I was walking down a corridor of the Arena, looking for a restaurant called "Mezza Luna", a restaurant that echoed the tastes of oriental cuisine.
Now that my second match was over, countless questions arose in my mind, questions that, due to the commitments of the past few weeks, I always left aside.
Besides who my parents were, or if I had brothers or sisters, I also wondered where I came from.
The more people I knew inside the Arena, the more I noticed differences in appearance, and this, I assumed, depended on where we came from before all this happened; I remembered the division of our planet into continents but I didn't remember which one I came from, not that this was of vital importance, it was just curiosity.
Many other curiosities about my past crossed my mind. More and more I wanted to remember more things about my past life
In addition to this, a doubt also arose, now about the future, in a sense I was afraid of what could happen. Sooner or later the Rings and I would try to get out of this place, but what would the odds of success have been? What if something went wrong?
With these thoughts in mind I finally found the restaurant, entering I found myself in a huge room decorated as if it were an imperial Chinese residence, with the prevalence of red and gold colors, the tables were sometimes separated by bamboo, while in the center of the hall there was a small pond with swimming koi carp, and a cherry blossom so beautiful it looked fake.
I found my table.
"Hi, Ri"
"Oh, you arrived ..."
"Sorry, did I make you wait?"
"No no, don't worry, it's me who arrived early ..."
After these little formalities, we ordered food and moved on to the focal point of the evening, Ri wanted to talk to me about a proposal to earn many points in one hit.
"Have you heard of the survival event?"
I shook my head.
"Well, it is, as you can guess from the name, a survival game where all the gladiators of the same Tier who want to participate will be teleported to a city with post-apocalyptic features and in which they will have to survive by hiding and fighting against monsters and zombies for a week."
"Oh… it sounds… funny"
Actually, I really liked the idea of fighting in such a scenario.
"Well, I'm glad, however, this game is very risky…"
What Ri was talking about was about the PFs you could win or lose in this game, there was a high chance of winning but high risk.
The 2 focal points of this game were survival and killing as many monsters as possible, these two variables formed their own score during the game, this score was used to form the ranking of the participants.
PFs would be awarded according to their final ranking.
Starting from the bottom of the ranking:
The last 20% of the total would have had a decrease of 50 FP;
Among the bottom 20% up to half of the participants would have seen a decrease of 30 PF;
From the middle(+1) up to the top 20% they would have gotten an increase of 20 PF;
The top 20% up to the top 100 would earn 40 PF;
The top 100 to the best 10 would earn 50 PF;
From 10 to 1 they would progressively get from 61 PF (10th) to 70 PF (1st).
"So you wanna do it?"
'To earn points I would have to position myself in the first half of the ranking ...'
"You know how many gladiators there are in the Laurel Tier"
"They should be about 20,000, in fact, in my opinion, it is very risky, especially because compared to the others, you only have experience in fighting 1v1 and in a simple ring… in this game, you will have to deal with many more variables "
Ri was right, however, it seemed like a golden opportunity, if I had finished first in this game, and if I had won my third 1v1 match, I would have been promoted to the next Tier.
"This event, when will it be?"
"In exactly 2 weeks from now."
'My next match is this week ...'
"And when do I need to register?"
"Within two days before ... I guess you are thinking the same thing that I thought too ... we could do that if you win the next match then I would sign you up for this event while otherwise not"
Ri and I were on the same length wave, in fact, if I had also won my third consecutive battle I would have reached 36 PF, in this way, if the event had gone badly, I would have been degraded by Tier only if I had finished in the worst 20% of the ranking.
"I also think this is the best solution"
"Well ..." Ri smiled.
We had almost finished the dishes we ordered.
"Ri ... I wanted to ask you something ... what do you think of us gladiators? ... or more generally of those who are not Slter"
Ri first made a surprised face which then became indecipherable.
She wiped his mouth.
"This question ... you know I can't ... I can't answer a question like this, I don't even know how to answer you in reality ... I'm proud to be part of an immense empire like that of the Slter ... but ..."
At the "but" she stopped as if she couldn't or didn't want to go on.
"Instead ... me, what is your opinion of me?"
"You ... actually at the beginning I was trying to see you only as my subordinate, as my gladiator, but now ... please don't ask me these questions."
It was the first time I saw Ri so in trouble.
"So you see me as some kind of a friend now?"
She nodded her head shyly, I knew instantly that she was upset by the situation.
"So if I asked you to get me out of here so I could see my parents, what would you do?"
She looked at me with a look at the same moment furious and sad.