*Two Days Later*
Satoshi had been thrown into a cell that resembled an underground dungeon. Alongside him were five other prisoners or slaves in the same cell, and from the window side of the cell, the sound of cheers could be heard.
"That's it, kill them!" "Hahahahaha!!" "Show no mercy!!" "C'mon!!!"
Satoshi climbed onto the back of another slave to look outside through the window, his head at the level of people's feet. This window indeed showed they were a certain amount below ground. It was a coliseum, and outside, a group of five beast-folk was nervously circling around, looking at the spectators.
"And now, His Highness Prince Alp Leonheart will reenact for you how he quelled the rebellion that occurred five years ago, known in our history as the Betrayal of Beasts! He will once again show these beast races the end they deserve, just as he did back then!!"
Immediately after the announcement, the doors of the coliseum opened, and three gladiator chariots entered. The person in the middle chariot was clearly someone important from his attire—this must be the prince. The ironic part was that the prince himself was a beast-folk: half wolf, half human… His sharp yellow eyes reflected his wolf nature well, and he had short gray hair. The small cape on his shoulder bore the royal family's emblem, and he wore a light silver armor and wielded a single-handed sword...
The chariots had long singular hubcap spikes , preventing the group from approaching the vehicles. After circling the group for a while, taunting them verbally, the mages and archers began firing at the group in the center.
Because the group had no particular formation, two warriors were killed immediately, while the others managed to defend themselves by raising their shields. One person in the group shouted rebelliously,
"Hey! You told us to fight to survive, how is this a fight? How do you expect us to defend ourselves with these short-range weapons?!"
"See how the rebellious, even though we gave them chance to survive, this disgusting beast race begins to show their savage nature!" said the announcing voice, amplified by a magic system to echo throughout the coliseum.
"What do you mean savage, two of my comrades just died without an actual fight next to me, of course, I will rebellious!!"
"BEHOLD THE TRUE NATURE, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THIS WRETCHED RACE HAS LEARNED NOTHING IN FIVE YEARS!"
"Tch! Manipulate all you want, I won't die so easily," he murmured to himself. This was a tiger beast-folk...
He tugged at a collar around his neck, thinking, "It's really strong, ah, if only they hadn't restricted my magic like this, I'd show them."
Meanwhile, arrows and spells continued to rain down on them, and the three beast-folk kept their shields raised and held their ground.
This really resembled a massacre rather than a fight; although weapons were given to the group, they were cornered and restricted in their movements, unable to attack.
The tiger picked up an axe from one of his fallen friends and hurled it towards Alp, shouting, "Traitor son of a bitch!"
Alp tilted his head slightly to avoid the axe that was about to split his head in two.
"Hmph! Since when are rebels started calling traitor to the prince of the kingdom, you damn barbarian!"
"Haha! You can't even call yourself an heir; due to your beastly nature, your toddler brother will take the throne, and you don't even have the balls to oppose it, pathetic!"
In anger, a few veins became popped on Alp's forehead, and he commanded the soldiers around him, "Leave the tiger, kill the rest!"
"As you command!"
The soldiers attacked to other two beast-folks with a combination of fire and earth magic. To block such magical attacks, the shield drawing power from the gem in the middle, beast-folks raised their shield but just before the attack hit the gem extinguished...
The shield broke in half from the impact, and they took a direct hit from the fireball, they jumped backwards to reduce the impact of the blow still heat burned their skin… But despite the burn on their chests, they still had the strength to stand. They pulled out their axes and tried to approach the chariots, but due to the magically reinforced spike attached to the chariot's wheel, they couldn't get into attack range.
The tiger picked up two axes from the ground and ran toward the front of the chariots. With all his strength, he hurled an axe at the place where the wheel connected to the chariot, causing the chariot in the front to crash.
The chariot right behind that one crashed into it, and Alp with his beast-folk reflexes, managed to jump from the vehicle just before it turned to scrap. at the last second, the rearmost chariot turned towards the center of the arena and avoided the crash. As the soldier driving it relaxed, he saw the bear beast-folk in front of him...
