By the evening people started coming in. Kaden wondered for a moment just how well known Sidon was because the place was already getting full and as far as he could tell, a lot more people were going keep coming in.

Kaden found out that he would fight against a beast in an appethizer fight. Since Sidon had brought in new beasts, he could kill off some of the old ones that he had before.

“Can I kill it?” Kaden asked Sidon.

“Yes”, Sidon replied casually as he was using a magic tool to check the current status of the bets.

“Can I eat it?” Kaden continued asking.

“… sure. It might show people you are not normal kid and it will bring more money in when you fight”, Sidon said. “Don’t eat all of it, though. I’m planning on selling the meat.”

“Can I eat the core?” Kaden asked.

Sidon pulled his eyes out off the tool and stared Kaden silently for a moment. “Have you been eating the cores instead of absorbing them?”

“Its better that way. Less mana wasted”, Kaden told him.

“And why haven’t your organs ruptured yet?” Sidon continued asking calmly.

Kaden stared at Sidon for a moment and realized eating cores was not probably what humans generally do.

“Sure there is a rush of mana”, Kaden said. He had already said it so he didnt bother trying to hide it. That would draw more attention so best way was to act casually like it was normal. “Its not a big deal.”

Sidon rolled his yes. “Sure, sure. Anyway, the core is valuable, more so than the body, so don’t eat it.”

“You are taking away the best parts”, Kaden complained.

“Tough shit”, Sidon said and continued observing his magic tool again. “I’ll have you work for me for a while and if you still want to return to the forest to… eat cores or something, I won’t stop you. Right now, you should get down and prepare for a fight.”

Kaden snorted and took stairs down and entered a preparation room. One could pick weapons and armor from there, but Kaden did not pick any. Some of the workers, who were less familiar with Kaden or didn’t believe the rumors that had been spread, were surprised to see him, a kid, there and not even taking any weapons.

Kaden had seen the beast before. A wolverine. It was scarred and aggressive, which was not surprising. It had been fighting the entire last season and survived. Now it was going to be slaughtered by him. That was just how the world was. He had no misconceptions about it.

The beast was only a mid stage dire beast, so it would have been something he could fight even in the wild. This one was bound, a bit malnourished and probably had injuries that had not healed. Kaden was planning on tearing it apart as soon as possible and not extend the fight too much.

Sure that might be less of a show for Sidon’s appethizer fights, but Kaden didn’t really care. Next time he can bring out someone or something stronger. He had been arranged a ‘give up’ token so Kaden was not afraid even, if he was going to be fighting something stronger.

Kaden stood in the prepartion room and looked through barred door leading into the arena.

“Welcome everyone!” Sidon shouted outside. He was announcing the start of the events. “It is that time once again! A new season is beginning in a few days. It is time to showcase our new fighters! Once that is over, a registration for taking part in the fights opens up. Take your notes. Make your bets! Enjoy!”

There was some cheering. Kaden watched Sidon prance around on his platform and kept up his show. He wondered for a moment, just how did this showman manage to reach Formation stage? Maybe just bruteforcing it with money?

“First match!” Sidon announced. “We picked up a newcomer! A savage kid that lived among beasts and somehow survived! Do not look down on his age!”

The door in front of Kaden opened up and he walked through it onto the arena.

“Kaden the Beast!” Sidon shouted and waved his arm at the arena.

It was somewhat cringy moment. Kaden wasn’t the only one having odd looks on the arena. While he did dislike the name, he planned to make sure no one would look down on him for it.

“I repeat!” Sidon continued. “Do not look down upon his size or age. As for the opponent, we will be using one of our old mid stage dire beasts! Enjoy the blood bath!”

Some roars sounded from the doorway on the opposite side of Kaden. The wolverine was enraged. It knew it was being made to fight once again. Only this time it was going to actually end with its death. Beasts often survived a bit longer since Sidon wanted to keep using them, but unlike their human opponents, they usually took far greater beating before match was decided.

The door opened and the wolverine entered the arena. It quickly noticed Kaden and started growling, who replied in similar manner.

Kaden released his core and took a combat stance.

The wolverine rushed forward and Kaden prepared to clash with it. It had huge claws, far bigger than Kaden’s. It would be dangerous to get hit by them directly.

Just as the wolverine was about to reach striking distance, Kaden quickly leaped at it as was his usual tactic. With that close range, his momentum was strong and with it, he managed to deflect wolverine’s claws before they could truly hit him.

The fight devolved into a bloody wrestle. No direct fight between dire beasts could be ended quickly. Some damage had to be accumulated. Both clawed and bit at each other.

All the while the crowd was cheering. Just when did they last time see a human wrestle with a dire beast?

As for Kaden, he quickly noticed the wolverine was weaker than expected. There was certain slowness to its attacks. Perhaps it was injured or just generally weakened.

He released a blast of fire at that point blank range. He would not get hurt by it, but the wolverine would!

