----------------------------------------
Name: Silvester
Age: 23
Race: Human
Level: 25/25
I heard the gods' followers call it Status Screen, so I decided to do that too, though mine looks totally barebone compared to theirs.
It had been a few years since I began to see this thing; from when I was nineteen. It shouldn’t have been possible, since I never received any Class from the gods, but it appeared nonetheless. I was doubtful, at first, thinking I imagined it. Then I thought that maybe a Priest or a god played a trick on me — not like they hadn’t tried before. Until now, though, that was all it displayed; no stats, no skills, and no titles. Moreover, there was no Priest around, and I didn't have Blessed objects on me, so I shouldn't have been able to see it.
Nothing new, as always, I thought as I dismissed it.
I always hoped something would change during these years, but nothing did, aside from my age going up – even the Level remained the same.
Soon I fell into a light sleep, waking up when I heard the door of the dungeon opening. Hoping it was my dinner this time, I sat up.
Small steps were coming this way, and since I didn’t hear trays or anything else, it was probably the usual slave kid coming with my food. Indeed, after a few more seconds, I saw him stopping in front of my cell. He was thin and small, reaching only around my stomach in height; I didn’t know his age, but he was around eleven years old.
Well, he’s in better shape than me, and cleaner too.
Now I could also see that his hair was actually of a really light blonde; I had thought it was white when I saw him in the light of the torch before. The eyes appeared to be light blue, though I had to look closer to be sure.
He was holding a torch and a bowl, containing, I supposed, the usual cold soup, and moving forward cautiously while warily watching the lights coming out of the other cell.
I suddenly felt a movement and Zeph appeared in front of the bars, startling the kid. I saw him jerk the hand holding the bowl and saw some of the soup splashing on the ground.
Hearing the splash, I nearly cried out. It was like a stab in the stomach – or maybe that was the hunger. The mental blow was big anyway, but I held back, trying not to give him a scare and lose more soup. “Hey kid, calm down, easy there, he’s not bad, and he’s behind bars so you’re totally safe. Now move slowly and put that bowl down please; just move slow and steady, and put my food down,” I started rattling off in the softest voice I could muster, while my gaze was fixed on his trembling hand.
“Oh, sorry,” he said in a barely audible voice, looking down. He put the soup in front of the door and I stopped. I thought that he would take the empty one and go away like usual, but he hesitated. I didn’t know why, but he gave a quick glance at Zeph.
Since he was still near the bowl, I kept still, holding myself from moving towards the door, and explained, keeping my voice down, “He’s my new neighbor, nothing to be scared about, he’s a nice guy. A bit pompous, but that’s to be expected of a noble.”
I realized my mistake when he seemed to get more nervous. “No, really, calm down, he’s nice enough, he even talks to me.”
I then looked at him, “Back off a bit, Zeph, you’re scaring the kid.”
He looked more confused than offended, but he stepped back a bit anyway.
The little slave threw a few quick glances back and forth at him and me. I didn’t know what he was worried about, but then I saw him taking out something from beneath his clothes. It was a loaf of bread, about thirty centimeters long and half as wide. And proceeded to leave it on top of the bowl.
“Old bread, they were throwing it away,” said the kid softly.
“Are you maybe a saint?” I asked while he took the empty bowl and scampered away.
I think I'm about to cry.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“Kid, I love you!” I shouted at his retreating back.
I then quickly went to wash my hands, before picking up my food. Cleanliness was a luxury here, but it was a habit that has always remained with me, and seeing how often people who didn’t do this got sick, I thought it was better to keep it.
“What’s this?” asked Zeph when I finished getting off most of the dirt on my hands. He stayed silent until now, probably in bewilderment.
“My food,” I answered absentmindedly as I moved toward it, shaking off the droplets on my hands. “I got a lot today thanks to the kid.”
“I guessed that, but what’s in the bowl?” he asked.
I looked at him briefly, noticing the disgust in his face.
“No idea. Seems like some kind of vegetable today, don’t care, lemme eat,” I answered. I had no time to talk to him now.
I scraped the few moldy spots out of the bread, carefully, so as to not lose too much food, and looked for things that may look rotten inside the soup. Need to be careful about everything these days – I didn't need to get sick, on top of everything.
I then broke off a little of the bread, dripped it in the soup, and started eating slowly. I had to control myself not to scarf it down – I needed to absorb every bit of energy I could, and I wanted to digest every particle of it. I was a bit pissed at the noble for the spilled soup, but I could reluctantly admit it wasn’t his fault, so I stayed silent.