The bear roared at the oncoming chariot and the horses tried to brake in fright, but they were already in the bear's range. He grabbed one of the moving horses and tossed it to the other, and the chariot spun on its side and began to roll, while the bear grabbed the man inside the spinning chariot and strangled him, holding him like a shield, and the chariot crashed into the "shield" and disintegrated… Only the man's head and spine attached to it remained in bears paw, hand? Yeah hand.
Meanwhile, the other two beast-folk charged at the people in the crashed vehicles. The man in Alp's chariot was already dead, only two soldiers remained, who had fallen out of the vehicle in the front. Tiger jumped with all his might, just as the tiger was about to separate the soldiers' heads from their bodies with his axe...
''Enough...'' someone murmured,
'KNEEL!!' A command echoed in the minds of all the beast-folks, and despite all their resistance, their bodies didn't listen, and they fell to their knees, beginning to growl in anger.
The one who spoke was Alp himself, who began approaching them from corner of the coliseum, his golden eyes shining with intense magical power.
The tiger looked into his eyes with hatred and said, "So all your preparations weren't enough, and you decided to use this trick, you coward!"
With a smug smile, Alp replied, "I don't like the way you look at me."
'BOW!!'
The tiger bowed his head sharply to the ground.
"A few miscalculations, but it seems to be more accurate depiction of how I quelled the rebellion..." said Alp as he drew his single-handed sword.
"And this is not a trick, this is the power of the royal family passed down through generations!''
*Satoshi*
"Hey, when are we going to switch places, lord Satoshi, I want to watch too!"
"Shuu, shuu… Shut up, you fat fuck! The exciting part is about to start, and I told you to call me Satoshi-sama, you pig!"
In case anyone is wondering how I managed to boss around this dumb fatty in my weak state. It seems that the guy who bought me uses his slaves for the arena here and gets paid for it. Apparently, he sometimes even injures his own slaves and bets against them in the matches—What an asshole! But I don't judge him though, I probably would do the same thing…
Anyway, after spending two days with the guys in this cell, I learned that people here are quite intimidated by the strength of the northerners. Even though they think I'm mixed, they kept avoiding my gaze. So I decided to test it out on the weakest guy, and it worked...
Ahh, I'm glad I don't look like a beast-folk, or they might have thrown me in front of that crazy prince as well, his eye trick seems like a pretty dangerous thing.
"Ehm, lord Satoshi, wouldn't it be better if you used the chair right there?''
''You're really trying too hard to be useless and that is Satoshi-sama for you''
**
Alp walked slowly and arrogantly towards the balcony reserved for the king in the coliseum. Cheers for him echoed around the arena. When he reached the balcony, he knelt on one knee and asked,
"My lady, would you bestow something upon me for good luck?"
The person he was speaking to was, of course, not the king himself but Eleanore, his knight. Eleanore looked quite uncomfortable with the situation, but before she could respond, Aurelius spoke up.
"Oh, my foolish son, don't you see? She is not a lady but a knight!"
"So what if she's a knight? Is she to spend her life alone? To me, she is a lady and the most beautiful and talented one..."
"What I meant—"
"Forgive my boldness my king, but I already used to his attitude. If you allow me, I can respond and spare you from this ordeal," Eleanore interrupted the king.
Aurelius signaled with his hand that Eleanore could step forward and speak with him, so Eleanore approached the edge of the balcony and began to speak with a dramatic flair.
"Brave warrior! Since I am not a lady, I cannot give you a handkerchief embroidered by my own hands, but if it is good enough for you, I can give you my cape."
Alp was quite pleased with the situation and smiled, saying, "Whatever it may be from your hand, my lady, it is good enough to make me happy!"
