Bad Situation

Splash!

Ramero jolted his eyes awake when he got doused by a bucket of water, drenching his simple haggard brown tunic completely. Soon his eyes trains forward to see the same two men in front of him alongside another man dressed differently.

While the two men are wearing armor, the person sitting at a desk wears red woolen clothes.

On top of the stark red woolen clothes is a red robe that looks marbling due to its material with black line decorating its edges, it's clear that the man has some kind of standing in whatever place Ramero is in right now.

Panting heavily due to the cold water and waking up, Ramero tries to calm his breathing.

Looking around the place he finds that he's inside some kind of equipment storehouse, there are all kinds of weapons stored here from swords, bows, spears, shields, and even daggers. On top of that, there's a forge on his right, blazing with violent fire.

'I shouldn't have passed out for too long' Ramero thought after inspecting the place he was in.

Just then the middle-aged man with a white beard takes his eyes off the papers on the desk to look at Ramero, he pulls down his reading glasses to take a better look, "Are you done looking around? If so then tell me what you want to be called"

"I'm sorry...?" Ramero replied in confusion, he doesn't quite understand what that means.

Without even bothering to explain, the middle-aged man takes out the quill pen from the ink case and started writing down something. Ramero raised his eyebrows in confusion before the middle-aged man then turns the paper on his desk to face Ramero who is kneeling in front of the desk.

Using a monotone voice, the middle-aged man then instructed, "Sign there and be done with it"

Ramero is still confused as to where he really is, the treatment is very bad as if he got inside the body of a criminal and is in the process of a death sentence. But under the warning gazes from the two guards, he slowly stood up and heads over to the desk.

Both guards take one step closer with their hands on the hilt of their swords.

It doesn't take a genius to know that they would definitely strike if Ramero tries to do something funny. Ramero then gazes down to read the leather scroll in front of him, and to his surprise, he can read it soundly.

Even though it's using a language he never knew, he can read it as if it was his mother's language.

Scanning through the scroll quickly a frown slowly appears on his face the more he reads through the entire paragraphs. To put it simply, the scroll is basically an oath stating that he agreed to endure being bound, battered, burned, and to be killed by the sword.

Ramero also learns from the parchment that turns out he's inside a Gladiator School.

A lion's head symbol is carved at the very top showing that this is the Gladiator School of Tyranny, he realized that he got inside the body of a person that has been sold to the Gladiator School. 'This is just great...' Ramero thought with a wry smile.

Not only that, but he also saw the nickname the middle-aged man chooses for him.

'Nobility Brat'

From that alone alongside the comment the two guards made when they arrived at his jail cell, Ramero now knows that he should come from a noble household. Not that it matters though since he's not going to be searching for his family and would just live his own life.

"Don't waste my time, brat" the middle-aged man said impatiently.

Upon hearing this Ramero quickly takes a small knife from the table, he looks at his thumb before he sliced his thumb with the knife, and he grunted lightly. With that, he imprinted his signature by pressing his thumb at the bottom right corner.

Immediately after he did that, the middle-aged man takes the scroll and rolls it.

"Mark him and take him back to his jail cell, he'll be staying there until we get rid of that worthless Gladiator" the middle-aged man instructed the two guards with a wave of his hand, his attention immediately went back to another scroll.

Ramero puts down the knife before he got yanked to the side, stopping him in front of the forge.

As a man that comes from the twentieth century he doesn't know the process of becoming a Gladiator at all, he only knows that Gladiators are fighters inside the Colosseum. Catching him off guard, a kick to the back of his knees sent him kneeling on the rough ground.

But even though he was treated this roughly, he knows that he can't do anything right now.

Swiftly, one of the guards roughly pulls down Ramero's brown tunic and exposes his bare skinny back. Not stopping at that, the guard put his hand on the back of Ramero's neck and the other hand held Ramero's right arm to pin him down.

While being pinned down, Ramero raises his face to see the other guard taking a branding iron.

Upon seeing the heated tip of the branding iron that is shaped like a dog fuming hot and even glowing bright red, Ramero instantly know what they were about to do. Although he tries to struggle, it was no use, 'Damn it, this body is so weak!' he complained.

Ramero started breathing roughly as the heat already brushed against his back.

Knowing that there's no other choice aside from bearing with it, he breathes rapidly while preparing himself to be branded by the branding iron. The moment the tip touches his skin, he lets out a rough hiss as he tries to fight the burning sensation.

Psshh...

"Arghh...!" the guard keep pressing the branding iron into his skin before finally putting it away.

Feeling that the branding iron is already pulled away, Ramero can finally breathe easily but his body is already drenched in sweat. Throughout the entirety of the process, he didn't only feel it on his skin but he can also feel the heat seeping into his bones.

It's a miracle that his bone didn't snap from that, he then falls to the ground face-first.

Thud!

Under the overwhelming pain that this new body of his doesn't use to, Ramero feels his head spinning due to the pain he suffers. A dog-shaped mark can be seen on his upper back, showing that he's now a Gladiator.

With that out of the way, the two guards bowed to the middle-aged man before taking him out.

Ramero was brought back to his jail cell and thrown inside roughly, the pain still crippled his body for a long moment. 'Weak! If it's my actual body, I would be able to endure that way better than this weak body' he curses his new body.

Since he has been training in the special unit, pain tolerance is one of the special training.

