Yep.
That's an entire arena. Litterally.
Just a fucking arena, an entire gladiator arena.
And I don't think you understand the size of this shit.
My fingers come up to rub my frown, just, dealing with this whole shit.
This is big, super big. I only saw this kind of bigness in videos before.
Like, imagine the biggest shit you can?
ALRIGHT alright, it's probably smaller.
But...
Still, it's pretty big alright.
Balrow take some steps forward, looking left and right really close to the entrance, my hand come up to rest on his shoulder.
"Don't go in"
He turn his head to look at me. For some reason I understand him. I'm getting too close with those fuckers.
"I'm willing to bet that I lost the water war" that's hard to say for me. I won this fucking water war alright!? "I'm willing to bet on it that monsters will pop up if we go in"
A loud gasp come from behind me, mousy "The water war!?"
Rolling my eyes, my spear come to rest on the ground as I look inside the arena. Half mumbling my answer.
"Yes the water war, the thing I won"
The arena is pretty damn massive. It's only constitued of one thing.
Sand.
Nah I didn't forgot to describe more, it's just sand.
I wouldn't be shocked if the system teleported a beach here or something to roleplay as the arena. That's to speak of the amount of sand there is. It's a straight up beach.
But in worse, because it's spread out.
You know. In a beach, there is a length. Like, you go out walk a big amount of sand and reach the ocean. It's like a shore, it's a big horizontal line.
Well you see all that length? The one that make you see your car from afar, give you the confidence tha you're not lost in a desert?
Gone.
Just straight up spread out in a gigantic circle of sand.
No traces in it, not even the wind messed it up. It's just perfectly smooth sand. Not even a single dune in it.
That's why I didn't call it a desert.
The sand is just perfectly smooth, so smooth in fact it look like paint a bit, it's too perfect. Almost make me want to inspect it.
I really want to know about this sand.
System?
You here?
"We litterally won the water war though"
Alright it doesn't work.
Jenna sigh at annie antics, she know I won, I'm sure of it.
Alright, so the sand is just sand I guess?
Fine for me.
Malfoy come to rest beside me to look at the whole arena, arms crossed as he mumble "that, indeed, is quite a good amount of sand."
"Ever been to a desert?"
"I cannot said I did, no."
I nod at his answer "probably feel like that"
He hum at my words before nodding forward, showing me something "at least there are walls."
Ah yes.
The walls.
The fucking walls.
Bigger than most buildings I ever seen in my life. And I live in a big city. All homogenous, smooth perfection, marble white like the ground under our feet.
It's a big circle around the whole arena, the only thing we can see from afar if we're standing in the sea of sand.
Well, not only only that.
We could also see the stands.
We're in a big colluseum.
A big place, meant to be filled by thousands of people.
Now utterly empty.
It feel weird. Really weird, too empty.
Pushing myself back from the edge. I get closer to observe, my head look around at my little group.
They are doing more or less the same thing I did.
Just observing the whole thing.
And I may just need to observe more too.
That's a Colosseum.
That sounds like something who would have a lot of fights, or a big one.
We need to be careful.
Taking some steps back, I go rest on the side of the wall, letting a big sigh escape me as my shoulders finally relax.
Alright.
We're going to fight.
But right now, we're fine.
My hand come up to tighten in a fist.
It feel normal.
The quest didn't even started, I'm pretty sure we could stay there for a while and nothing would happen.
....Right?
"So what now?" Annie is the one that break the silence, and I don't feel like giving them too many ideas, so I answer directly.
"We go fight in a second, just need to think of something"
She hum at my answer as everyone ready themselves, double checking everything.
Yeah, that's good, don't overthink the fact that you could probably stay there forever and no one will force you to move.
"How do we fight on sand?" That's actually balrow that start this discussion, just as I push myself off the wall.
Malfoy turn his head to look at the baddass grandpa "just swing around, it should not be that complicated"
Balrow don't react much, just hmm a bit "it change things.
Before the two can keep going jenna follow up "does it change that much?"
And as the only other guy that can fight I feel a strange sense of duty to give my opinion. So I do.
"Probably. Won't stop you from fighting but it may be annoying or unfamiliar, just be careful and aware of it and we'll be fine"
Taking my steps toward everyone I come back in front of the opening as everyone slowly come back in a group around me.
"Everyone ready?"
A nod, a hum, and two yesses.
Alright.
That's it, it's time.
It's finally time.
My eyes focus forward, no hesitation. My hand tighten on my spear.
Like an addict, it happen again.
[Magic: 2]
I banish it as fast as I can. Time to have another fight.
I'm sure I can deal with it.
Everything is fine.
Pushing myself in position, everyone follow my lead, and soon enough, at my call, we go in.
"Let's go"
Balrow lead forward, as was expected.
Just after him I reach the sand. Just feel like sand. Fighting on that will be a bit odd but overall? That's fine.
Pushing a bit against the ground, overdoing it to get used to the sensation of sand under my shoes, I keep on going.
We all keep on going forward.
Nothing happen.
Then, jenna, the last person come in.
And finally, it's here.
[Welcome to the swordman tutorial challenge!]
[010101! Detected! Chan-!01] Again? Forgot about that.
[Waves of enemies will pour out from the doors! Annihilate all of them!]
The doors?
The sound of the biggest grattiest sound I've ever heard resonate in the whole arena.
I can hear it like it's close to me.
It's not.
It's on my right. It's far. Well not that far but it's still pretty damn far. Barely even noticed the movement from afar at first.
Right there, on my right the marble push itself up, like some kind of restrictive door or cage.
It comes from nowhere. Remember the wall malfoy talked about? Well a part of it just decided to wake up and get up. Opening on itself, not outward, or inward.
Just up. Dissapearing inside the wall in a way that make no sense at all. It's transforming itself into an archway, the same gigantic one we just passed under.
I couldn't even notice the movement at first, just because of how far it is.
Only reason I did?
This horrible gratty sound. Just like nails scratching a blackboard.
Also the ridiculous amount of sand getting kicked up help.
Yes you heard me well. It's kicking up sand. A lot of sand, as if physics and gravity themselves didn't like the way this amount of mass is moving.
It's just too big.
And it's moving, too fast, even if it doesn't want too. Wind pick up, moving, shifting, and it disturb the perfectly smooth sand that was under us.
Kicking it up, announcing the start of a fight.
A big one.
So the system was talking about those doors huh?