The fight ends quickly and without fanfare. The crowd, I can tell, is disappointed. Me, I'm just grinning like a madman. I made sure to make my victory look like an accident, too, so Tarin should still be able to bet against me in the next match. I wonder how many people he can convince to go double-or-nothing?

It's almost funny how easy it was, too. All I needed to do was maneuver myself into the right position, and then use Accelerate when the golem hit me, letting myself get flung just a little bit farther and a little bit faster than I should have. It sends my body crashing straight into the goblin controlling the construct, apparently with enough force to knock him unconscious.

He's carried away in a stretcher. I'm briefly worried about him, but that worry evaporates when he finds the strength to get up in the stretcher and make a rude gesture at me with both hands. I guess some things transcend cultures.

That, or the Interface just interpreted his hand gestures for me.

Either way, it doesn't matter. The pain makes it easy to hide how gleeful I'm actually feeling, and I wait in the arena for my next opponent to show up. It doesn't take long, only this time I find my confidence kind of shaken.

Not because I don't think I can win, mind you. Just because my opponent is a tiny lizardman — a kobold, I suppose, would be the closest analogy — and I cannot for the life of me imagine myself punching him in the face.

"Begin!"

The bell rings. Instead of moving, the kobold speaks.

"I am Deathclaw Bloodseeker," the kobold intones in a voice that's far too deep for his tiny stature. "You will die by my hand."

I blink. "You're not under duress or anything, are you?" I ask. "Just checking. Due diligence and all that."

"Deathclaw Bloodseeker would never capitulate to the demands of others," the kobold says dramatically. I nod a few times.

"Right, right," I say. "I hope that's not actually your name."

Then I punch him in the snout.

I know, I know. I said I'd have problems punching him in the face. That was before he called himself Deathclaw Bloodseeker. I do have to give it to him — he has a thick skull. DB, because I am not calling him Deathclaw Bloodseeker again, staggers back with a cry. "Coward!" he cries out. "To arms!"

Then he pulls a spear out of nowhere and charges at me. It's the sudden spike of Firmament before he pulls it out that gives me warning, because when he moves, he moves fast.

Though given Premonition, Quicken Mind, and the fact that I've fought Tarin before, it's probably no surprise that his speed is still well within the range of speeds I can work with. I sidestep the hit, because Tough Body or not, I don't feel like dealing with being stabbed by a spear. I make sure to stumble when I sidestep, so it looks more like a fearful step away than like an intentional dodge.

Now to figure out how to make this victory look like an accident.

The spar itself has a few basic rules, one of which is easier to exploit than the others — you lose if you go outside the circle marked in the arena. I've been careful to stay away from that line so far, but now I intentionally lead the kobold towards it. I let the spear nick me once or twice, enough to make it look like I'm losing and struggling to hold on; the right cuts in the right places can be largely superficial and still bleed very, very heavily, a fact about human anatomy that I'm privy to that the audience is not.

Though forehead cuts are still annoying, because the blood gets into your eyes.

"Hah!" DB cries, having decided he's won. "Surrender now before your blood takes you!"

I wonder how much of his actions are a show. He can't be entirely sincere, right? But an arena like this is as much a sport of entertainment as anything else; a huge part of it has to be cultivating a persona that lets the audience know to cheer for you. I haven't bothered, because I don't think I'll stay in this loop long enough for it to make a difference, but maybe in a future loop...

"Not surrendering?" the kobold asks, and then launches himself at me before I can respond. "En guarde!"

I bite back a snide reply about not having a sword, wonder what exactly caused the Interface to translate quite like that, and then intentionally stumble into DB's strike. A Barrier to let it glance off my ribs without piercing me, although I make it malleable enough to still smart; I roll with the momentum, pretending to desperately grab on to his clothing and sending us both tumbling...

...with him just a little bit outside the arena line.

I'm not exactly practiced with this, but Quicken Mind allows for a remarkable amount of quick thinking, even while tumbling around on the ground.

The kobold gets up. For a moment, he looks like he's about to jump right back into battle — until his eyes land on the line that he's crossed, and his face abruptly falls. "Aw dang," he mutters. And then much softer than his usual voice, he whispers: "Good fight anyway! My real name's Thys. Are you new here? I don't think I've seen you fight before."

Stolen novel; please report.

"Pretty new," I admit, trying to conceal how surprised I am by the sudden personality shift. Now I feel kind of bad for punching him. "Good fight. Do you always put on a persona like that?"

"You gotta," Thys says, and then he raises an eyebrow at me. "You were doing it too! No way you're as bad as you pretended, and you still won. Listen, this is kind of a bad place to talk about this kind of thing. Meet me in the back if you wanna, okay? Good luck with your next fight!"

Thys hops out of the arena before I can respond, and a horn sounds, signalling for me to get ready for the next fight. The kobold's enthusiasm is infectious, though — I can't help but grin a little, bouncing on my feet to prepare for the next opponent. From inside my shirt where he's hiding, Ahkelios whispers to me. "I like that guy."

"I do too," I admit, and then I focus up on the new opponent emerging from the other side of the arena. "Alright, let's get ready for the next one."

