Day 6

I woke up in the cell under the arena.

I wasn't sure how much did I sleep but probably not much.

"Hei, Eliot! You're awake! For a second I thought that you might have died."

"You're…Marian, right?"

"You remember! How nice! I'm so happy!"

Suddenly from another direction appeared another voice. – "Shut the hell up, Marian! Overwise I swear that I will kill you later."

"Don't be so mean Vlad. We have a new guy here! Aren't you curious?!"

"NO!"

Marian stopped talking.

I also didn't say anything else.

"Pss, pss, man, Eliot, hei, are you awake?"

"…year."

"Are you human?"

"Yes." – I remembered that there apparently existed many races here so the question was normal since we couldn't see each other.

"Oooooh, you too." – Suddenly his voice became louder. – "VLAAD, WE HAVE ANOTHER HUMAN HERE!"

"SHUT UP!"

Then he continued talking to me. – "How did you even become a slave? I was sold by my master because he feared me. Vlad is a prisoner of war from Val Federation."

There was no harm in telling him about my pathetic story.

"D*mn, I feel sorry for you. It's harsh having no memories, no awareness…" – I felt that he wanted to add something else but stopped midway.

"Yeah, I know that my case is lame. By the way, Marian, is it true that one can acquire freedom here by winning the challenges?"

It was Vlad who answered. – "Yes. And I will leave this place."

Marian remained silent this time.

[…]

After some hours I heard steps in the corridor and my cell's door was opened revealing the smug face of the manager. – "Come out, it's time to fight."

There were a few guards and other two people. One of them was smiling and waving his hand towards me. – "Nice to meet you in person, Eliot!"

"Marian?"

The manager frowned and snapped his fingers. – "Shut up you two!" – Already familiar electrical shock pierced my body.

I nearly fell. The other slave, Vlad probably scoffed and looked at me with disdain.

"C'mon Old Man, what need to be so harsh on the new guy?"

I was surprised to notice that Marian didn't even twitch under the punishment of the slave contract. He was as relaxed as before. Manager's face returned to normal. – "This way he can feel how week he is."

"And don't forget that all of you are slaves."

"Yeah, whatever." – Said Marian. – "I have no qualm with accidentally dying on the arena. And you will lose a lot of money."

Suddenly I thought that the whole situation was strange considering that the three of us are slaves and the manager held our lives.

"Let's just go and fight!" – Said cheerfully Marian. – "What do you want of us, Old Man? Do we crush them, or we entertain?"

Manager's face became cold. – "Just kill half of them. Maybe something artistic. You're against the bastards from the Southern Barracks."

"Shaggra! D*mn dogs." – Cursed Vlad.

Marian nodded. – "Don't worry. We will wipe them out."

[…]

I was given a weapon; it was the same type of sword I used before: slim and long.

Marian and Vlad were both without weapons.

"You will see it later."

"My bare hands are more than enough."

These were the explanations they gave me.

[…]

The arene was huge…Probably the word "arena" was the wrong one to describe what I was looking at.

It was a battlefield.

Covered with dark red sand, corpses, skeletons, broken weapons.

Just by breathing I suddenly felt some sort of metallic taste in my mouth.

From another gate entered 50 humanoid creatures. All of them were well equipped, muscular and every single one of them had somebody parts of dogs.

"Look Eliot, these creatures a basically dogs." – His voice was loud enough to be heard by the other party. – "No, sorry, they are worse than dogs. Dogs are loyal, but these guys have all the bad human traits."

"SHUT UP!"

"I WILL TEAR THAT MOUTH OF YOURS APART"

"PREPARE TO BE EATEN ALIVE"

Marian visibly enjoyed their curses. – "See? Just a bunch of barking dogs."

Suddenly a thunderous voice announced. – "BATTLE FOR GLORY BETWEEN THE NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN BARRACKS CAN START."

Marian snapped his fingers and behind his back appeared 6 globes slowly rotating and shining with ominous lights.

The dogmen charged towards us in a very disciplined and orderly fashion.

But Vlad did the same thing.

"[Starfall]" – Uttered Marian the same moment Vlad slammed into the enemy formation and the globes behind him started rotating quickly. Tens of small moth of red light appeared above his head and shot towards the dogmen.

Every red light was like a sharp dagger easily slashing apart the enemy's flesh.

Meanwhile, Vlad was like a bloodthirsty beast.

Since apparently, I had nothing to do in this battle, I decided to go towards the enemies.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

*Marian's POV*

Seeing his new companion running towards the enemies Marian light nodded with satisfaction.

'At least he is not a coward.'

'O maybe he has some faith in Vlad's ability to control himself in the middle of the slaughter…'

'Well, I will save him."

_______________________________________________________________________________________

*Vlad's POV*

His mind was void. A dogman stabbed a sword towards him. Vlad simply caught the enemy's wrist and with a smooth movement ripped the whole arm holding the sword apart.

Dogman screamed but his sword was already plunged into his heart.

Another one appeared from behind.

'[Quartering]'

The unlucky guy was torn into four pieces.

No body was left intact in Vlad's careful hands.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

I suppressed my urge to run away as I saw Vlad's carnage.

'Monster.'

Suddenly I saw a dogman running towards me.

I prepared to fight. But I underestimated my opponent. This wasn't a mindless wolf but an experienced warrior.

The dogman with a single quick movement disarmed me and was about to kill me a torrent of red moth of light shredded him to pieces.

I was immediately covered in blood, pieces of flesh, bones…

Marian slowly walked towards me. – "You need some training before fighting here…But at least you got some good spirit. You even didn't run away from Vlad's terror."

Suddenly I felt weak, fell on my knees, and vomited.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

*Marian's POV*

"Guess it was probably too much for the first day in the arena."

He pointed towards Eliot.

"[Sleep]"

Eliot immediately fell asleep.