looked down at the teka in my hand, now just a stick, the remaining portions of the blade broken and fallen to the ground and the leather strap having fallen loose when the blade broke. I dropped the useless stick to the ground and looked to my opponent. He was breathing shallowly, with some blood leaking from his mouth and his left hand clamped around his wound, but in his right hand he still gripped his teka firmly. Oh yeah, this guy had been in a fight before, after being stabbed and probably having a collapsed lung he was not only standing but still hadn’t let go of his weapon. He was looking at me, waiting to see what I would do next. Having no other ideas, I figured I would just try to get his dagger away from him. He wasn’t going to like my idea I could tell.

I began rushing towards him, quickly eating up the distance that I had gained. He waited unmoving, as if not caring that I was about to attack him. At the last second, I decided to feint to the right before cutting left to get behind him by using a strong kick of force against the ground to go faster. It was a good thing I did because as soon as I began to feint, he thrust his teka at me, had I not decided to go the other way I would have been impaled through the chest. Now behind him I kicked him hard in the back of his right knee and as soon as he fell to the ground, I kneed him in the back of the head. I think it was at this point that I realized that I had become much stronger than when I first came to this world. His body whipped forward, and his head smacked into the ground with a sickening wet sound, but it didn’t matter. I had felt his neck snap against my knee as soon as I made impact against the back of his head.

I was breathing hard now, having truly exerted myself. After a moment the blood pounding in my ears quieted down and I was able to hear the spectators cheering. There were not enough of them to be called a crowd but there was at least two dozen people present and they were all screaming their lungs out at the brutal fight they had just witnessed. I finished catching my breath and headed for the exit gate.

Only seven more fights to go.