60. The Arena (4)

A slave of the arena.

That was what summed up that wretched existence: victory and defeat. Though dig to the truer heart of it and it turned starker still, a matter of death and survival. To go on living today, you had to kill off someone else’s yesterday; only by trampling today’s opponent could you finally draw breath tomorrow. It was a fate of standing on sand soaked through with someone’s fresh blood, waiting to see who the next sacrifice would be.

That was the life of a slave thrown into the arena.

But I was no slave. I knew this arena’s rules, and I knew how to break a tragedy that kept looping back on itself like a Möbius strip.

Something’s off, though.

Cerberus had originally reigned as the mid-boss of the second gate. So why was a creature like that reduced to a slave of the arena?

He wasn’t the type to take fright or bolt just because one of his heads had rolled across the floor spurting blood. Driven by a single obsession, that he had to kill me, he loosed his attacks in a mad, scattershot frenzy.

The center head kept spewing poison fog at me, trying to snare me, but thanks to the left head ceaselessly belching out chill breath, the arena had frozen over like a skating rink. I slid the sword back into my belt and skated leisurely across the makeshift ice, keeping the tedious stalemate going.

I’d seized an overwhelmingly favorable position, yet I hadn’t landed so much as a single blow on Cerberus.

As long as it’s uncertain who Elli’s next opponent is, I can’t let this fight end.

That was why I kept dragging out this inefficient war of attrition.

Beginner’s luck never holds. It had all looked promising back when Seraphina overwhelmingly smashed the shield-soldier to pieces. But the moment my turn came up, second in the batting order, the bracket tangled in a way that made no sense at all.

If I cut Cerberus’s throat here and now? Then Elli, next in line, would be left facing a beyond-spec monster even worse than him, with no way out. By this arena’s rules of one-on-one duels, her odds of surviving an opponent like that were close to zero.

And I can’t very well let her just lie down and die because the fight’s unwinnable.

There was only one way to manage that: make my fight with Cerberus null and void. So I bought time.

About time for him to show up.

For whatever reason the spectator stands stood empty just now, but an arena is by nature an amusement house for the crowd. More than that, the spectators an arena draws are the sort who crave the lurid spectacle of the victor caving in the loser’s skull, tearing out his heart, and biting into it.

So what did the scene on the sand look like at the moment? Cerberus flailing at empty air, swinging at nothing, and my own shabby little figure-skating routine as I slipped past those whiffing swipes. Had the crowd been watching, a shower of jeers and filth would already have rained down. A place like an arena is built, above all else, to avoid exactly this kind of no-fun deadlock.

How long had the standoff dragged on by now? I wasn’t the only one running dry. Cerberus’s mana had bottomed out too, and he could no longer belch that frostbitten chill or that wicked poison breath; now he just heaved ragged breaths and lunged at me on guts alone.

But this was the ice rink he’d built for himself.

“Krrr, woof!”

The center head gaped wide as if to swallow me whole and charged. But the instant its forepaw hit the ice, a grotesque grinding sound tore out and the huge bulk lurched.

— THUD!

Unable to master its own weight, Cerberus splayed all four legs in every direction and crashed flat to the ground. He thrashed to haul himself back up, but his claws only scraped and spun uselessly on the ice. Just as he barely caught his balance and made to lunge again, his left and right heads whipped off in opposite directions, and down he went flat on his rear all over again.

It’s not like he’s a puppy stepping onto ice for the first time.

The chill he’d loosed to catch me had come right back around to bite his own foot.

It was right about then, when calling this farce a contest had grown almost too embarrassing, that the air of the arena stilled in an instant and the robed man appeared dead center on the sand.

Bingo.

Cerberus, who had been flailing so desperately a moment ago, whimpered, tucked his tail, curled in on himself, and trembled all over.

“I will end the match.”

At those words I slid forward as though skating and stopped in front of the man. Then, pointing at the trembling Cerberus, I answered.

“What are you talking about. My fight with that mutt isn’t over yet.”
“The victor has been decided.”

The robed man’s eyes fixed coldly on me. He meant, most likely, to declare me the winner and force the fight to a close. But before he could open his mouth, I rattled off my objection like a barrage.

“As you can see, I haven’t completely beaten that mutt. It took everything I had just to take down one head. But he’s still raring to go, bearing down on me like he means to kill me, isn’t he?”

In combat sports, when no one scores a KO, the judges’ decision settles winner and loser. What the robed man was about to do amounted to just that: a decision handed down by the referee. But a decision win was not the outcome I wanted.

“Let’s call it a draw.”

At my shameless demand, the man’s brow twitched faintly; his expression said no such childish outcome existed in this arena of blood. But I wasn’t cowed, and I pressed my logic.

“If the arena’s spectators were here, would they be satisfied with me saying I won this match? No — they’re not such merciful sorts. They’d want the loser’s heart torn out and his blood drunk down. But unfortunately, I haven’t the strength left to rip out that thing’s heart. And of course there’s no chance I’d ever let myself end up under that mutt’s claws either.”

I forced a bloody little smile to my lips, lacing it with all the regret I could muster.

“When neither side can kill the other, what victory or defeat is there to speak of? Let’s just call it a draw. In exchange, the next time I come to challenge, I’ll be sure to tear out that mutt’s heart and drink his blood. In front of a packed house, no less. Sounds like a pretty decent deal, don’t you think?”

