by Aneko Yusagi
Not to mention, the reason Raphtalia and Filo were able to put up a good fight was because they had my growth adjustments and had gotten all kinds of special stat boosts during their class-ups. Still, they wouldn’t have been able to defeat it without me. That thing was on the same level as a castle siege or a raid boss. We had Ost’s help, too.
If I had to make a quick estimate of the level required for a normal adventurer to confront the Spirit Tortoise head-on and defeat only the outside body . . . I wasn’t really sure what kind of abilities normal adventurers had, but I’d say level 250 would have been the minimum.
Of course, that was if they fought it alone. It would probably drop a bit if there were several adventurers. Even so, the level would still need to be high. At least 200, I’d say. And if we were talking about a bunch of adventurers that weren’t much stronger than Rishia in her non-awakened state, then they’d lose no matter how many of them there were.
Even if the monster were only around level 120, a single adventurer—no, even with three adventurers—knowing whether they could win or not would still be unclear. All said and done, you really couldn’t underestimate differences in levels and basic stats. You might think that level 100 would be similar for a monster and a human, but just looking at Raphtalia and Filo made it clear that wasn’t the case. And if you were faced with three of those monsters, then what? It was the kind of risk you could only find at the no-holds-barred underground coliseum tournaments.
“Bingo! Nobility from some country or another will send in recreationally caught wild monsters for the enjoyment of seeing whether or not they can be defeated.”
The woman went on drinking cheerfully. It was hard to believe she had just been taking part in a drinking contest from the way she was knocking them back now.
“It was only one this time, but the next competition will be team battles. That means there will be three of those things.”
Hearing that made me realize just how scary these rules could be. So it was best not to assume that the opponent would be limited to humans or demi-humans. I would have to let Raphtalia and Filo know about this, too.
She refilled my cup again. I guess she had more to tell me.
“Other than that . . . Depending on the situation, there are times when they will change the terrain to make it more advantageous to the opponent.”
“Meaning?”
“When an opponent that can fly is sent in, sometimes they will prepare an iron cage around the arena so that the fight isn’t too one-sided.”
So the organizers would shift the odds in favor of one side or the other to keep the match interesting.
“That has to suck when that works against you.”
“Also, there is support from spectators. Spectators can pay to provide assistance to the opponent they bet on.”
In other words, spectators could shell out large amounts of money to help shift the outcome of the match in their favor and win big. What a pain in the ass. There was no such thing as foul play here. No fair matches. I guess competitive odds are what you got in exchange for that.
“The next competition is sponsored by the weapons merchant guild, so you can expect expensive weapons to be thrown at the fighters.”
So there are dangerous wild monsters and there is also the risk of opponents being able to swap the weapons they brought for even better ones.
“But hey, spectators attacking the fighters directly is strictly prohibited, so you don’t have to worry about that.”
“What about indirect support magic?”
“It’s possible if someone pays the right amount.”
It was probably best not to entertain naïve ideas like all you needed to do during a match was focus on the opponent in front of you. Thinking it over, I chugged another drink that she had poured for me. But seriously, how much did she plan to make me drink? I could hear it all swishing around in my stomach.
“That will be in the rule book for the match you participate in, so make sure to look that over and you should be fine.”
I looked at the section where the rules were listed.
The following support will be permitted during this match—
There it was.
“You can drink, can’t you? This is starting to get fun!”
She seemed to be enjoying herself as she watched me chug drink after drink.
“Yeah, alright,” I said.
“Anyway, that pretty much covers what you need to watch out for.”
“Oh yeah?”
There was nothing left for me to do here. I stood up, ready to leave.
“Oh? Leaving already, are you? Let’s have a few more drinks!”
“No more for me. But you gave me some good info. I’ll pay for the drinks as a sign of my gratitude.”
It was obvious that she was planning to have me, the newbie, pick up the tab in exchange for some information. Then again, I was stingy. Normally there was no way I’d do something like picking up a tab, but it was a fact that the information had been helpful. Considering what lay ahead, I could just think of the money spent as part of an investment.
“That wasn’t what I was after, you know.”
“Whatever you say. One final question.”
“What might that be?”
The next match had started, and it looked like they were being given the support that she had been talking about.
“How did you know who would win in that last match?”
I’d thought that I couldn’t tell because I wasn’t familiar with the rules, but that still didn’t fully explain it. As far as I could tell, the fighters in the last match hadn’t received any assistance.
“Intuition, maybe?”
“Seriously? Intuition?”
Then again, I knew that intuition couldn’t be underestimated. Watching Filo made the power of wild instincts painfully clear, for example.
“If you think of anything else, just come see me again, darling. I’m here every night, and I’ll be happy to tell you what you want to know.”
Her response was curiously lighthearted. So she really hadn’t had any kind of ulterior motive when approaching me?
“Then again, I can’t really recommend participating in the underground coliseum, either.”
