"Well, that's not good."

Kandy and Jabari had just entered Arundu, Emberos' capital city, and had immediately noticed a familiar visage on a nearby noticeboard.

They stared at it, Jabari with amusement, Kandy with concern.

"Why are they even looking for me? How do they even know what I look like? The last time anyone other than you or Taraji saw my face or skin was…" Kandy's voice trailed off.

"Back at Soleya." Jabari finished Kandy's sentence.

"Was that the first city we went to?"

"Yes." Jabari frowned, then glanced from side to side to make sure that they weren't being watched. "It must have been the Crow God's children."

"Them? But they didn't do anything." Kandy recalled the creepy bird-men.

"Not at the moment, no, but they must have reported your presence to their superiors. And they must be interested in you."

"Interested? Not concerned?" Kandy joked, but Jabari seemed to take his words seriously.

"Yes, hm. I suppose they may be concerned, and if so…" Jabari's visage twisted into a cruel smile before returning to its usual stoic state. Kandy hadn’t noticed as he’d been too busy feeling parts of his face and comparing them to his image in the poster.

"Do I really look like that?" he asked. "I thought I was a little more…"

He paused. "I don't know, more handsome?"

Jabari glanced sideways at Kandy and shrugged. "You don't look too bad."

"But do I look handsome?"

"It's not that bad."

"But am I handsome?"

"You have redeeming qualities."

Kandy finally moved his gaze from his wanted poster to Jabari. "It seems like you're avoiding my question."

Jabari turned and briskly walked away. "We should go to the arena."

"Just gimme a straight answer, dammit!" Kandy shouted as he chased along.

***

It took two whole hours for the two to walk all the way to the arena, which was situated at the center of the city.

The only thing Jabari had revealed about it was its name: The Crow's Nest.

Upon closer inspection, Kandy noticed that it was made up of numerous rings, each smaller than the last. Or bigger, depending on how you looked at it, as each ring aside from the outermost one got taller towards the center.

As if he could see all the questions forming in Kandy’s head, Jabari spoke up, “Fighters start on the outer rings, and as they prove themselves and improve their Crow’s mark, they are promoted to the inner rings.

“The ones who reside in the inner rings are like gods—both in the eyes of the public and with their actual ability. Fighters come from all around Emberos to find glory in the Crow's Nest, to pursue one of those spots. Most find defeat and sadness, but others, a select few… find something more.”

Jabari shook his head. “Anyway, we have to get in line to enter. The shorter one’s for fighters.”

Sure enough, Kandy lowered his gaze from the massive building and saw two snaking lines heading towards the building.

One line was far longer than the other and consisted of viewers of all types and ages. From the youngest kids, excited to be seeing fights for the first time, to old men and women looking for excitement in the waning years of their lives, everybody had come out to see the show.

The other line was far shorter and the people in it generally looked a bit more dangerous.

After entering through the line for combatants, Jabari re-registered himself as a fighter. Kandy also unwrapped a bit of his upper arm to register himself with his Crow's Mark.

Jabari and Kandy were then let into the outer ring of The Crow's Nest. The outer ring was lined with countless food stalls, most of which were offering meats and grains. The selection seemed fine, but there didn't seem to be too much focus on hygiene—there was a certain stench in the air.

"Don't mind the smell," Jabari commented. "The affluent or those with more impressive Crow's Marks can enter deeper into the arena. There's better food there."

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

"Wait a minute. Is that why you confiscated my money earlier?"

"Yes, I'll be waiting for you at the third ring. You'll need to improve your Crow's Mark significantly to get there. Good luck."

With that, Jabari turned and walked down a side hallway. Kandy would have followed, but menacing stares from the guards at the far end dissuaded him.

Sighing, Kandy looked down at the stone tablet he'd been handed after registering. After looking around a bit, he found an agent reclined in a rocking chair with a short line of warriors in front.

After getting through the line, Kandy handed the agent his tablet.

She lazily took Kandy’s tablet and glanced at the information on it

"Thank you, warrior. You're registered as a… hm.”

Her eyes scrutinized Kandy’s small frame. “You're in luck! We normally don't have other fighters as weak as you here, but there is actually an opponent waiting for you at X-27, first ring. Please find your arena within the next fifteen minutes or it will be counted as an automatic forfeit. Next!"

"Wait, but—" Kandy interjected.

"Next!"

Kandy thought about protesting and asking for directions, but a quick glance at the line of ruffians behind him convinced otherwise.

"X…" Kandy looked around. "What a grating letter. Let's see. This here is A, and there's B…"

He turned to his right and paced along the curve of the outermost ring, following the letters. He started at a brisk walk, then at a full-on sprint around L when he realized his mistake. Given that the arena was a circle, and the letters were sequential…

When he first started, he could have just walked a bit to his left.

