Chapter 16
Alex is the star gladiator of Alderin's underground arena.
He'd originally been a silver-ranked adventurer—an ordinary, run-of-the-mill adventurer who made a living hunting monsters and taking commissions.
The reason Alex gave up adventuring and stuck around in the arena was simple.
Fame and money, and, ironically, safety.
Adventure was always full of variables. No matter how skilled you were, one mistake could mean death.
Compared to that, the rewards were always vague. They never matched the effort.
Only the very top adventurers could secure wealth and fame.
An average adventurer scraped by on pennies that weren't even enough to be worth his life, and died namelessly.
By contrast, gladiator bouts
ended as long as you took down the enemy in front of you, without worrying about being ambushed.
Once you became popular, money came on its own. Fame, safety, and money were all far more certain than when he was an adventurer.
How easy was that.
It was practically paradise, so it was only natural that Alex would be captivated by this simple, comfortable slaughterhouse.
And when he heard that a young lady from House Edelheid was coming here, he thought his life was about to reach its peak....
What blocked Alex's bright future wasn't some famed gladiator—it was just——
-Clack!
“What are you thinking about so hard? Thinking about me?”
The dull smack of wooden swords clashing pulled Alex out of his reverie.
In front of him was Leon, sneering as their swords pressed together.
“You little insect bastard....”
Alex swung his wooden sword at a vital point, but Leon cleanly deflected it.
Not only did he defend, he boldly stepped forward and shifted into offense.
-Clack!
The two wooden swords collided again with a sharp sound.
With each exchange, Alex couldn't hide his stunned expression.
‘This guy... is that really the same bastard from before?’
Leon from their first meeting was clearly someone who looked like he could die at any moment.
He was tiny as hell, with a skinny body so thin that if he swung a sword, he'd wobble under the weight.
When he used a pickaxe instead, I figured that made sense since he was a former miner. I thought he'd only survived the match because he was lucky.
But what was this? Right now Leon was swinging a sword instead of a pickaxe.
Not only was he not being controlled by the sword, he wasn't swinging it wildly either. Even though it was only a wooden sword, there was skill in every strike.
‘I did hear he'd been training under that one-eyed bastard lately, but this is...'
Alex couldn't believe it even as he clashed with Leon.
Leon had only started handling a sword a little over three weeks ago. Three weeks was barely enough time to get your stance down.
And that wasn't all.
He was the kind of guy who couldn't even raise a protest when beaten up outside.
He had no backbone, and instead of building up his strength to take revenge, he was a coward who tattled to Bardik.
‘And yet he was that guy....’
He seems like a completely different person now.
His brute strength and swordsmanship weren't lagging behind Alex's. It was an impossible rate of growth to explain in words.
“You son of a bitch, what trick are you pulling...!”
“Ah, this is called training. If you do it, your skill goes up. You should try it, too.”
Alex's lips twisted.
Just by exchanging blows with a slave, his pride had started to crack and was now on the verge of shattering.
He couldn't allow any more of this.
“Don't get above yourself, you arrogant bastard!”
In that instant, Alex's momentum surged. He swung his sword horizontally.
-Swoosh!
The sound of it slicing through the air was closer to crushing it than cutting it.
“......!”
Leon hurriedly raised his sword to block, but Alex's attack was already beyond something that could be called swordsmanship.
An absurd weight far beyond human strength. Brutal, destructive violence poured over Leon's guard.
-BOOM!
His defense was torn apart like paper. Leon's body was sent flying and rolled pathetically across the sandy floor for over ten meters.
“Gah!”
The air he'd gathered in his stomach burst out all at once.
Through his nausea-blurred vision, he could see Alex wrapped in a blue haze all over his body.
‘No doubt about it.’
The line that separated ordinary people from superhuman beings. The foundation of mana-based bodily enhancement.
It was the blessing that had made Alex the number one fighter in the underground arena.
Alex tightened his grip on the wooden sword and approached with heavy steps. He looked down at Leon from high above.
“This is the difference between a gladiator and a slave, you bastard.”
“......”
Leon spat out the sand-laced blood pooling in his mouth.
‘What should I do...’
The rational thing to do would be to stop here. This wasn't a life-or-death battle, just a sparring match. Though now there was a little emotion mixed in.
Alex was outmatched in strength and had drawn out mana, and no one would blame a slave like Leon for failing to cross that wall.
No, just putting pressure on Alex was already an astonishing result.
But something hot surged up from the bottom of Leon's chest.
‘......I want to clash with it.’
He still had a trump card left. Using it might be harmful to his body, but he still wanted to test it.
A fighter's instinct to see how far his own power could reach, even if it wasn't rational.
‘Just once.’
After all, this was training.
If not now, there would be no time to test it.
If he held back and it failed to work in actual combat later, that would be troublesome, wouldn't it?
Justifying it that way, Leon closed his eyes. He slowly began to steady his breathing.
Like stuffing firewood into a furnace, he breathed oxygen into the mana core located deep in his lower abdomen.
The mana contained in the core ran backward through the channels, forcibly heating his body.
