12 – monster

Colosseum. It was an execution ground built for the entertainment of the emperor’s cruel taste in the early days of the empire, and a battlefield where sinners and prisoners struggled desperately to survive.

Such a place is now a dream stage where young warriors gather with dreams in their hearts, and it has become a battlefield and attracts countless people.

In front of the Colosseum from early dawn when the sun didn’t even fully rise, people who gathered for different reasons, such as to make their name widely known, to claim the prize money and prizes at the competition, and with uncontrollable blood, participated in the martial arts competition. rushes like waves for

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Like them, I also visited the Colosseum for the purpose I had in my heart.

In order to achieve happiness, I must win the championship in order to escape the nightmare that will devour me.

Once again, keep your purpose in mind. Then, through the crowded crowds, they walk along the passage made for the nobility. There are no nobles who visit from such an early morning, so I walk the road alone.

I can feel the eyes directed at me. Those gazes are stinging, but can there be any difference? They wait in the middle of the stuffy crowd, but the aristocrats accept their gazes, as it is not difficult to understand that they look disgusted at the way they go comfortably.

If you follow the quiet alleyway, you will see the family crest towards the reception desk.

“I am Alik Norman of the Norman Countess.”

Upon revealing his identity, the receptionist quickly fills out the list and takes out a wooden plaque from a box with a hole in it and hands it over.

“Alik Norman was placed in Group A of the qualifiers. Would you like to use a private waiting room?”

“Not required.”

The private waiting room is quiet, so it’s good to prepare while calming down, but I refused because using the public waiting room makes it easier to see if there is a strong player among the contestants, and sometimes useful information can be obtained even from useless words.

“Then, go in and go to the left and use the waiting room.”

Open the door that came out a little past the neat and well-maintained hallway. Quite a number of people were seated in the large waiting room beyond the door. Those who have already settled down take me one look up and down and then go back to doing what they were doing.

I sit quietly in a corner and look around. The group in the center chatters and chats like vendors in a market. The group seems like just a bunch of little kids out in the world, so I stop paying attention and look the other way.

Those who are seated in the corner close their eyes and control their minds, or look better than the children in the center grouping their weapons, but they do not see any particularly dangerous ones.

weird. No matter how well-known people say they don’t participate, I heard that hidden jewels popped up and brightened the stage at every tournament, but I don’t see such people.

It would be nice if such people didn’t participate, but it couldn’t be that way. Although there are few, there are those who come from other countries, and sometimes there are warriors of different races who come out of curiosity. Probably in another waiting room.

At most, I gave up on the quiet private waiting room and came here, but I feel discouraged because there are only chakjeong and ordinary people. I am depressed because I have no income, but I have no choice, and I have a lot of time until the start of the competition, so I meditate quietly and control my mind.

After taking care of my mind for a while, I felt a blatant gaze, and when I opened my eyes, my eyes met the monster wearing a flat black robe and mask, covering everything except for his red eyes and coppery skin around his eyes. The monster’s attire, light stance, and breathing are like those of a trained assassin, and he instinctively puts his hand on the sword.

“Do you have something to do?”

The monster shakes his head and sits next to me. I don’t know the monster’s intention to choose a seat next to me in this large waiting room, but it’s uncomfortable, so when I get up to move to another seat, the monster grabs the hem of my clothes.

Even if he frowns at the action and lets go of his life, the monster doesn’t care and doesn’t let go of the hem of the clothes he’s holding on to. I get annoyed at that look and open my mouth.

“I don’t know what you want to do, but would you like to say something?”

The monster does not open his mouth, takes out a small book made of unusual material from his pocket, writes something on it with a piece of black graphite, and shows it to me.

“Sorry for making you angry. It was just because I was happy to meet you in a foreign country.”

Seeing a monster who calls me a brother to me, who only has animals that I don’t want to think of as brothers, makes me frown.

“I don’t know what misunderstanding you are calling me brother, but I am not the brother you think.”

At my words, the monster scribbles on the book again and shows it to me.

「It can’t be. I can feel the blessing of Kaian-sama, which is given only to faithful brothers, from you.”

My head hurts at the word Kian. Kaian, a god I came to know while wandering around looking for a way to heal in my previous life. That god is a being whose existence was denied a long time ago in the state religion of Armis and declared a heresy, and the record was erased. should not be associated with this

“I don’t know, don’t talk to me anymore.”

With those words, I cut off the monster’s hand, moved to the opposite corner, and calmed my beating heart.

I don’t know why that monster told me that I felt Kai’an’s blessing, but if it’s true, the heretic judges of the church will come to me the moment someone finds out.

That group of lunatic fanatics never give up on the scent they smell once they smell it, and they don’t show even a handful of mercy to heretics, so I get goosebumps running down my spine thinking that they’re targeting me.

Originally, he intended to leave the empire after hunting animals and then cleaning up to make sure there were no innocent victims, but the plan turned out to be wrong. If you make a mistake, you will leave without even catching the beast, or you will be caught by lunatics and tortured to death.

My head is complicated by the sudden disaster and my mind is forcibly calmed down, and I calmly continue my thoughts.

Two hypotheses come to mind when I think of things that deserve God’s blessing that don’t even sound like words. One is the hypothesis that the blessings received while visiting unknown altars in the south in the previous life were applied in this life as well, and the hypothesis that the old pendant that one wished for at the end of life is a sacred object of Caian comes to mind. Of the two conceived hypotheses, the latter carries the weight of the mind, but has no meaning.

Even if you think of reasons to be blessed, you can’t think of a solution to avoid the crisis. I can’t think of a solution, but I have to figure out my condition. If the priests can recognize it, this place where the priests are constantly preparing for the safety of the participants is also dangerous.

As soon as I have such a thought, I get up from my seat and go to the monster again. The monster’s eyes widened slightly when he saw me back. I didn’t like the way he looked, but I endured it because I needed the monster’s help.

“When you think about it again, do you have any guesses?”

I take away the book of the monster whose tone has changed slightly and hold out his hand. The monster recognizes my gesture and passes the piece of graphite. I write what I want to say on a book with a strange writing feel with a piece of graphite.

“Yeah, I remembered. Rather, you have recognized that I am blessed, but can others also?”

“I understand that it is unrecognizable except to those who attend Kaian-sama. Otherwise, I can’t go around like this.”

I was relieved by the positive news. I don’t know what will happen later because of the blessing, but if the monster’s words are true, the beast’s plan to hunt is not disrupted.

Now that I know that blessings don’t matter right now, I scribble again in a strangely written book to figure out this unknown blessing.

“I don’t know exactly what kind of blessing I have received, can you confirm it?”

“Well, that would be difficult for me to do. But the high priest in my hometown will know.”

The fire has been extinguished, but the aftertaste is bitter at the fact that nothing has been found out about this mysterious blessing.

I don’t know the exact reason, but the fact that I was blessed by a god who was directly defined as a heresy by the church raises my anxiety. As I chewed my lips in that anxiety, when I picked up the graphite piece again, a person who seemed to be involved in the tournament entered.

“As the preliminaries begin soon, Group A hopes to come out.”

At that, I hand the book to the monster and stand up.

“I’ll do it again later.”

The monster nodded with his half-moon-like eyes, and I left that figure behind and took heavy steps with a bad feeling.