It had already been around half an hour, I guess—I don't wear a watch, so I only have the choice of guessing. The sun had shifted its position, and the clouds were preparing for their attack on the sky.
Within the flick of a second, the crowd started to rise from their seats: the high lords, their ladies, common folk, and everyone in between. I suppose it was out of sheer habit that I stood up when others did too, even though I was completely invisible to them, while Kit remained seated for obvious reasons.
"Why are you standing up? Sit down—did you forget they can't even see us?"
"I know that, it was just a habit."
From behind the velvet curtains came a middle-aged man holding a glass of wine. He wore a goatee that didn't suit him very well; I suppose he kept facial hair only to compensate for his rapidly receding hairline.
Kit's face darkened with disappointment. "This is the highest of lords? He looks more like a drunk geezer."
Well, they say you shouldn't judge people too early—or at least, not by their appearance. But people who say that fail to realize it's nearly impossible not to judge someone based on their appearance and demeanor, because that's the very first thing you see.
We can't see the goodness of someone's heart when we don't even know where they live.
The highest lord, as they called him, was dressed in complete contrast to the other nobles. It looked like he had arrived straight in his unwashed drinking clothes, complete with drink spills and sweat stains. You can truly tell the future of a country just by looking at the present state of its ruler.
The messenger came forward after the highest lord had taken his seat—or rather, slumped into it and started snoring.
The messenger looked far more like a proper ruler than the old geezer did.
"The sun of the kingdom, and the most blessed soul in all of Ozymandia, welcomes you all to this trial of purification!"
"The highest of high lords, who is the forgiver of all sins, has today decided to bless the slave Araegon—son of two other slaves, whose names shall not be spoken. He has fought over eleven fellow slave fighters and two noble fighters to date, and hasn't lost a single battle."
Kit clenched his fists so hard his knuckles went white. "They couldn't even say the names of his parents, treating them like nothing more than cattle."
"Today, this slave will be given the chance to face three high lord fighters in a battle to the death, one after another. The battles will be held simultaneously, without a single moment of rest given to the slave."
"If he manages to defeat all the warriors, he, as promised, will be forgiven of his sins and made a full citizen of this city."
I knew Kit's blood was boiling hot enough to cook a meal of rice on it.
"Oh, you mean the sin of being born, and not being a high-ranking noble like you?"
The crowd had started to murmur in gossip, the noise loud enough that it might have even reached the highest lord and his messenger, though both remained entirely unfazed.
I always had an ear for gossip, so I soon caught wind of a conversation nearby and couldn't help but listen in.
A few spectators were whispering in shock. "Hey, how can they put three high-ranking lords at risk for a slave? More importantly, why aren't their families reacting to this?"
"Do you seriously not know what's happened over the last few days?"
"What happened?"
"There are rumors that high-ranking noble houses conspired against the highest lord. They say the death of his younger brother wasn't an accident—the lord himself was supposed to die in his place, but he survived."
"And now, this is the consequence."
"Today, if the slave gets killed, it'll be great entertainment for the crowd as usual, but it also sends a loud warning message to the noble houses that the highest lord is watching."
"But if the slave somehow manages to kill one or two of the lords today, their whole house is doomed, because without an heir, the traditional marriage alliances for the next generation collapse."
I mentally noted what those fools had just discussed out in the open. Within the next few minutes, guards quietly swooped in and dragged them away.
So, this highest lord wasn't quite as big of an idiot as he initially looked.
The messenger stepped forward once more.
"Now, my lords and ladies, and my lovely common folk... coming straight from the dungeons of Ozymandia is the man you've all been waiting for: Slave Araegon!"
The iron gates of the dungeon slammed open with a deafening bang. The heavy clinking of chains echoed across the arena before he even came into view, followed by long, unkept, matted hair that covered the entirety of his face.
He wore no garments on the upper half of his body.
His torso was covered in a grid of jagged scars.
"He sure has a lot of scars. He really is a battle-hardened warrior after all," I muttered.
Kit wore a grim, dead expression as he stared at those marks, and I knew he was about to drop some heavy insight, like he always did.
"Some of those are battle scars, yes," Kit said quietly, "but most of them are scars of humiliation.
" He has been deliberately cut and burned purely for amusement. That mark on his left thigh—it's the kind of brand left when a hot iron is stamped directly into flesh and left to heal in the open. Only lucky people survive that, because the risk of infection is astronomical."
Listening to all of that made it sound like we were talking about someone weak and frail. Yet, when I looked out at that same man standing in the center of the field—howling and growling like he possessed the fury of a thousand horses, his long hair finally whipping back from his face—he had blazing eyes.
Those eyes didn't just want to survive today; they wanted to conquer the arena, and perhaps life itself.