chapter 25
25 – #025 Colosseum (2)
“Oh….”
The Colosseum was a place overflowing with grandeur and dignity more than any arena he had ever seen while traveling with his father.
A huge building built in a circular shape reminds one of a work of art, but such a magnificent building has barely been reduced to a place for gambling and fratricide.
No, since the building was built for that purpose from the beginning, it would be an error of words to describe it as a fall.
Like humans on this continent, this building looks fine on the outside, but on the inside, it’s just rotted away like a wound left unattended for a long time.
‘… It’s a disgusting place, but I like it.’
This is a place where you can kill nasty bastards without any restrictions. It may be the most comfortable place in the world for me.
There were a total of three doors in the Colosseum, one for general visitors and one for exclusive use by high-ranking aristocrats.
The last one was a door leading to a room prepared to see the contestants’ skills.
When I went inside through that door, there were a lot of guys who looked like adventurers.
‘I’m going to be seen as one of them….’
In order to hide my identity and skills, I chose the most worn out of the clothes I had and wore them.
As a result, no one doubted that I was a poor savage with light pockets, as if I had no talent for disguise.
“Hey, look over there. Did the monkey come too?”
“Hey monkey!! Today is not a monster match, it’s a melee, you asshole!!”
“Ahahahaha!!!”
Um… I have to remember those bastards’ faces and kill them. I thought it would be boring because I was making money, but it seems that I can get a little pleasure unexpectedly.
Contrary to Vivian’s saying that there were few people willing to participate, the judging room was crowded with adventurers who had gathered to participate in the melee.
Standing in the waiting line to be judged, I stuck out my head and looked at the adventurer being tested in front of me.
The contents of the test roughly seemed to test your skills by sparring with the staff at the Colosseum, but it seemed like you didn’t have to win just like the academy test, you just needed a certain level of skill.
‘This is a bit difficult….’
Defeating it is possible, but if I show too much skill here, there is a possibility that my odds will be lowered.
However, if you hide your skills too much, you may not be able to participate in the fierce battle and be eliminated, so it was necessary to hide your skills to the last minute.
While I was thinking about how to make it look more ridiculous, I had a good idea, but I didn’t like it because it was so ridiculous.
No matter how good money is, is it okay to sell human dignity for money?
I asked myself the question, but there was only one answer.
Of course you can sell it. Dignity is meaningful only when others respect it. What is the meaning of dignity that only I respect?
My dignity is the dignity of being treated like a savage by listening to monkeys without doing anything.
I was just grateful if they gave me such a cheap dignity.
As I made up my mind like that, time flew by in an instant and my turn approached before I knew it.
“You are next!!”
When the man in charge of the judge pointed at me and shouted, I took a step forward and entered the arena.
No, I was actually trying to climb. It was because, on his way up to the training ground, he purposely faked his mistake and tripped and fell as he stepped forward.
“… ….”
As he fell forward before standing properly in the arena, after a moment of silence, laughter erupted from the surroundings.
“Ahahahahaha!! What is that bastard!!”
“Are barbarians not even able to stand properly!”
Yes, laugh to your heart’s content now. Let’s see if I can break your heads later and still smile like I do now.
“Whoops… Hey, even now it’s not too late Why don’t you just give up and find another job?”
“… It’s okay. Let’s get started.”
Perhaps thinking that he had been ignored, the man frowned and raised his large sword high.
If an idiot is going to be considerate, I’ll laugh or not, would you like me to accept you when you talk like that?
“Go!!”
As if trying to fix my quirks, the man raised his sword higher and charged at me.
As soon as they rushed at me as if they were going to cut my throat, I ran away without even looking back.
Everyone laughed again at his ugly appearance, but this time the laughter wasn’t unpleasant.
Yes, laugh heartily. The more you laugh, the more my odds go up!
“You bastard!”
“Have you ever seen a mouse this big!!”
I ran and ran through this small arena, avoiding the judge who was rushing to catch me, dodging the judge’s sword.