There was no way for the wolverine to avoid it, but neither did it suffer anything except some burns as it rolled around a bit to put off the flames. Yet, this gave Kaden chance to charge forward and deliver a blow. He calmly took a small slash from the beast’s claws, but it was minor attack it quickly used to hold him back.

Taking this chance Kaden slashed with his claws again while adding in some fire. He managed to tear a gash on the wolverine’s head, blinding its right side.

The beast was in rage and trashed about as Kaden carefully circled around it looking for another chance. The wolverine wasn’t going to wait, though, and attacked instead. It was just as fine for Kaden.

It was easy to attack it again with it half blind and in pain. Kaden avoided the attack by jumping to the blind side and from there he jumped on top of the beast and grabbed tightly. Then he began brutally clawing its head and neck area. The wolverine did not manage to knock Kaden off from its back before it suffered fatal wounds.

“KILL! KILL! KILL”, shouted the crowd. It annoyed Kaden quite a bit, but they did have the right thoughts of the situation.

The wolverine was lying on the arena floor bleeding and slowly dying. There was no reason to extend it any longer. Kaden began tearing the beast apart. Now that it could not defend, it was very easy.

Once it was dead, Kaden sat down and was about to set the entire beast in flames, but then he remembered Sidon. He glanced at the platform where the man was and looked at his grinning face.

“Shit head”, Kaden muttered and only tore of a leg and burned only that.

The meat was relatively good at least. It had some stale side taste to it. Kaden figured it was probably due to the treatment the wolverine had suffered.

Finally the crowd shut up. If they had never seen a human to wrestle a dire beast, then what about the said human starting to simply eat the beast right there at the arena.

“These people are losers”, Kaden thought to himself. “They come to waste their money here. Most of them should be weaklings. Instead of using their little money to grow stronger they squander away. In fact, I probably don’t have to care about most of the people! Even in the heart of the Saint Empire, there exists mostly weaklings. Its not just backwater villages.”

While Kaden was musing on his life goals, the arena workers came to tell him to move out. Next fights were starting. He shrugged and walked out while muching on the leg.

He had planned for a moment to Devour some of the beast, but he didn’t want to reveal his spell for the audience to see. If he really felt like he needed healing, he figured he could ask some from Sidon. Not that he had much wounds. Sure the wolverine had clawed quite a few gashes all over, but Kaden’s flesh was tough. They wouldn’t bleed for too long. Just flesh wounds.

Still, Sidon had sent down Ulrin, the healer.

“That was… interesting”, Ulrin said as Kaden was about to pass him. Seeing as Kaden was still going to ignore him, he decided to be more direct. “Do you need any healing? Seriously, what have you been eating to not have broken bones or worse?”

“Not your business”, Kaden replied and then thought a bit. “Does the healing cost me something? I’m not going to be in debt to that greedy Sidon!”

Ulrin was speechless for a moment. “Uh, no.”

“Then heal me”, Kaden agreed.

It was quickly over. Ulrin still was shocked to see just how little damage Kaden had truly received. As Kaden left, with mostly closed wounds, he could still hear Ulrin to mutter to himself something about ‘a damn dire beast’.

Kaden went to look for Sidon. He wanted his pay.

It seemed Sidon was busy. There was already another fight going. This time two humans. Kaden watched it for a moment. He stood there just a bit behind Sidon, still stuffing whatever remained of the wolverine leg into his mouth. It was finally the crunching sounds of bones in his Kaden’s mouth that drew Sidon’s attention.

“What is it now?” Sidon asked Kaden.

“My pay”, Kaden said.

“Your pay will come after today’s event ends”, Sidon said almost groaning. “Still, you shouldn’t expect much.”

Kaden frowned. “Why not?”

“You are a new fighter and you are still paying for ‘damages’ that you caused”, Sidon pointed out. “Now enjoy rest of the evening. I got things to do, if you haven’t noticed.”

“I’m going to check the city then”, Kaden replied. He wanted to get idea of how the city was built. Where to go. Where to hide. Where to do what in general.

Sidon eyed Kaden with slight doubt. “Don’t make me come after you”, he said then and concentrated back to the match that was still going on. “You stand out. I suggest you go use the money you get today to buy new clothes tomorrow. You look like trash pile digger from the slums.”

Kaden ignored the insult, but he did agree. If he wanted to hunt people and cause troubles, he would have to blend in. New clothes were a good idea. There was also the matter of his dear wolf hide boots. They weren’t made for someone who lived like Kaden. They were showing quite a bit of wear and they were the last thing he had from his mother. He wanted to preserve them.

“Oh, and don’t get kill anyone or cause trouble”, Sidon mentioned just as Kaden was leaving. “Don’t make me put you on a leash.”

“I’m not stupid”, Kaden replied. “Its not time to start killing people yet.”

As Kaden left, Sidon only looked at his back with speechlessness.