Ch7 The Eerie Old Man

In a booth near the entrance to the Life-and-Death arena one could see an old man noting people's stage name and explaining how the ranking system works. Eventually, after the 5 people in front of him were processed, it was Jock's turn.

"Name?" The old man uninterestedly asked.

"Jock" Jock replied with his name.

The old man then looked up and started to size Jock up. He noticed that although Jock looked older due to his bigger size and height, he was probably very young by the look in his eyes.

"That is your real name, are you messing with me?" The old man looked displeased.

"I thought you asked for my name though, old man?" Jock questioned, faintly dissatisfied with how nosy this old man was being. So what if I go up to die? Who cares? Fuck off man.

"First of all, my name is Soros, fuck off with that smart talk kid. Second, we use stage names here on life and death battles. After all, this is a show, not an attempt to show the audience the reality of what they are seeing." The old man, Soros, scolded Jock.

Jock didn't want to deal with this tiny statured old man any longer.

"My name will be CreamCheese." Jock responded.

"You got spunk kid, I like that. I hope you manage to keep that after your first fight." Soros mocked Jock, a smirk on his face.

'I guess I encountered him in a bad mood, what a dick.' Jock stayed silent, waiting for this incident to pass.

Soros threw a booklet and a badge on the floor.

"There's the booklet that has all the people you can challenge for your level there. You'll start out as Iron. Hope you manage to keep your spunk kid." Soros looked ominously at Jock.

Jock picked up the badge and booklet from the ground. Feeling a bit humiliated, he left, fuming inwardly.

'Fuck that old man. If I get strong enough, I'll dig your grave for you!' Jock gritted his teeth. The only reason why he didn't do that is due to the sign for dumb people directly over the booth of the old man. Which said, "Don't fight with the old man. He's Strong. He can use Mantra dumbass." With that message there, Jock decided it would be best to not tempt fate so hard.

Putting the unpleasant experience behind him, Jock decided to check out an opponent. Instead of scanning the card, Jock decided to flip directly to the back of the booklet to find the weakest people to challenge. After all, these are people competing in a life and death arena. Even the weakest one is bound to be way stronger than most people would suspect, or so Jock thought.

'Iron contestant #100, Titan.' Jock decided to pick him. Although it was a bit stupid because he was probably of a higher build than iron contestant #99 Spider, Jock thought he had a better chance. After all, he had little to hardly basic use of mantra, and Titan is more likely to fight him upfront rather than Spider.

'Go big or go home baby.' Jock hyped himself up as he looked through the booklet on how to challenge someone. After reading for a bit Jock found it was pretty easy and without interaction with 'certain individuals'. All Jock needed to do was select the contestant using the badge by saying, "I challenge iron contestant #100 Titan."

After Jock challenged Titan with the badge, he found out that a match was possible immediately. Titan was in the coliseum at this time. Jock was starting to get nervous. It was at this time that someone approached Jock and directed him to the waiting area.

Jock was under a false impression that he might get some time to mentally prepare, but the coliseum has made it so that everything is ready to go at any moment for low-ranking matches. They even call them 'surprise matches' and the audience looks forward to it as they never know what they will get.

The escort did explain to Jock on the way here that he would meet his possible manager in the waiting room. After all, if Jock died during this match, he would have no need for a manager. It may even seem pointless for a manager to actively approach an unknown challenger like Jock, but some managers like to snatch the position of manager for an unknown talent. It is all about the eye of the beholder.

*Knock* *Knock* *Click*

As Jock was nervously waiting, he heard a knock on the door. The door opened and revealed his new manager.

A short old man that was mostly bald but had two spots on the side of his head that had hair was greeting Jock. He had a lab-like coat on, except it was black, and was wearing a huge set of something similar to goggles on his face.

"I am your potential manager, the great Old Fiend! I look forward to working with you if you stay alive. I have heard things about you from an old friend, Soros! I hope you can use your young passion to win this match somehow!" Old Fiend said, with an energy not matching his age.

At that moment, Jock heard the announcer starting to hype up his coming match which made thoughts of how unreliable his manager was, disappear. Shortly after that, he heard another knock and a huge guy in a red suit came in.

"Match-time bub. Come with me." The red suit guy said.