Due to that intense training, his previous body's pain tolerance is way stronger compared to regular people, some might say that his pain tolerance is freakish. But this body is the complete opposite, he can't move for half an hour because of that branding process.

As he slowly regains back his bodily function, Ramero flips his body to face the ceiling.

But while he was rolling his body he finds a wooden bowl near the door with a thick soup inside of him, there was also a wooden cup on the side which should be his drink. Ramero then crawled near the door before he leans on the wall.

Taking the food and drink, he decided to eat it as his stomach is growling.

'I need to regain back my strength, then I would probably train a bit. Being this weak just doesn't cut it' Ramero thought while scooping the thick soup and putting it inside his mouth. It didn't taste bad, it's just very bland.

Ramero knows that this is probably some kind of bean soup, and it's quite hard to swallow.

In just about one minute he finished the entire bean soup before he chugs the drink in one go, "Yuck, it's sour and also thick. What the heck is this?" Ramero commented but he still chug it until there was nothing left inside the wooden cup.

Feeling the fatigue kicking in, Ramero feels his eyelids becoming heavy.

Probably due to the branding process that takes a huge toll on him and having recovered from the poison, he finally succumbs to his sleepiness and lies on the ground. The cheering of people can still be heard from outside, it's the only music in this place.

Ramero opens his eyes and finds that it was night, the glazed window showed it clearly.

Groaning lightly feeling stiffness all over his body, he leans on the wall while trying to collect his soul to fully wake up. But that process quickens when he heard a piercing sound echoing throughout the entire place.

It sounded sharp, and the satisfying sound it made at the end reverberated into his ears.

But then Ramero frowns when he slowly recognize this lashing sound and true enough he heard a light grunt every time the sharp sound echoed in the place. 'Someone is being whipped...' he thought inside his head.

Not wanting to attract any attention, Ramero went further back into his jail cell in the darkness.

Out of everything that he needed right now, being whipped just because he was caught listening is not something he wanted. With this kind of body, his bone might accidentally break if he got whipped that hard.

Ignoring the whipping lashes, Ramero then remembered the system.

'Oh, yeah... you said that you can make me stronger, how exactly are you going to do that?' Ramero asked, earlier the system said that it can make him stronger. Being strong physically in this kind of era is a necessity, Ramero knows that.

[Host can get stronger through myriads of ways, think 'system' to open the interface]

'Okay, system...'

Ramero followed the system's instructions again before a couple of options appeared before him, this piqued his interest as it really feels like a game, and he really feels nostalgic as it has been years since he last played games.

[Status Window]

[Quests]

[Shop]

[Physicality of Mana - Locked]

[Bestowal - Locked]

[State Development - Locked]

[???? - Locked]

Upon reading through the system interface, he finds that more than half are locked.

From the three available options that he can choose, the status window he already checked, and the shop is self-explanatory and he wouldn't check it since he has no points and is also in debt. Out of everything that he learned, if he doesn't have money then he knows to not bother looking at things.

If he did looks through the shop then he would be going to have even more debt.

With that, Ramero decided on what he would like to see. 'Quests should be where I would get points, right? Let's see what kinds of quests are available for me' he thought before he opened the quest section.

Upon opening the quest section, he finds another three options.

[Main Quest]

[Side-Quest]

[Vengeance Quest]

Out of the three, the Side-Quest and Vengeance Quest are greyed out meaning that he can't access them. Without having other choices, Ramero opened the only available option for him, the Main Quest.

[First Order - Paides Discipline, Courage, and Fighting Skills]

[Strong Mind Strong Body 1/4]

Do 10 Push-ups - 0/10

Do 10 Squats - 0/10

Run 1 Km - 0/1

Normal Rewards: 10 Points, 10 Exp, and Rejuvenation.

Completion Rewards: 200 Points, 200 Exp, and Rejuvenation.

Completing this quest requires the host to do all physical training listed above to be done in one set, finishing the physical training through multiple sets will not be counted. But stacking the number of times the host did this main quest can give the host the normal rewards instead of the completion rewards, but the next quest can only be unlocked after finishing all of the exercises within a set.

~

[Proof of Strength 1/3]

Beat the strongest Gladiator.

Rewards: 1,000 Points, and 1,000 Exp

~

[Only the Strong Survive 1/3]

Learn and train in the art of sword mastery.

Rewards: 3,000 Points, 3,000 Exp, and Preliminary Sword Force.

Ramero was given three main quests that would give him certain rewards, he reads through the three of them and finds that only the first one he can actually complete, the other two are basically out of his league.

First of all, beating the strongest Gladiator already sounds very hard.

Maybe if he was in his original body then he might be able to beat the strongest Gladiator, but even then he doubts it since he's not really good physically and in terms of hand-to-hand combat. 'Based on what I know, Gladiators should be using melee weapons and shields. I'm not proficient in that except anything that requires aim'

But even after thinking that, Ramero looks down at his own body.

'With this kind of body, I also doubt that I would still retain my proficiency in shooting' Ramero thought again dryly, he feels like this body would have difficulty in holding a bow and keeping it straight.

Secondly, learning the art of the sword is probably harder as he doesn't have any mentors.

Ramero can only sigh as he knows that he can only stick with the first main quest, since he also thought of training his own body then the first main quest is a perfect fit. '10 Push-ups, 10 Squats, and Run 1 Km, let's gauge how much I can do each of them right now...'

Determined to try and get stronger, Ramero stands up in order to know his current limit.