Her parting words left me strangely uneasy . . .
Chapter Fourteen: Ring Name
Anyway, keeping in mind what that drunkard woman had told me, we completed our entry into the underground coliseum tournament.
We had several days left before the event. Right now, I was at the slave trader’s place with Filo, waiting on Raphtalia to get back. Rishia was still in the middle of gathering information and looking over some documents.
The slave trader forced our entry through for us, so to the organizers we were still just some no-name mercenaries for the time being. Although, I had a feeling the accessory dealer must have been involved, too, or our entry probably wouldn’t have gone so smoothly. I guess this was the Zeltoble underground, where anything goes, so it was probably safe to assume that this level of foul play was practically expected.
Anyway, things would be slightly different than they had been for the matches I’d seen while talking to the drunkard woman. Instead of the competition being held only at night, matches would take place day and night for several days on end . . . or so I was told. It was because this competition was one of the biggest and there were a ton of fighters participating.
We would be fighting once per day. Personally, I thought they should just sift out all the weaklings in preliminaries, but the merchants wanted to move their money with each fight, since it was a lengthy tournament. This was all according to the slave trader’s explanation. He did say the number of times we fought each day was supposed to increase in the latter half of the tournament, at least. It made no sense from a Japanese person’s perspective.
Anyway, it would make things more difficult if they figured out who we were from the very start, so Raphtalia, Filo, and I planned to wear masks
and other equipment that would hide our faces and conceal what our races were.
“By the way, higher-ranking fighters will be rewarded with money and other various goods. Yes sir.”
“That may be so, but . . .”
The grand prize was indeed impressive . . . 150 gold pieces was a pretty nice chunk of change. But the amount of money changing hands in this tournament was far greater. I had ordered the slave trader to place our bet on ourselves just before the advance betting ticket sales ended. We had to make sure we won big. The whole point of participating was to be a dark horse and come out on top.
Fighters would also receive a fight purse for each match they won. Of course, that would just be chickenfeed to us.
“Understood. I’ll make it a straight bet for the overall tournament. Yes sir.”
“So there are bets for each fight, too?”
“Some people do make money that way. Yes sir.”
That would actually be the better approach to betting. Deciding your bets all at once, in the very beginning, wouldn’t be nearly as enjoyable. My bet was simply based on what I knew ahead of time.
“All that’s left is to gather more funds, I guess.”
We would be using the money we got from selling off the slave hunters, but that still might not be enough. We would need to pay attention to our odds in the first place.
“The open coliseum . . . You were saying they have eating competitions in Zeltoble, too, right? Should I have Filo compete in those?”
“Huh? Am I going to do something?”
Filo was a pig, so maybe we could use her as a competitive eater to win some money.
“There is a prize, but it’s not more than perhaps 20 silver pieces for the overall winner. Yes sir.”
“Not bad, but not great, either. Plus, we probably don’t want to have people recognizing her since I’m going to have her compete in the coliseum, too.”
“In that case, you might consider having her compete in the filolial races. Yes sir.”
“Filolial races? We’re pretty much talking horse racing, right?”
I had a feeling that would be more realistic. It seemed like people were always winning a lot at the horse races, so that might not have been a bad idea. Maybe we could aim for a big win like we were in the underground coliseum.
“The problem is that you have to compete in regional races several times before you can compete in the high-stakes races. Also, there’s still a month or so before it’s the season for the high-stakes races. Yes sir.”
“Ugh . . . I could consider having Filo compete if we could bet big in one go, but otherwise . . .”
“Due to how the betting works at a fundamental level, that probably won’t be possible. Yes sir.”
Let’s say I entered Filo in a tiny regional race as a no-name filolial and placed a straight bet on her. I wanted to bet big to win big, but as soon as I put the money down for the bet, the odds would swing in her favor a proportional amount. If there were no other attractive bets, or if there just weren’t many people betting in the first place, then the whole plan would be pointless.
This was true for most competitions, but according to the slave trader, winning bets wouldn’t be paid out until all of the betting money had been gathered from the betters. Regardless of how much we bet, if the overall pot wasn’t huge, then our winnings wouldn’t amount to much, either. On top of that, we’d be screwed if people figured out who we were, so we couldn’t really afford to make money by participating in the legit side of things.
“Sigh . . . Oh well. I guess for now, other than watching the slave auctions to see if any Lurolona slaves show up, we might as well head back to the village to do some peddling or training.”
“That would seem reasonable. Yes sir. By the way, Shield Hero . . .”
“What?”
The slave trader stopped filling out the tournament entry papers to ask a question.
“What should I put down for your ring name?”
“Hmm . . .”
Putting down something obvious like “The Shield Hero’s Party” would make concealing our identities pointless. The same would probably go for using my own name. The fact that the accessory dealer already knew we were participating in the first place made it feel like what we were doing was pretty reckless anyway, though. This was probably just one of those things. I needed to pick some random name that wouldn’t give me away.