“I told you before the spar. You were the one who came at me first, so don't cry even if your arms and legs get broken. I'll make your body remember exactly where you stand.”
Alex concentrated his mana and thrust at Leon's arm. A blue flash streaked through the air.
Leon raised his head. At the same time, he pushed off the ground with both hands and feet. He hurled himself straight toward the incoming sword.
Golden pupils, slit thin as threads.
He twisted his head in an instant.
Leon's body slipped past the side of Alex's thrust.
A hair's breadth.
The instant Alex's eyes widened in shock, Leon, having taken the blind spot, extended his arm.
The wooden sword shot forward like a streak of light, aiming for Alex's unguarded face.
Just as it was about to pierce his skull.
-Poom!
With the sound of air exploding, the wooden sword in Leon's hand shattered to pieces.
The wooden sword, already cracked from blocking Alex's blow moments earlier, couldn't withstand the force and crumbled apart.
The broken tip of the wooden sword stopped right in front of Alex's face.
-Whoosh!
As if facing a storm head-on, Alex's hair whipped wildly backward.
In front of him stood Leon, frozen with only the sword hilt left in his hand.
“......What? What happened? Did Alex lose?”
“Come on, the darkie's sword broke. Since he can't continue the spar, the darkie lost, right?”
“Right? But what was that just now...?”
The chatter of the watching gladiators didn't reach Alex's ears.
He couldn't tear his eyes away from Leon.
Beyond the dust raised by the sword wind, there was a brilliantly gleaming golden gaze.
The instant he met it, Alex froze like a statue. Just the aftershock of an attack that hadn't even touched him sent shivers through his whole body.
Because those eyes were the same kind he'd seen in the past, back when he was an adventurer—the eyes emitted by top-tier experts. He saw a fragment of that in Leon.
‘I felt something similar to them from a mere slave? Me, Alex?’
Impossible.
It couldn't be.
But the chill left by the sword wind that had grazed his cheek, the goosebumps standing up on his skin, proved it was undeniable reality.
And besides, that strange movement just now was definitely...
“Tch.”
Alex looked down at Leon, clicked his tongue in dissatisfaction, and turned to walk away.
The gladiators, seeing Alex leave without settling the match, asked in confusion.
“What was that about, Alex? Weren't you going to cripple that darkie's arm?”
“Get lost.”
Instead of an explanation, Alex replied with insults and stormed out of the arena.
Everyone could only tilt their heads at his back as he left.
Meanwhile, Leon, left alone, replayed the previous battle.
‘My swordsmanship worked.’
The proficiency that had evolved into [Lower Swordsmanship] wasn't just meaningless stat padding; it was doing its job perfectly.
And as they say, the more you know, the more you see.
Now that he'd learned swordsmanship, he could vaguely predict what move his opponent would make next.
Even if he couldn't overwhelm Alex, being able to exchange blows was a big gain for Leon.
The problem was mana.
‘There are a lot of things to improve.’
Leon massaged his wrist.
His body couldn't handle the explosive output when it was suddenly enhanced.
Just now, it was fortunate the sword broke; if he'd misjudged the distance, he might have split Alex's head open.
Even the sword breaking itself hadn't been intentional—it had happened because he couldn't control his strength.
‘Still, I saw the potential.’
There were many rough spots, but if he refined them further, it would be more than usable in real combat.
Of course, all sorts of proficiencies and skills were limited to physical ability. Support was only support; the actual fighting was Leon's job.
Just like no matter how good the hardware was, if the software didn't keep up, it was nothing but a flashy, useless shell.
In that respect, Leon showed a remarkable talent in combat. To the point it felt like he might have a natural gift.
‘You should've just studied.’
Honestly, he'd always been good at nothing but useless things.
Still, thanks to this, his direction was clear now.
Training, and more training.
The stronger the opponent, the more his proficiency rose.
Which meant.
“Hey. Give me a few hits.”
“......?”
Alex, lying in bed, stared blankly back. He seemed unable to process the situation.
“What are you doing, not getting up? Scared you'll lose again?”
“…Has this bastard really gone insane? Fine, today I'll really kill you.”
The next day.
“Hey. Get up.”
“Lowly slave bastard. Today I'm really going to kill you.”
The day after that.
“Come out. Let's have another round.”
“Look at the way this bastard talks when he's the one asking for a favor. Unbelievable. That habit even your mama couldn't fix? I'll straighten it out for you this time.”
After that.
“Hey.”
“In heat or something? Not a day off, huh. Wait a second. I'll just finish what I'm doing and go.”
.
.
.
“Why aren't you asking for a spar today?”
“I've got a match the day after tomorrow, so I'm resting…….”
“Resting? Have you lost your damn mind, you bastard? You think you can afford to rest right now? You want to spend your whole life resting? Quit talking nonsense and get out here. Today I'm really going to beat you into mush.”
For the rest of the time, he carried out Bardik's orders, sparred with Alex, and raised his proficiency to the maximum.
And just like that, two weeks flew by.
“Are you ready, Leon?”
“Of course.”
The day had come to claim freedom.