“Fwahahaha!”

All eyes of the deathly silent arena fall on me as my laugh echoes across the stadium. One moment, they were watching Thradish Three-Tails—veteran A-Rank adventurer and renowned slave trainer—picking apart another team with his expert management of the centaur slaves at his command. The next moment, they were staring at the headless pile of scaly meat sprawled across the floor in a bloody heap.

“Bullseye!” Slamming my fingers into the arena wall at my side, I rip out another fistful of stone and toss it playfully between my hands while I scan the battlefield for my next target.

I figure, if fighting up close isn’t an option, then I’ll just fight from far away instead! That way, I can still have fun and Mash won’t be in danger of being tagged!

Thradish Three-Tails was the first target of my attack. I had ripped a chunk out of the wall and launched it at him from across the battlefield. Surprisingly, it actually hit him! Right in the face too! I was planning on whittling down his wall of slaves, but it seems like I caught him just as he was changing formation and it went straight through his face and buried itself into the back wall on the opposite side of the stadium. Nice!

Ah, wait, how am I supposed to tag him though? Does hitting people with rocks count as tagging them? Well, I guess I can just worry about that part later.

Suddenly, the crowd erupts into cheers and applause, followed by the announcer’s booming voice echoing over the loudspeaker.

“Th-Thradish Three-Tails has been eliminated! By the solo slave, no less!”

Fwah~! I can go all out without worrying about holding back, and nobody gets upset when I accidentally turn somebody into a wet sack of skin! In fact, they’re even cheering for me! This is great! Tournaments are great!

“She broke a piece off the arena wall and threw it right at him! I-it’s not against the rules so I guess I have to allow it! Just don’t get too carried away out there though! As you all know, after that last incident, intentionally vandalising the Krumbledome is grounds for instant disqualification! We wouldn’t want to see such promising talent get struck out of the tournament in such an anticlimactic way!”

Fweh? Disqualification? Well, I don’t really want that. It seems doing this much is fine though.

“Hmm...” Picking another target, I grip the chunk of stone in my fist and slowly draw my arm all the way back. “... There!”

—And then I throw it.

Having picked another trainer, I whip my arm forward again, releasing the fist-sized chunk of wall at tremendous speed.

It whistles through the air like a white-hot comet in the blink of an eye, tearing up the ground beneath it as it carves a path across the battlefield. Whiffing past my mark by about an arm’s length, it connects with the opposite side of the stadium, plunging deep into the arena wall and sending showers of dust and stone flecks raining down on the cheering crowds in the stands above.

“Ah. Missed,” I say, making my way over to the wall to grab another chunk. “Let’s try that one more—”

“Stop! No more!” Mash rushes in, slapping the new rock out of my hand before I have the chance to throw it.

“Fweh? Why?”

“We’re going to get disqualified! Look at the damage you’re doing!” he says, pointing out the cracks in the wall and the shallow, freshly-formed trench lightly smouldering in front of me as it cuts across the arena.

“It’s not that bad. It’s nowhere near as bad as what we did in the Spire.”

“I’d hope not! That thing collapsed, you know! We’re not here to destroy the arena, just the other contestants! The last person who destroyed the arena was immediately disqualified and banned from ever competing again! The stadium had to be shut down and everything! They’ve only just reopened it today!”

Fweh? I wouldn’t want to be banned from ever competing again...

“Alright, I guess...”

I dust my hands of the stone chunks and move away from the wall. I’m gonna have to find a different way to fight while babysitting Mash at the same time.

“Oh? What’s this?” The announcer’s voice echoes out. “It looks like all the remaining trainers have called back their attacking slaves and are working together to move in on the solo slave! That one slave has single-handedly eliminated two of the competition—literally! And I’m sure none of the other contestants wants to be next!”

Hm? In the distance, I notice the other five remaining groups slowly encroaching on our position. Each slave is bunched together to form a wall at the front while— I can only assume—the trainers themselves are cowering at their backs as they make their advance.

“Th-this is bad,” Mash says. “They’re going to corner us...”

“Fwah! Not on my watch! I have an idea!”

Taking Mash by the arm, I drag him along behind me as I make my sprint away from the wall and further into the arena.

“There!” I shout, grinding to a stop in the dead centre of the field. “We can’t be cornered if there aren’t any corners nearby!”

I had taken us to the centre of the arena so that we couldn’t be boxed up into a corner by the five other groups. A genius plan, if I do say so myself!

...

“Well, now we’re just being surrounded!”

“... Ah.”

Mash’s right. The five remaining groups now have us completely surrounded. In fact, moving to the middle instead of having our backs to the wall has given these guys a much bigger opening and made their jobs even easier...

“Plus, the arena is a circle! It doesn’t have any corners to begin with!” Mash makes another very Bran-like complaint about our predicament as the groups close in on us.

Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

I wonder if he and Bran are related or something. They both do like to complain a lot. Maybe it's just a human thing. I'll have to ask Bran next time I see him...

Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!

With five consecutive whips cracking from all around us, five slaves—one from each group—rushes in, clearly intent on tagging Mash and eliminating us from the tournament.

“Mash, I’m gonna need you to sit still here for just a second.”

“O-okay...”

Standing guard in front of the sweaty slaver, I await the rushing attackers.

The first one rushes in from behind.

Slapping a hand on top of Mash’s cap, I use his greasy, balding head as a swivel to whip behind me and deliver a kick into the chest of the charging slave.

“Guh—!” He immediately crumples backwards to the floor.