The man, silent through my proposal, finally opened his mouth.

“…Your every word has been conveyed, through my ears, to the master of the arena.”

The robed man slowly raised his hand. At that, Cerberus, gasping for breath in the corner, let out a high keening whine as though gripped by some instinctive terror and crawled along the ground.

“However.”

The robed man lightly closed his raised hand. In that instant the empty air split, and a colossal sword fell like a shooting star, plunging deep into the left side of Cerberus’s neck.

— SHUNK—!

Cerberus’s eyes rolled back and his limbs convulsed. Indifferent to it, the robed man went on flatly.

“The master says to declare your victory.”

The robed man raised his hand once more, and a second sword was summoned out of the empty air, plummeting toward Cerberus’s one remaining head.

— KANG—!

Without a moment’s hesitation I kicked off the ground, leapt into the air, and forced the falling sword off its path with my own blade.

That blade had sheared through Cerberus’s neck like a block of tofu; the moment I crossed it with mine, sparks flew and a heavy shock surged up through my wrist.

“Hrraaaagh!”

With that battle cry, I finally knocked the blade away as it dropped toward Cerberus’s last head.

“…What is the meaning of this?”

The man’s eyes settled into something chillingly cold. A look of pure incomprehension: why refuse a victory being spoon-fed to you?

I spat out a gob of blood-and-spit, ptui, and said,

“I told you already, didn’t I. I said I’d call it a draw.”
“The master has granted you victory, and yet a mere combatant means to defy him?”
“Don’t get the wrong idea. If this were a fight between slaves, the only choices would be survival and death. But I’m a challenger of the arena, not a slave.”

To put it plainly, it was as if the son of some high noble who loved watching the arena had decided to step onto the sand himself and do the hunting in person. Would a proud noble’s son accept a victory won by another’s meddling rather than his own skill? Never.

The organizers, for their part, could hardly kill or enslave so precious a guest on a whim.

“If it isn’t a victory won by my own skill, this match has no meaning. If you force this kind of fixed victory on me… then I’ll forfeit my challenge here and now.”

To forfeit the challenge. That meant I wouldn’t be able to set foot in the Abyss again for a full month.

It was, just as Eve said, a bone-deep gamble for me as well. But short of staking everything on a last stand like this, there was no way to draw out the master lurking in the mist.

A silence settled. The robed man’s pupils trembled with a strange light, and then he relayed the master’s answer in his stead.

“…And what is it you want, by processing this as a draw?”

I pointed at Cerberus and said,

“As you know, my opponent was never supposed to be Cerberus in the first place — and you know that better than anyone.”

The man didn’t answer. His silence was answer enough.

“What I want is one thing. Don’t go switching the minions to suit your own tastes. So as for Elli’s opponent, the last batter up — prepare the original one as it was meant to be.”

The man stared into empty air for a while. After a brief stillness, as though communing with someone, he slowly nodded.

“…Understood. As you say, the final challenger’s opponent will be prepared in the original order — a ‘mage.’”

It went over more obligingly than I’d expected.

“Good. Then let me make one more proposal. Since the match has been voided, how about I take on both of the remaining minions myself? I’m saying I’ll go out in Elli’s place.”

I couldn’t say why, but the master of the arena seemed reluctant to let me forfeit the challenge. So, for Elli’s safety, I’d thrown out a drastic proposal.

But this time the man shook his head firmly.

“That cannot be permitted.”
“If the match is void, doesn’t that mean I get one more chance?”

At my retort, the man’s gaze settled into something cold.

“You dressed it up as a draw, but you yourself know best that the true victor of this match was you.”

The master flung my own words right back at me, mocking me with them.

“Your duels end here. And I will permit no further proposals.”

It meant that for all my success in setting Elli’s bracket back to normal, the last door was, in the end, one she would have to open by her own strength.

“Stingy. And you lot were the ones who broke the rules and made a mess of things first.”

Ignoring my jab, the man’s form once again scattered into haze like smoke.

“What about this mutt? You’re not planning to drag him off and lop off the rest of his heads, are you?”

Only moments ago he’d been a monster bent on taking my life, and I’d kept calling him a mutt to his face.

Even so, this is a bit much.

The state he was in now would stir pity even in someone with no love for dogs at all. Watching him whimper on the floor with two of his heads gone, I couldn’t help feeling sorry for him.

“He says do as you like. By your own logic, the moment this became a draw, he ceased to be a slave of the arena.”

Leaving that final notice behind, the man’s form vanished completely, without a trace.

In the center of the now-silent arena, only I and the bleeding Cerberus remained.

But he didn’t run. Instead he lowered his one remaining center head and loosed a beastly growl.

“…Krrrrr.”

He seemed to have decided that with the robed man gone, the arena’s match was back on. Bracing his trembling legs against the ground, he wrung out the last of his strength, watching for an opening to pounce on me. Even as blood gushed in gouts from the brutally torn stump of his neck, the survival instinct burning in his eyes refused to break.

I sheathed my sword and looked the growling beast straight in the eyes.

“Never once in my life did I ever mean to keep a dog or a cat, you know.”