Instead, he snuck into the "X" area of the Crow's Nest’s outermost ring with just a minute to spare. Thankfully, the hallway only seemed to go a single way, from one to thirty, and he was able to sneak into the twenty-seventh room with mere seconds left.

A tired-looking, sweaty man lazily waved Kandy past a handful of viewers and into the "arena", which was really just a messy, slightly muddy section of ground in the center of the room, which in its entirety was barely twenty by twenty feet.

Kandy looked across the way at his opponent as he stepped forward. It was an old man with only one arm.

"Under the eyes of the Crow God, this shall be an honorable duel! Are you ready?" The sweaty man looked towards Kandy, who nodded. Then he looked towards the one-armed man, who nodded as well.

"Fight!"

Kandy had expected to be engaging in fisticuffs, and hadn't pulled out any weapons from his holding space. The one-armed man, however, clearly had other plans. He quickly pulled out a knife from under his sleeve and rushed forward, forcing Kandy to continuously step backwards.

"Woah, dude! Don't—" Kandy paused as one of the knives came dangerously close to his left leg.

"—If you keep this up, I'm going to…ah, whatever."

After seeing that his opponent was a crippled old fart, he’d felt rather conflicted about inflicting any further damage upon them. Moreover, he realized that his previous mindset had been far too naive.

After seeing the uncontrolled ferocity with which the man was stabbing the knife towards him, the desperation in the man’s eyes as he quickly realized that he was outmatched, Kandy realized that his previous mindset regarding the match had been far too naive.

Insulting, almost.

Kandy took a deep breath and planted his heels into the ground, stopping his backwards momentum.

He wrapped his hands in mana and grasped the knife, locking the man’s arm in place, if only temporarily. With shocking speed, the man released his grip on the knife and dropped to the ground, kicking upwards toward Kandy.

"Good idea, but you're a bit slow," Kandy said as he grabbed the man's right ankle and, with just enough force to knock him out, threw him against the far wall.

"I win, right?" Kandy asked the sweaty man.

"The Crow God decides."

The one-armed man slid down from the wall and collapsed on the ground. Once there, he raised his hand to his head and rubbed it while cursing.

As he did so, the Crow's Mark on the man's arm shifted and a whiff of black fume rose from it, floating towards the mark on Kandy's left arm instead.

As it integrated, although those present couldn't see it, the Crow's Mark under Kandy's coverings changed shape and blackened, if only just a bit.

"Good work, kid." The sweaty man held out his hand.

Kandy went to shake it, but when he did the sweaty man withdrew his hand and scowled. "Nobody wants to shake your hand, dumbass. Your tablet."

"Ah, yeah. Sorry about that." Kandy awkwardly retracted his hand and pulled the tablet out from an inner pocket.

The man snatched the template out of Kandy's hand and closed his eyes for a brief moment, after which he handed it back. Another symbol had been added to the tablet, but Kandy did not recognize it

"Find an agent when you're ready for your next fight."

Kandy nodded and began to walk away when the sweaty man said, "Hey, kid."

Kandy turned around. "Yeah?"

"I'm going to put a bet on you for the next fight. If you lose, I'll kill you."

"…Thanks?”

***

Kandy sighed as he watched the match before his. Apparently his performance had promoted him from fighting the X arenas to the B arenas, but not enough for him to be sent to the second ring. The room here was quite a bit bigger, maybe forty by forty feet, and there were a few dozen people sitting in raised benches along the edges of the room, watching the fights.

As for the fight itself, he supposed his old self would have found it interesting, but after watching the legends of Boomtown duel each other on the training fields and in Boomtown Fight Club, the fight before him looked like two idiots trying to poke each other with sticks.

In reality, it was two full-grown men expertly jabbing at each other with spears, but…

It just wasn't interesting to Kandy.

Perhaps that was why, when it was finally his turn to fight, he walked into the arena to face his opponent and… yawned.

Seeing his opponent yawning, Kandy's foe grit his teeth and scowled, gripping his spear so tightly that his knuckles whitened.

Kandy didn't really notice any of this—or perhaps he did and just didn't care. Instead, he concerned himself more with a slight discomfort in his right nostril.

As he reached for his nose, the arena's referee shouted for the match to start.

After the referee's shout, it took about a quarter of a second for Kandy's opponent to thrust his spear forward, its tip reaching where Kandy had been.

Similarly, it took an eighth of a second for Kandy to sidestep the thrust and excavate a sizable booger from his nose.

It took another eighth of a second for Kandy to flick the mucus monstrosity at his opponent's forehead, instantly knocking the warrior out.

The arena was silent for a moment, but an irritated woman's voice rang out, "What was that?! What even happened?! I didn't get to see shit!"

"Waste of my damn money!" she shouted again as she stormed out of the room.

The referee didn’t even glance at the lady. Instead, he reached for Kandy’s tablet, which he remembered to hand over this time.

“It’s time for you to go to the second ring, son.”