Swivelling around again, I grab the outstretched arm of another slave. Snapping it between my grasp, I push him to the floor as he screams in pain.

Another slave rushes me from the side at the same time. It’s an oddly familiar and ragged-looking elf man...

“Leader! It’s me!” he whispers, as he makes his approach. “You have to win this tournament! You’re our only hope! I’ll talk to the other slaves in this match and convince them to help you—! L-Leader?!”

I instantly throw him to the floor, stomping on his face to shut him up.

Of the two remaining attackers, one of them receives a punch to the gut while the other gets my heel to the jaw.

“Fwahahaha!” I laugh, having promptly dealt with the five attackers, leaving them to lie unconscious on the dirt or crawl back to their owners in pain. “Bring it!”

The other trainers hang back nervously, snaking their whips around by their side as they decide on their next course of action.

I know I told them to ‘bring it!’ but I think dealing with a bigger wave of attackers while protecting Mash is gonna be pretty difficult. I know the trainers themselves won’t come to me, but if there was only some way to close the distance between us...

Hm? Wait, I’ve already been through this...

If I can’t close the distance... Then let’s just keep it open!

Reaching a hand inside my mouth, I force it down, and into my throat.

If I’m not allowed to throw the wall, then there’s always something else I can throw...

—And so I throw up.

A ball-shaped lump begins to form in my stomach. I grip it with my fingers and yank it out of my mouth, raising the fleshy-feeling lump up above my head.

“The next slave trainer to send someone my way is getting this thing to the face!” I shout, yanking my arm back threateningly.

In response, all the surrounding trainers and their slaves put their hands up to the sky, a look of shock and fear on their faces.

“O-okay!” one of them responds. “J-just put that down...”

“Y-yeah,” another chimes in. “There’s no need to go that far...”

Oh? It looks like I’ve got them scared! Every time I turn to face a new group and threaten to throw it at them, they immediately back off a few more steps.

“I didn’t sign up for this...” one of the trainers says, breaking down into tears. “I mean, I knew I could lose my own life in this tournament, but this is too much. I’m out...”

“Yeah, this isn’t right... You win. I’m not doing this anymore...”

Taking their slaves with them, the two contestants walk away, hanging their heads low.

Fweh? Two teams quit? Just like that? Are they really that scared of having this thing thrown at them? It doesn’t feel very hard. In fact, it feels kinda squishy. What even is it anyway? I didn’t think to actually have a look at it after I threw it up, but it can’t be too—

Suddenly, the thing held up above my head begins to squirm a little, before emitting a high-pitched cry.

“... Fweh?”

I finally look up at the thing held in my hand. The thing I’ve been threatening to throw at people.

“Fwah! It’s a baby?!”

It’s a baby.

“Mash, why am I holding a baby?! Why did a baby come out?!”

“Don’t ask me!”

It seems the fleshy, lumpy thing I had thrown up was a squishy little pink-faced baby. A human baby, it looks like. It’s kinda gross-looking too. I did throw up a person once before, but having a whole baby come out is a little...

“M-Mash, it’s crying! What should I do with it?!”

“Don’t ask me!”

“W-what’s this?! How did a baby get in the arena?! It looks like our solo slave has a live baby in their hands! What could they possibly be planning on doing with a baby?!”

I’m not planning on doing anything with it! It kind of just came out on its own!

As I hold it out in front of me towards the other groups, they all shake their heads furiously and recoil away from me.

“Mash, I think it’s hungry! Yours are bigger than mine, so you feed it!”

“It doesn’t work like that!”

I-I don’t know what to do... The only thing I can do, and the only thing that makes the most sense right now is...

“Well, I guess I’ll just send it back then.”

Bringing the crying lump to my mouth, I open my jaw wide and push the baby carefully back down my throat. I can feel it squirming around inside me as it slides down into my belly, before disappearing back through the familiar-feeling portal to another world that exists within my stomach.

I don’t know how this thing works, but I’m sure it was able to make it back home to its mother where it belongs.

Probably.

...

From all around, the audience in the stands erupts in wild excitement. Some are booing me, and others are cheering. It’s hard to judge their reaction to the whole baby thing that just happened, but they seem pretty hyped up about it either way.

The announcer’s voice fills the arena once again.

“Sh-She ate it! She ate the baby! I’ve never seen this in the Krumbledome before! This can’t be legal, right?!”

I didn’t eat it! I just sent it back home!

“Oh? It looks like the other contestants are too stunned to move! They’ve collapsed to the floor in shock! I’m right there with you, brothers! I know how you feel!”

“Ah...” Leaving Mash in his place, I walk up to one of the remaining groups and reach out to tag the trainer. The slaves guarding them immediately step aside, recoiling at my outstretched hand. “Tag.”

Giving the stunned slave owner a poke, I move on to the next one, tagging them too. And then the next one after that. None of them really have the spirit to continue opposing me, so they just let it happen, already accepting their defeat.

“And that’s the match!”

At the announcer’s call, a loud horn sounds out across the arena, signalling the end of the match and my—and Mash’s—victory.

“What a wild first match of the tournament that was! It looks like our rookie contestant and his baby-eating slave managed to clinch the victory with ease! I look forward to seeing what these two will bring to the Krumbledome in the days still to come!”

Well, this was kind of anti-climactic...

“Mash, I don’t know how to feel about this...”

“Yeah, me neither...”

From all around the stands, the sound of people chanting the name ‘Baby Eater’ fills the air. I give them an awkward grin and a wave in response.

I hope this weird nickname doesn’t stick...