After I polished the bowl, I put half the loaf I left for the next day inside, and left it in the corner – I had to do my best not to look at it since I was still so terribly hungry.
In the meantime, Zeph sat down and stared at me all the time, looking at me with what I assumed was a curious expression. I didn’t really care.
“What is it, do you want the other half of the bread?” I asked, fully aware that he would never eat it. Not that I would give it to him, even if he would – what he ate this morning would probably last me more than a week.
He just shook his head, before asking again. “Is that all you usually eat?”
“Nope,” I said, relaxing against the wall, “I usually get a smaller loaf or the soup. Normally, the soup has some kind of grass inside instead of vegetables. Not sure what it is, and I don’t want to know. I only need it to stay down without causing problems. It’s less filling than the vegetables, but it’s better than nothing.”
He seemed to be pondering. “You told me you've been around here since you were a kid, but looking at you, it doesn't seem you've been fed like that for a long time. You seem well-built despite your diet.”
I wanted to ask if he didn't have gladiators where he came from, but he probably wouldn't say anything, so I just answered his question.
“Well, not only around here — I was speaking about dungeons and arenas in general. I got around a few of them during the years. Usually, gladiators stay in a gladiator school's building, where a lanista, a former gladiator, trains us. The food was shit, but it was abundant. Also, the situation here is different from what you would usually see. When I came here the first time, the place was full of war slaves they got from the Duchy. There was also a healer when the fight ended, since it wasn’t unusual to fight for a few consecutive days. They only did a quick patch-up, but I often survived thanks to that.”
The feelings I had in that period were totally different from this desolate arena.
“We're now in a civil war that came right after the war. Even nobles don’t have enough leisure time to spend all their days here at the moment, let alone commoners. Income dwindled, war slaves got bought to serve nobles in their fight or to be bodyguards for rich men, and now everyone’s gone, except for me. Can’t use a slave contract if I don’t have a Class after all.”
It was also one of the reasons why you couldn’t find elves or other races as slaves.
And they say that gods are magnanimous, I scoffed.
"I don’t know if the guy that manages the arena even remembers I'm here. I only had a few bouts against beasts since the last slave got out; and even those ended about two months ago, which was also the last time I met my lanista and got out of this cell. I had no idea that the school was closed before the guard told me this morning."
They forgot I exist, most likely.
“Sorry, I had a monologue. Must’ve been the food.” I had food in my stomach, light to see, and someone to listen to, it was normal to get carried away a bit, I thought. “Anything else to ask? I think I can talk for a while more.”
“It’s fine,” he answered, then after a second of hesitation, “On second thought, I must say I have an urgent question.”
I motioned him to continue.
“Where do we go to take care of our bodily functions?” he asked.
I didn’t understand. “What?”
“You know,” he said, “to defecate. Do they come to take you to the toilet?”
“Oh,” I said.
Then, a while later, after I finished laughing. “You want to take a shit. Just say that. Hahaha!”
He seemed ready to blow up, so I pointed to an angle of my cell he couldn’t see while smirking. “I’ve got a hole there. You should have a similar one.”
“And before you ask,” I continued, “you see the grove where the water comes down? In the back? That’s your drinking water, as well as your bath water. Just use the cloth the guard left there to scrub yourself.”
His face, right then, was one of the funniest things I had ever seen.
I suspected his dinner was coming soon, and, since I had just had mine, I wanted to avoid smelling something that could make my hunger flare up again, so I started meditating.
The guy seemed nice enough for a noble, but I honestly didn’t expect him to leave me something. And I would never beg.
After I woke up from my meditation, he was praying again. I forgot to ask what was the point of all those prayers, but I left him alone – we'd have plenty of time to talk, there was no need to be too annoying.
Since I had nothing to do, I decided to review my previous battles and see if there was anything I could improve. I had done the exercise so many times that I memorized most of my fights, and I doubt I had anything new to discover, but it was a nice thing to do since it would ensure I didn’t forget what I learned. Fighting simulations were also a good pastime.
We spent a few days like that one. Food was as bad as always and the kid didn’t find any more food for me, so I only got the usual bread and the occasional soup; we also didn’t talk much since I meditated, and he prayed most of the time.
I thought the days would continue like that until he left. But there was a change soon.
----------------------------------------