Chapter 3
Everyone, open your ears and listen up. A distinguished guest will be visiting the arena soon.
A few days ago, Bardik gathered the gladiators and said that.
That had nothing to do with me. I'm not a proper gladiator, just a disposable gladiator slave.
But curiosity is curiosity.
So I casually drifted over there, pretending to mop the floor with a rag.
“May I ask who is coming?”
“A young lady from House Edelhaide.”
“E, Edelhaide?!”
Wow! Holy shit, Edelhaide!
What an incredible person to be coming here!
‘What is Edelhaide.’
The truth is, I have no idea what it is at all. Everyone was making such a fuss, so I just went along with them.
I mean, I have no idea what kind of world this is, or why I fell into it.
Even if I want information, I can't take even one step outside the arena.
I'd bet I know less about the world than the imperial princess sitting in the imperial palace.
‘Still, I feel like I've heard the name somewhere.’
Probably from overhearing conversations like this from spectators or gladiators.
The gladiators were buzzing.
“Why would a child of such a great noble house come all the way to this shabby place…?”
“What? You bastard, are you saying my arena is shabby?”
“S-sorry, sir! That came out wrong!”
Bardik clicked his tongue.
“I hear it's all the rage among nobles these days to sponsor gladiators.”
“Sponsor them?”
“Yes. They support gladiators, and when those gladiators win, they seem to feel vicarious satisfaction.”
I understood it in one shot.
In plain terms, it's sponsorship.
Just like a pro sports team taking corporate sponsorship, logos on the uniforms and all.
The nobles give gladiators money and equipment, and the gladiators become their proxies and win for them.
The nobles I know are the type who live by honor and die by honor, like Joseon-era scholars.
The more wins and fame a gladiator racks up, the more people will praise the sponsor's eye for talent too.
Nothing hard about it, a thoroughly businesslike deal.
“The young lady of House Edelhaide will be watching your matches. Anyone who wants even a few crumbs has to catch her eye. So give it everything you've got. That's all.”
After Bardik dropped a massive bombshell and vanished, whispers remained among the gladiators.
“Hey, what exactly is so good about getting sponsored?”
“I worked at another arena, so I know. They even fit you with custom gear and pay victory bonuses. A gladiator sponsored by a count got ten gold coins every time he won.”
“T-ten gold coins?!”
As far as I knew, one gold coin would cover a commoner's family's living expenses for a month.
Ten gold coins like that.
That's a fortune for gladiators who live hand to mouth, day by day.
‘What was my price again?’
Was it around fifty silver coins?
One win would be enough to buy twenty of me.
Damn, my price is stupidly low.
“Ha, what if I got sponsored?”
“Dream on. Why would a ducal house sponsor us? There are plenty of gladiators better than us in this world.”
“Maybe they have the insight to recognize my shining potential.”
“What a load of crap.”
Even saying that, they all seemed secretly excited.
A duke, no less.
The highest of the five noble ranks.
I'm from Earth, so I don't really feel how incredible that status is, but still, it must be huge.
A ducal house in my corner?
‘This is a chance to turn my life around.’
She's even a noble young lady. The sort you often see illustrated in romance-fantasy novels.
A flower in a greenhouse, through and through.
She'd definitely be insanely pretty.
‘Maybe she isn't interested in gladiators, but in slaves?’
I'm not sure I can really fight, but I'm great at groveling.
“What is it, Leon? Did you sneak around eavesdropping on us? What, are you interested too?”
While I was imagining being chosen by the ducal young lady, the gladiator Alex spoke to me.
I hate this guy.
He picks fights with me all the time.
“No, not really.”
“What? Tch, listen to this rude bastard talk.”
Alex muttered under his breath, then hawked and spat, khaak, ptui!
No, you bastard, that's the exact spot I just mopped.
I wiped it clean with the rag right away.
Damn it, there was still gunk left on the floor.
Alex cast a contemptuous glance at the noisy gladiators.
“Anyway, you bunch are making a fuss like a pack of girls. She's just a duke's daughter, and a little kid still smelling of milk at that. Sponsorship my ass. She's obviously going to burst into tears and go home.”
That made sense too.
Right now I'm a slave, forced to fight. I still tremble whenever I run into a monster.
But a noble girl, and a kid at that?
What's really worth worrying about isn't whether she'll cry—it's whether she'll wet herself. If she makes a mess, I'll be the one cleaning it up.
I'll be generous and let the small stuff slide. But the big stuff's out.
***
The arena was busier than usual today.
Servants and slaves alike were working hard to clean up the arena. As Bardik had announced a few days ago, it was because the young lady of House Edelhaide was visiting.
Dust from the window frames, cobwebs, the floor—everything was being cleaned and polished.
The scene looked like an army preparing for a division commander's visit.
And I'm one of those soldiers.
Normally, gladiators aren't made to do menial chores. Especially not on a day when they have a match.
But I'm not a gladiator, I'm a slave. So even though I have a match scheduled in just a few hours, I'm still cleaning.
As if I were determined to squeeze every last drop of use out of my body before dying.
‘The hell with it.’
There was no reward anyway, so why bother working hard? I lazily waved the rag around half-heartedly.
“I never dreamed the young lady would take an interest in gladiators. I am Bardik, the manager of this arena.”
Bardik's voice came from around the corner in the hallway.
Looks like that young lady had arrived.
I never thought Bardik would be that respectful. This really is a world where status is everything.
“The gladiators?”
“They're waiting in the waiting room, eagerly awaiting your arrival, young lady.”
Soon, the rumored young lady appeared around the corner under Bardik's guidance.
“…………Huh?”