Eleanore removed her shoulder mantle: the cape had a pattern of a golden Maned silver skinned lion, with a deep blue background, the mane's pattern stretched outside of the cape and merged with the real mane outer frame of the cape
For your informations, the royal symbol consist of a purely gold lion pattern with a silver background, royal guards on the other hand, has the silver skinned lion pattern mentioned before.
And she threw it; the cape slowly floated down, and Alp watched it happily. As it came within reach, he raised his hand to catch it, but a strong breeze blew it away.
Alp continued to stare blankly at the sky for a moment...
"I caught it!! Haha!" a voice shouted from among the spectators. Alp turned his head slightly towards the voice and saw the person who had caught the buckle.
The man who grabbed the buckle looked as masculine as walking testosterone… With a playful smile, he puckered his lips and blew a kiss, 'Muah!' towards her.
But just as the kiss was about to reach Eleanore… And what is it?! Again a breeze came in last moment and changed its direction, landing it right on Alp's lips.
He let out a sharp "Ptth!" of urgency and fear and began wiping his mouth with his hands.
Eleanore, with a sadistic smile on her face, asked, "Are you okay, my prince?"
Alp shook his head and tried to compose himself, saying, "Of course, my lady, I'm pth... just fine."
"Hoo, so you are."
"O-of course and if you'll excuse me, I need to return to my fight now. Even though I didn't catch your cape, knowing you wish me luck is enough!"
"Of course, your majesty."
Alp turned around, muttering quietly to himself, 'Why can't anything fucking go right?' and headed back to the battlefield.
As Alp's eyes stopped glowing, the Beast-folk were freed from the spell. Alp drew his sword: it had a red apple-shaped gem on the hilt, and the steel part was curved like a crescent moon.
He put his left hand on his hip, took a battle stance, and shouted to excite the crowd, "Come, you barbarians!"
The bear started swinging his flail, the beaver raised his daggers to shoulder level and got into a fighting position, but the tiger still hadn't drawn the large axe on his back. He called out to Alp.
"There's really no way for us to get out of here alive, is there?"
"So, you're finally starting to feel afraid of dying!"
"Not exactly…" The tiger looked at his comrades with worried eyes and continued, "But if I beat you one-on-one, would you at least let them go?"
"Are you challenging me to a duel? You don't even know the etiquette of challenging someone to a duel, aren't you lowly beast!"
After a weary sigh, the tiger walked over to a nearby human corpse, removed the glove from its hand, and threw it at Alp. "Are you satisfied now?"
Alp had never faced such a bold opponent before, and he couldn't hide his excitement as he shouted.
"Alright then, I accept your duel offer! If you win, I'll spare these two wretches, and if I win… Glory is enough for me!"
The tiger's companions approached him without lowering their guard. The bear said, "We could've taken him down together. Why did you do this?"
"Yes, he is right; we could've taken him down together," the beaver agreed.
"Ahh, are you aware that our opponent is the prince? Even if we beat him here, do you really think they'd let us go?" the tiger said, tugging lightly at the collar around his neck.
"And we can't use our full strength because of these things, so we still had a chance of losing even if we worked together... At least if I satisfy the foolish prince's ego, there's a chance you two might survive!"
"I don't remember you asking us if we wanted to survive," the beaver said.
"I'd rather die here with you," the bear added.
With a proud smile, the tiger said, "That's exactly why you must survive and keep our cause alive… Please, don't make this old warrior beg and retreat."
Reluctantly, they both felt they had to listen to the tiger and stepped back.
"Y'all finally done talking huh" Alp said as he was yawning
Tiger grinned a bit and unbuttoned his old green shirt to reach in for something, Alp finally fixed his posture said "What now? Are you going to throw your lunch at me?"
Tiger laughed then said "something similar, these edible too" he said as he pulled and threw an axe towards Alp,
He deflected the axe with his sword and asked "How did you get that axe out of the inspection?"
"Fur"
"That's it?"
"Yes"
He said as he slowly reached inside his shirt once more and he started to pull something out while laughing diabolically.