“‘Rock Valley’s Party’ should do.”
“Where did that come from? Yes sir.”
“It’s my last name in English. It was my nickname in another world.”
Now that I thought about it, a lot of skill names and stuff were just English words . . . But I guess that was just because my shield was translating them for me. Raphtalia and Filo were actually using the Melromarc language when they were casting spells and stuff, after all. But it was easy to forget that.
It was unlikely anyone would make the connection with my last name, Iwatani, right? To do that, they would have to be someone from another world, like Ren, Itsuki, or Motoyasu. Still, it was scary to think that I had no idea what words really meant in this world. The slave trader looked confused, so I might have gotten the pronunciation wrong or something. Like maybe it would be translated differently if I pronounced it Lock Barley or something.
Just then, Raphtalia and Raph-chan walked in sighing, back from the underground auction.
“How did it go?”
“We saw one.”
“I see . . .”
So she had found a Lurolona slave.
“How high did the price go?”
Raphtalia cast her gaze downward when she replied.
“The bidding stopped at . . . 95 gold.”
Who knew just how high the prices would jump. I really wished this ridiculous bubble would burst already, but we had no choice but to deal with the situation as it was.
“I guess all we can do for now is head back to the village and train until the coliseum tournament starts.”
“Agreed. Let’s win this . . . no matter what!”
Raphtalia was looking at me with her eyes full of strong determination. That’s right. We’d been left with no choice but to fight to get her village back.
“Raphtalia, I’m thinking we should probably address each other using aliases during the matches. What do you think?”
“Umm, okay. What should they be?”
“Hmm . . . I’m going to go with Rock for my alias.”
I doubted anyone would associate that with the Shield Hero, but what about Raphtalia and Filo?
“Rafu?”
I wanted something with a twist. Raphtalia would probably get mad at me if I called her something like Raph-chan No. 2, though.
“You’re thinking about something rude, aren’t you?”
“Hmm . . . Alright then. Raphtalia will be Shigaraki, and Filo will be Yakitori.”
“Nooo!”
Filo had the nerve to complain. What was wrong with “Yakitori”? Did she not like grilled chicken? It would be easy to remember.
“Mr. Naofumi, that’s a bit mean even for you, don’t you think? Look. Filo doesn’t look very happy now, does she?”
Bah! I guess I had to pick something else if Raphtalia was going to complain.
“Fine. Raphtalia will be . . .”
“Hold on. So my name was something rude, too?”
I guess she didn’t get the tanuki reference and had only been complaining about Filo’s alias.
“Who knows? Filo will be . . . Humming should work.”
She had been a monster called a humming fairy in Kizuna’s world, after all. No one in this world would know that.
“Mr. Naofumi? Are you listening to me?”
“Filo, you can call me master like usual during the matches. Just call Raphtalia big sis.”
“Okaaay!”
Master was just a general title and wouldn’t give away my name.
“Mr. Naofumi!”
Right now, we n
eeded to buy up the slaves from Raphtalia’s village as quickly as possible, so there was no turning back for me, no matter what.
We returned to the village, and it ended up being the day before the coliseum tournament, by the time all of us had gotten fully prepared. Filo spent her time playing with the slaves, and she must have recognized the village as something she wanted to protect, because she was looking forward to fighting now. Raphtalia apparently finished powering up the katana that she got from the dragon emperor materials to a sufficient level.
And now we were on standby in the waiting room at the underground coliseum in Zeltoble. We would be fighting daily from here on out. Until we won the tournament, that is.
The Zeltoble coliseum was inherently secretive, so the careers of the fighters were packed full of fabrications. As a result, I’d heard the odds tended to favor the more well-known fighters. That meant that neither the nobility nor anyone else would be paying any attention to someone like a newcomer hoping to win big. I guess no matter what world you were in, there would still be those extravagant types who didn’t mind losing money, since they didn’t work for it anyway.
“This is our first match. Let’s try not to bring ourselves too much attention.”
According to the slave trader, the opening ceremony had been held earlier today around noon, and the tournament bracket had been announced. He said the teams that were lucky enough to be seeded wouldn’t be fighting until the latter half of the tournament. We were fighting in the very first round, so I already couldn’t help but feel like things were a bit unfair. Then again, this was nothing compared to being framed and left penniless mere days after being summoned to another world, and then being stigmatized on top of that.
The time for our match was drawing near. It was evening now. The tournament started sometime around noon, I think, so it had been going for a while now. Our opponent for this match was some mafia-sounding team called . . . the Topak Family. The odds had already been fixed, but if we came on full-force, practically screaming, “Actually, we have the Shield Hero!” then the opposing team would probably be flooded with support. They might end up with really nice weapons and equipment and huge amounts of support magic being cast on them nonstop, and that would really suck for us. Even worse, it was possible the organizers would force some kind of weird handicap on us.