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All in all, I fight five opponents before they decide to pull me out of the arena to "reexamine my position in the rankings", which I take to mean that they've decided I'm costing them too much money. That, or they've received too many complaints about me. I'm not sure either way, but I do spot Tarin in the crowd giving me a thumbs up and several other people giving him a dirty look, so I'm not too worried about it.

The only real problem is that this hasn't been that good for training. I'm sure I've racked up a decent number of Durability credits — I did let myself get hit far, far more often than I would have in a real fight — but none of my opponents were particularly challenging outside of the constraints I put on myself for the battle. That usually means the credit reward is reduced.

Still, it's much better than sitting around doing nothing, and I won't know how much I've earned until I die. Or actually kill someone, but I'm not willing to do that just to bank my points.

Maybe if I get an opportunity with She-Who-Whispers.

"Ethan!" Tarin crows at me — yes, that's the most appropriate verb to describe how he approaches me. He wraps me in a winged hug before I even get a chance to reply. His eyes are practically gleaming with profit. "We earn so much money. So much."

"Whoa, whoa," I laugh, although I hug him back. "You sure you want to look associated with me? Everyone's going to think you cheated them."

"Bah! They already think I cheat them," Tarin says dismissively. "They not want bet anymore. Good thing fight stop there. We enough money now, I think."

"And do you have any insights for me in terms of training?" I ask, my tone amused. I'm not even sure if he was watching me fight. I get the impression he spent most of his time watching the faces of the people that bet against me slowly fall into denial and then outrage.

"No! Your opponents too weak." Tarin pokes me with a wing. "We come back after we save Rotar. You fight stronger opponents. Then I teach!"

I'm not convinced Tarin isn't just going to make more bets, considering how excited he seems about the idea, but going along with it isn't going to hurt anything. We're going to need the chips to make more of an impact in Isthanok, anyway. She-Who-Whispers has considerable power and influence, and in the absence of being able to punch hard enough physically, we can always try doing it financially.

Or something. More resources are better, is my point.

I catch a glimpse of Thys in the corner, peeking at us curiously, and I wave Tarin off. "I'll see you back at Miktik's," I tell him. "I want to go talk to someone."

Tarin eyes me suspiciously. "You not tell your secrets!"

"You're one to talk," I say, raising an eyebrow at him. Tarin gives me an offended caw and wanders off; I shake my head, smiling, then wave Thys over.

"That a friend of yours?" the kobold asks. He does a strange little wave at me, crossing his fingers in a way not unlike the human gesture for luck. "He's pretty strong, I bet! You think he could teach me too?"

"You heard that part, huh?" I laugh. "He'd probably be willing if you bribed me enough. Should I have asked him to stay?"

"No," Thys decides after a moment. "I can always meet him later! But if you're gonna fight here, you gotta know the rules. Otherwise they might send people after you." Thys looks at me contemplatively. "...Although I'm not sure you'd be in danger if they did?"

I shrug as noncommittally as I can. "I wouldn't know," I reply as honestly as I can. "Can't know before I fight them, can I?"

"That tells me you don't live here," Thys says, grinning. "I'll keep your secret, don't worry."

----------------------------------------

We talk for a while. It's been a while since I've talked to someone other than Ahkelios just casually — and it's been even longer since I've had a conversation about anything other than the Trial in some way, shape, or form. My focus has been on improving fast enough to make a difference for so long that I've almost forgotten what it's like to have a normal conversation.

Well, about as normal a conversation as talking to a kobold about a blood sport can be, anyway. I had sort of expected the conversation to be about ways to exploit the arena, but I find I'm fine with the way this conversation is going, too. It's been a little too long, perhaps, since I've had just a friendly conversation without heavy stakes hanging over my head.

Not that those stakes aren't still hanging over my head. This is just one of very few times where all I can do is wait.

I learn a few things over the next hour or so. One is that Thys has something like fifteen siblings, eight brothers and seven sisters. Another is that he and his siblings swap places in the arena all the time — none of the organizers can tell the difference between kobolds, apparently. It's part of why the persona is so important for them; it's much easier for them to pretend to be one another when they all have an equally bombastic template personality to draw from.

I don't share nearly as much with Thys, which I feel a little guilty about. I can't talk to him about anything Trial-related, nor can I really risk telling him about anything I can do. In the end, I just tell him some things about Earth and my life there. I've never thought about it until now, but the sheer variety of species on Hestia is apparently because Hestia is something of a hub planet, and has been since even before the Integrators.

Then Thys asks me when I'll be back, and I wince.

"I don't know," I say. "I have to help one of my friends, and that will take me a while. Maybe in a week or two?"

The truth is, of course, that I don't really know if I'll be ready even in a week or two. But Thys seems more than satisfied with my answer.

"I look forward to seeing you again!" Thys says happily. "Lemme tell you, most of the other arena combatants here are stuffy beyond belief. It'll be nice for us to have someone to talk to that isn't trying to kill us outside the arena."

"I have a lot of concerns about this place, suddenly," I say.

"It's fiiine. It's great! Just try not to get murdered and you'll do great!"

Well, I can't say he isn't optimistic, I suppose.