I return to my room and Navi spawns me into the dungeon known as Colosseum madness. I wake up on a marble altar, the cold stone is so smooth that I find it hard to believe move.
I am in a temple-like room made of even more marble. There is only one entrance. An archway leading into another marble-floored room. As I'm looking around a lady wearing white garments enters the room.
She seems normal at first but then I notice her hair. If you can call it hair that is. From her head, a multitude of green snakes extends and writhe around in all directions. Everything here looks ancient except for the glasses the lady is wearing.
"Greetingssss, I am Medussssa. My masssster hassss ssssent me to receive you. Pleasssse follow me, I'll lead you right to him."
She sounds a little like I did when I first tried to speak. She doesn't wait to see if I follow and instead simply turns around starts walking.
I quickly slither off the altar and follow after her. Her walking speed is neither fast nor slow. I can keep up without much effort but I never feel like we aren't getting anywhere. We move through a couple more marble halls and we enter a large balcony. Through the gaps in the stone railing, I can see that below is a colosseum with maybe 200 meters diameter for the inner arena.
At the edge of the balcony, a bed is placed with a platter of fruit on a table beside it. The only one on the balcony beside Medusa and me is a short fatso clad in what looks to be a large white cloth. He is eating grapes while waving one hand in the empty air. His half-bald head is adorned by a fresh laurel crown.
So, how strong is he?
Still, all I see is a fatso. Even Darwin can't compare to him in terms of chubbiness. Vespasian catches sight of me in between savoring his grapes and looks at me with gleaming eyes.
"So you are Jade, the sanguine snake that made such a racket by mutating into an unknown species. I am Emperor Vespasian master of this dungeon and a demigod of war. But I like you, so you may address me as Vespasian."
"You like me?"
"Yes, you look at my form with unmasked disgust. Not many have the courage to face a demigod with such an attitude. I admire and respect that."
"Sometimes a fool will be thought of as courageous simply because the fool doesn't comprehend the significance of its actions."
Medusa shoots me a glare as she says that and her snake hair is hissing at me. Vespasian just laughs and stands in a fluid motion that should be impossible for someone of his stature. He looks at me with a kind smile and continues.
"Don't mind Medusa. She's just peeved that you get to call me without my title directly while she had to work a decade to get there. But tell me, what do you think of the ancient Romans?"
"History was my worst subject."
"I don't care about history class, what the use of that generalized bullshit anyway. All they do is focus on one shitty event that they value and then proceed to interpret and moralize that event to death. I mean ancient Rome as in the basis of law, an important part in the development of rhetoric and philosophical advancement et cetera. Do you know Latin?"
"I took sign language as my second language curriculum so I do not."
"Sigh, unfortunate but not entirely unexpected. I was hoping to have a talk with a like-minded individual. Anyway, I called a centurion from the frontlines to escort you, he should arrive any minute now."
Right on cue, a heavily armored figure enters the balcony and goes to kneel before Vespasian.
"Ave Imperator! I am the twenty-third centurion of the first undead legion. I have come as ordered."
Inside the armor is a skeleton. It moves and speaks like a human but something feels off. Vespasian doesn't seem to mind it and calmly issues his commands.
"This is Jade, she will be participating in the defense of the 19th colosseum for a while. Lead her there and help her enlist in the auxiliary unit. She can revive so she will be around for a while, I'll inform the legion legate later but until then I'd like you to inform the other centurions of her presence."
"It will be done, my emperor!"
The skeleton stands up and makes its way off the balcony. I follow the skeleton, fired up by the prospect of finally getting to level up my blood magic and killing off that dumb bear that haunted my dreams.
After Jade had left the balcony Medusa turned to Vespasian with a questioning look on her face.
"Master, was the way she looked at you with disgust really the reason you took a liking to her? You have killed others for doing the same thing."
"That was just a convenient excuse. She is the same as me so naturally I would like her."
"The same as you, master? You are a demigod and a dungeon master while she is a monster. Or are you referring to the fact that you were both once human?"
"That is a part of it too. But what I was actually referring to is her capacity for violence against the human race. Like me, she holds a grudge but that is just an excuse to fill the void. As long as she is provided even the flimsiest reason to fight, she will."
"And is that a good thing?"
"In some ways yes in others no. It is useful to us since she won't hesitate as much when she is asked to do certain things. Unlike Guy, she would have burned that village without a second thought. However, if she found a reason to fight us, she would do so with equal ease. She is like a sharp blade, good for cutting someone else but dangerous when handled carelessly."