The more I avoided the attack, the more the examiner got more excited and ran towards me, blushing.
My strategy was like this.
It keeps running away, showing a ridiculous appearance, and at the end it knocks out the exhausted examiner by pretending to be a coincidence.
Then, not only would the participation conditions be satisfied, but the funny image would remain intact, and the odds would increase as it would be considered a win by luck.
I will endure it. Endure this humiliation and must… I will kill all those worms who mocked me.
*****
“Ugh!!”
Right before the judge grabbed me, I stepped on the sweat on the floor of the arena and hit the judge’s head with my head, pretending to fall backwards.
When the head was hit in a state of exhaustion, the examiner could not stand it and fell down, and I also fell on top of the fallen examiner.
“…… Did you pass this?”
“Ugh… ! Sat, passed!! Hurry up, you bastard!”
I didn’t want to sit on top of that sweaty bastard, so I hurriedly moved out of my seat and the judge shouted to me to hurry up and get off.
The match I am going to is tomorrow afternoon, so today I just wrote down my name and got the ticket to participate.
Now I have to find a collaborator who will bet on me, but this was not difficult at all.
Since you have to entrust a large amount of money to a collaborator, even if you can’t trust him, you must be someone who can correct him if he runs away.
In other words, the person must have a certain identity, but it was doubtful whether there would be such a person among the foolish people who came to the gambling house because they had no money.
First of all, when I went upstairs to watch the game in advance, a crowd of people gathered upstairs that was incomparable to the people gathered in the room a moment ago.
Some watched the game happily while eating food while sitting in the bleachers, while others watched with a serious face as if their lives were at stake.
‘How much did those bastards blow?’
It seemed like it would explode if touched wrongly, and even a playful person would consider silence in front of them as a virtue.
The management team of the Colosseum seemed to be well aware of this fact, and there were separate seats for those who came for entertainment purposes and those who came for gambling purposes.
‘… It should be easy to find.’
It seemed difficult to find a trustworthy person among those gamblers, but surprisingly it didn’t seem that difficult.
Since most of them are rotten people, wouldn’t it be easier to find people with better appearances?
Instead of looking for a needle in the desert, you just need to find a black dot on a white drawing paper.
“Um….”
As expected, I found a few plausible characters when I watched the spectator seats, not the stadium, but I didn’t like them because they all lacked a corner.
‘The time is until tomorrow morning, but….’
As I was thinking that, the last adventurer collapsed and cheers and shouts rang out at the same time.
Those who saw it as entertainment all cheered as long as they had fun no matter who won, but it wasn’t me.
Others shouted as if they had the whole world, and those who lost cried out while crying. It seemed that heaven and hell existed together.
“You f*cking bastard!! Give me my money!!!”
“What kind of sword do you f*cking use like your mother is cooking!!”
“Why is that baby?
I thought I was pretty good at swearing, but in front of them, I was just a child who only knew swearing.
I even thought that if words could kill people, they would be the guardians of the kingdom, not Vivian.
Amidst all the dirty swear words that everyone hates to say, I saw a woman crying like a child.
The woman with her hair tousled and scattered was wearing an academy uniform, and she was weeping as if she had been honored by her parents.
“Pleasant love!!!”
“Noisy!! Don’t cry!! b*tch!!!”
“Peee!!!”
Even if someone insists on being noisy next to her, she cries even more forcefully.
So, after her seat was cleared, I hurriedly took her seat before anyone else did, and I spoke to her.
“Hey, do you need a lot of money?”
“I need it!! If you don’t have that money, you will be sold to a whorehouse!!!”
Was there a whorehouse here too?
Because it is a city only for learning, I thought it was surprisingly full of boring things, but it seems that there are more things to enjoy than I thought.
“Really? That’s fine.”
“What, what is good… !!”
The girl who was about to shoot me stiffened when she saw my face and shut her mouth. She liked it even more when she saw the horror in her eyes.
“Hey, don’t you want to be sold to a whorehouse?”
“Yes? Ah yes….”
“Then let’s do one thing with me.”