...
Slowly, his eyes reopen after a long sleep. Strangely, his body feels weird. His blood rushes, his mind is dizzy, his memory blurry, and his irises resemble the symbol of an upside-down star with a blood-red color behind it.
As soon as he's fully awake, both of his eyes display these two symbols, then return to their normal brown iris and black pupil as usual.
"I'm... still alive?"
The first thing he sees when he wakes up is a ceiling of white cloth and a wooden floor. The whole thing is moving up and down, bumping every second, accompanied by the clip-clop sounds of horses, and around him are a bunch of half-naked men staring.
"Hey guys! This motherfucker awake!" A man within the curious crowd speaks.
"Who the hell are you?!" Quickly enough, Shuku realizes he's in a locked moving horse wagon with seven other men, ranging from teenagers to old folks.
"Rise and shine, babey!" Another half-naked man pokes his nose.
"What the?!" Shuku immediately sits up. "Where am I?"
"..."
Nobody cared to answer his question. Most of them return to their seats on the moving horse wagon after their curiosity has been fulfilled, which is to check if he's dead or not.
Shuku then quickly calms himself. "You guys... are slaves?" He asks as he recognizes the slave collars on their necks.
"Are you any different?" A middle-aged man, or slave with a long beard, replied.
"Who are you? Why am I here? Why are we locked up in a wagon?"
"You don't know anything? I thought all slaves knew what would happen if they ran away."
"What?!"
"Just freaking tell him," Another middle-aged slave, this one with no beard, nudges the long-bearded man sitting next to him.
"Huh?"
While Shuku is still confused, the long-bearded man begins his lecture after he sighs in annoyance:
"When a slave like us escapes from our master, or a stray slave without a master, we're given a special reward for our actions. We're given a chance to fight for our lives. They throw us in an arena and let us fight with monsters, beasts, and other humans with better weapons than us, or they let us fight each other until there's only one survivor left."
"But... how did they find me?"
"..." The long-bearded man is tired of talking, so the beardless one speaks for him.
"We didn't find you; our 'escorters' or the guards found you lying on the ground next to a lake while they were moving us. They thought you were dead, but after double-checking, they found your heart still beating. The collar on your neck told them that you're a slave, so they just threw you in with us."
'A Lake...'
As the memories began to come back, his visions of the dark dungeon, the battle with the monsters, and the blood blade, then the flood coming after that, started to show up again.
Even though it's vivid, he still generally remembers what happened. As he thinks about the Blood Blade, he feels a tingling in his eyes and a strange sensation of power as the Red Upside Down star symbol flickers in his iris before returning to normal a second later.
"I'm Shuku, by the way. What's your name?" Shuku asks the bearded man.
"Name? What name?"
"What do you mean? Everybody has a name."
"Ever since I became a slave, my owner called me #39. Nobody cares about the name of a slave and I have been a slave for too long to even remember what's my real name."
"Oh... Okay..."
They all fall into an awkward silence.
...
"So... from what you mentioned earlier, we are moving into an arena or something, right?"
"Yeah, that's where we are going. We are heading to the Slave Arena. Oh and by the way, forget my sarcasm for calling it an opportunity."
"Why?!"
"Because nobody can live there for more than a day. If you somehow survive the first fight, they just throw you in with stronger and more fearsome opponents, again and again, until you are dead."
"Some slaves are battle-hardened and can put up a good fight, but eventually, they die of exhaustion or starvation. Some entertain the crowd so much that they are kept alive and fed as long as they can keep entertaining the blood-hungry public, but those are just exceptions."
Hearing all this new information, Shuku is a bit shocked because all his beliefs about this world have changed; it has become worse.
A place where mistreatment, insults, and beatings are normal if you have nothing in your hands. It's totally different from what that lying king told them, a world that is hell for the vulnerable and poor, and heaven for the rich and wealthy.
"What's the point of this, aside from entertainment, of course? Why do they bother spending effort and money on these kinds of events?"
"Because people are willing to spend a ton of money to see a bloodbath. Thousands of people spend hundreds of gold coins just to get a seat in that arena to watch slaves get ripped apart by monsters, beheaded by their 'heroic' knights, while they scream in agony before they die."
"In other words, a public execution."
"A very profitable one."
"..."
Despite having all his questions answered, there is still one strange thing that he's wondering about.