The moment I saw her face, time stopped for an instant.
Waist-length jet-black hair. Green eyes as if the forest's green had been pressed into them.
Skin so pale it was almost white shone unrealistically against the dreary arena.
Like a porcelain doll painstakingly carved by a master artisan. She looked like she was rendered at a completely different resolution.
She was definitely someone I'd never seen before.
But it wasn't a face I was seeing for the first time.
“…Renoa?”
The villainous extra from the bishoujo raising sim <Lady Maker>, Renoa Edelhaide.
She was standing right in front of me. She was much younger than the version in my memory, but there was no mistaking her.
‘How is she here?’
There's no way a game character would be possessing someone like me, so there was only one possibility.
No, holy shit, I was inside a game world?
“Renoa…?”
At that moment, Renoa's green eyes flashed ominously as she fixed me with a sharp glare.
Only then did I realize my mistake. In my panic, I'd casually blurted out her name.
I hurriedly clapped a hand over my mouth, but once spoken, words can't be taken back.
“Young lady?”
Renoa ignored the knight's call entirely and started walking toward me.
-click, click.
An ordinary walk, yet to me it looked like a viper coiling around my throat.
A terrifying pressure.
Soon Renoa stood before me. We were about eye level, and she was half a handspan taller than I was.
Damn, I'm ridiculously short.
She's on the short side too.
“What did you just say?”
“Y-yes? What do you mean?”
“You just called out my name.”
“I-I don't know what you're talking about. I, I really don't know anything……”
It wasn't that far away, but she heard that? She's young, but her hearing is really something.
“What is it, young lady?”
“What's going on, young lady? ...Leon? You again? Don't tell me you were rude to the young lady?”
As if that weren't enough, the escort knight came over too. Bardik followed right behind him.
There was no way I could get out of this safely.
“He called my name.”
“This boy?”
“Yes.”
The knight looked down at me from his much higher vantage point.
“Is what the young lady says true?”
“W-well... I didn't mean to...”
Renoa's position in Lady Maker is crystal clear. She's the villainess you see in romance-fantasy stories.
A textbook third-rate villain who gets in the heroine's way at every turn, is consumed by jealousy, wreaks havoc, and ends up in a miserable downfall.
Her villainy was pretty damn extreme.
She'd pour boiling tea over a maid's face, gouge out someone's eyes because she didn't like their gaze, and toss people into beast cages just because she was bored.
A villain who found human despair and screams entertaining—that was Renoa Edelhaide.
‘But of all people...’
Of all people, I ended up catching the eye of that Renoa.
Unlike modern Korea, where social status doesn't exist, this place was a rigid class society.
A slave daring to speak the name of a noble, and not just any noble but a duke's daughter? And that target was Renoa?
I was completely screwed.
You could say I was on the express train straight to hell.
“Answer truthfully. I asked whether you dared to speak the young lady's name.”
What do I do?
What do I do?
What do I do?
Cold sweat poured down my spine like rain, and a chill ran through my body as if I'd caught a cold.
That was when I was trembling like I was having a PTSD flashback.
-SLAP!
“Ugh…!”
My vision flashed white.
Along with the burning pain on my cheek, my pitiful body lost its balance and crashed disgracefully onto the floor.
My mouth split open, and the coppery taste of blood flooded it at once.
“You insane bastard! How dare you talk so carelessly in front of her? Have you lost your mind and decided to die?”
Only then did I realize Bardik had just slapped me across the face.
He kicked me mercilessly while I lay there, screaming at the top of his lungs.
“You bastard! You worthless bastard! Traitorous son of a bitch who'd stab his master in the back! Die! Die!”
-Thud! Whack!
I curled up like a shrimp, protecting my vital spots as much as possible.
Just when I thought I might be beaten to death, Bardik drew a rough breath and whipped around toward Renoa.
“My apologies for the discourtesy, young lady, Sir Knight. What are you doing? Hurry up and apologize!”
Maybe because I'd been beaten, my body moved much more easily now than when it had been stiff.
Still flattened on the floor, I slammed my head down and apologized.
“……I'm sorry.”
“Once again, I offer my apologies. This fool is so uneducated he doesn't know proper etiquette. I'm ashamed to face you. I will make sure to educate him properly.”
“Hmm.”
“More importantly, young lady, didn't you say you wanted to look over the gladiators? The waiting room is right next door! Please, this way!”
Under the gaze stabbing into the back of my bowed head, Renoa fortunately passed by me and disappeared into the waiting room.
Only after a little more time passed could I finally get back up.
I ran straight to the well and gulped down water.
The cold water finally brought my dazed mind back to normal.
My whole body ached from the beating Bardik had given me, but pain like that was nothing.
“Here... this was a game world?”
Had I been in this world for about half a year already?
Anyway, I hadn't just been freshly possessed. Some time had passed.
But I'd spent that entire half-year drifting through slave life and locked away, so I couldn't get any information.
Well, I probably heard the name of a region or a family here and there.
But how many web novels have I read, and how many games have I played?
Every time, it's game titles, academy names, region names, and the like.
I only knew them vaguely; I couldn't remember every single one.
The only reason it came to mind now was because I'd seen Renoa's face in person.
“This is seriously such bullshit...”
I didn't just start out as a slave—I was dragged into an arena and made to fight for my life?
There are so many kind, beautiful heroines in this world, so why did I have to be near the villainess?
And I got singled out by that villainess?
Okay, analysis complete.
I understand perfectly.
“I can't live like this. Let's just die peacefully.”
Why go through all that bullshit to get freed? If I die, that's enough.
Yeah, this is right.