Osborne lost track of the exact number of days.
Not because time was passing quickly, but because he stopped treating each morning as something distinct. The weeks began to repeat in clear, almost mechanical cycles, and that calmed him more than any promise of safety. Wake up. Eat. Train. Fight. Count coins. Think. Sleep little. Start again.
Over those two weeks, he stepped into the ring twenty-four times.
Twenty-four different bodies. Twenty-four rhythms. Twenty-four sets of eyes before the first strike.
And he walked away from every one of them on his feet.
At first, each fight still came with its own tension. Excessive caution. A need to calculate. But after the tenth, after the twelfth, something began to change. Not in his body—the body still hurt, still complained, still accumulated marks—but in his mind.
Osborne began to feel comfortable.
And that frightened him, for a moment.
Because in that world, comfort was dangerous.
But he didn't pull back.
Not all fights were the same. Some ended quickly. Others dragged on longer than he would have liked. There were opponents who were too thin, too desperate, who attacked as if every strike were their last chance to eat that week. Others were heavier, slower, relying on brute strength, trying to crush him with the first blow.
Osborne learned to read them in the first few seconds.
In the way they placed their feet on the ground. In how they held their guard. In their eyes—always in the eyes.
Some looked away too quickly. Others stared back with a defiant, empty gaze. A few held his look with genuine intent.
Those few affected him deeply.
Not because they were better, but because they wanted to be there.
Osborne didn't fight with anger. He never had. He fought with focus.
He used his body as a tool. He conserved energy. He didn't waste strikes. He didn't seek spectacle. When he saw an opening, he went in. When he didn't, he stepped back without shame.
That made all the difference.
While many tried to win quickly, he accepted a clean victory.
His invincibility began to circulate as a topic of conversation among the regulars of the ring. It wasn't fame. Not yet. But he was no longer treated as just another boy. Looks lingered longer. The bets began to shift.
And then Osborne took the next step.
He began betting on himself more often.
It wasn't impulsive. It was calculated.
He knew when an opponent was tired. He knew when they had fought two days earlier. He knew when posture betrayed insecurity. He knew when another boy was there more out of hunger than skill.
And, more importantly, he knew when not to bet.
That increased the money.
Not quickly. But steadily.
Bill and Kerr kept fighting.
Bill stepped into the ring more often than he liked. He still carried that excess of caution, that internal brake that made him hesitate half a second too long. Sometimes he won—usually against opponents as cautious as he was. But he lost more than he won.
Kerr was the opposite.
Impulsive. Aggressive. He threw himself in completely. When he landed the first strike, sometimes he dominated the entire fight. But when he missed, he paid dearly. He was too predictable for anyone who knew how to wait.
Osborne saw it all clearly.
The mistakes. The successes. The wasted potential.
Even so, he never interfered during the fight. Never shouted instructions. Never broke their concentration.
The conversations came afterward.
The coins that Bill and Kerr earned—few and irregular—ended up in Osborne's hands. Not by force. By tacit agreement. They knew he wouldn't spend impulsively. They knew he thought about the future.
The money began to take on real weight.
Not wealth. But possibility.
Osborne kept the coins separated. Counted them every night. Recounted them in the morning. He didn't trust memory alone. Deep down, he was still an accountant before anything else.
And alongside the money, something more dangerous grew.
The feeling.
Osborne began to like it.
Not the raw violence. Not the other person's pain. But the technical superiority. The control. The clarity that emerged when the body moved and the world narrowed down to distance, timing, and impact.
It was strange to feel that in the body of a child.
But it was real.
He was aware that he was still young. Small. Thin. Undernourished. Even so, in that confined space, he was better. Better than the older boys. Better than the stronger ones. Better than the more aggressive ones.
And that fed something inside him.
Not arrogance. Not yet. But identity.
He wasn't just someone barely surviving.
He was someone who worked.
Over those two weeks, the group adapted to his rhythm.
On fight days, everything revolved around the ring. On days without fights, training intensified. Supply gathering continued, but it was no longer the main focus.
Osborne began to think long-term with greater clarity.
With that money, he could buy more tools. Improve their diet. Invest in something beyond mere week-to-week survival.
But for now, the focus was singular: accumulate.
Each fight was another line in the invisible ledger he kept in his mind. Each victory reinforced something he never said out loud, but felt with growing certainty:
He wasn't there by chance.
Bill watched all of this with quiet admiration.
He saw Osborne leave for the ring and return with fresh marks, the body tired, but the eyes always alert. He saw how Osborne never truly relaxed. Never allowed himself to be careless.
Sometimes, Bill thought Osborne seemed older than he really was. Not physically, but in the weight carried in his movements. As if he were always several steps ahead of the present.
Kerr respected him in a different way.
He didn't understand every decision. Sometimes he thought Osborne was too restrained. Too calculating. But he trusted him. Because in the end, the results were there. The money was there. The food—scarce as it was—was secured.
And the two weeks passed like that.
Without grand speeches. Without dramatic twists. Without promises.
Just repetition, effort, and gradual growth.
When Osborne realized he had fought twenty-four times without losing, he didn't celebrate. Didn't smile. Didn't raise a fist.
He simply recorded it within himself.
Like marking a point on a map only he could see.
And he moved on.
Because, deep down, he knew:
This was only the beginning.
Advance chapters: https://www.patreon.com/cw/pararaio