"Why aren't you guys... scared?"
That is why these men seem so relaxed despite what is about to happen to them.
"Scared?!"
"We're heading towards our death, why don't you guys feel scared?"
"What's the point of being scared?"
"..."
"Well, unlike those guys." The bearded man points at the other slaves who are cowering in a corner of the wagon, uncertain and worried about their fate.
"When you've lived a life that was hell itself... death seems to be a gift instead of a punishment."
He pauses for a moment before continuing to speak.
"My wife was raped and died from her master's abuse, my parents were burnt alive for resisting the nobles, and my son... gone with my wife in her stomach. And my entire life as a slave is just about being beaten and working until my bones break. So why bother living when you have nothing else to live for?"
"... Maybe... I still have one regret. I wish I could strangle that motherfucker who raped my wife to death first. How about you? You seem to have many things to live for."
"Me?!" Shuku is surprised, but as he thinks about it, he struggles to come up with a decent answer: "I... don't know either. All the closest people to me are gone, and my only goal now is to kill the ones who made me into this. Other than that, I don't know what else to live for."
"Hmm... that's the right mindset..."
"Alright, it's time, you pigs!"
"For someone who is about to die."
The bearded man quickly ends his sentence as soon as the guards tell them to come out, indicating that they have arrived.
"Hurry up, we don't have much time!" The guards continues to urge them, with the sword in his hand, the slaves all rushing down the wagon in fear.
As they are guided by the guards toward their waiting room, Shuku, and the others can't help but admire the high quality of the walls and the aesthetic and opulent feeling of the arena.
Minutes later, they arrive at their waiting room, although it looks more like a massive prison than a room. A guard takes out his keychain and unlocks the cell door, then yells and forces all the slaves, including Shuku, to move inside the dark and wet cell.
Then, after all the slaves are inside the cell, the guard locks up the cell door once again and quickly leaves, leaving the slaves all by themselves.
"What is this place?"
As no guards are around, the slaves begin to look and explore the big cell room. As they move further into the room, they see a big gate at the end, illuminated by sunlight, and on the ground are:
"Swords, spears, knives,... all broken."
It seems like this place is where the slaves prepare and pick their best-fitting weapons before moving into the arena. However, this is just his speculation.
Only when another guard walked to the cell and began explaining to the slaves, were all their questions answered.
"You all will have 10 minutes to prepare, pick the weapon you deem fit, and get ready to be in the arena. But don't even bother, 'cause all of you would die anyway."
After filling the slaves with more anxiety and hopelessness, the guard left. Despite being demoralized, the slaves still began scouting around and picking their desired weapons.
But no matter what weapon they chose, whether swords or spears, it would easily break in half upon first impact, so most of them opted for a durable weapon over the one they liked.
It takes some of them a couple of minutes to find their partner. Some others are fighting each other over a good weapon they just found. As for Shuku, despite initially going for a sword, something in his mind tells him to take a small knife instead.
"Do you think we can survive?"
He heard two young slaves talking to each other and couldn't help but feel pity for them.
"Alright! It's time to come out you pigs!"
Finally, after 10 minutes of preparation, their judgment time has come. All the slaves gathered at the big gate at the end of the room as it slowly opens...
GREEKKK...
The loud sounds of the gate combined with the blinding sunlight quickly hit their eyes after being in darkness for too long. As they move out of the cell and into the open air, slowly their eyes readapt to the bright sky, returning to clear vision. Their ears return to normal, immediately hear the yelling of the crowd.
"BOO!!"
"BOO!!"
Thousands of people, mostly from the middle class up, sit scattered around the seats in this Greek-like arena, the size of a football field. They yell and insult the slaves with the most vulgar words they can think of while throwing their trash at them.
"Beg for mercy while you fight for your life!"
"Dirty slaves, be grateful that you will be killed by our great knights!"
"Your only purpose in this world is to entertain us!!"
Hearing these words, the slaves are even more demoralized and more accepting of their inevitable fate rather than trying to survive.
However, among all of them, only Shuku is now more determined and motivated by those insults.
'You know what? I have been hesitant about killing anyone other than the ones who turned me into this, but now... I know what I will do.'
Suddenly, a horn echoes around the entire arena, and the yelling crowd immediately falls silent. Next, a man's voice speaks through the speaker.
"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!! ARE YOU READY FOR A MASSACRE?!"