Lone wanted to do nothing but keep his head low and focus on the coming battle, but he couldn't help getting distracted by how simply magnificent the interior of the colosseum was.

Banners with the flag of Milindo and the insignia of the royal family lined the walls and the grandstands as thousands of voices roared and cheered.

A man with a magically enhanced voice spoke over them and detailed the few stand-out participants in Lone's group while the people around him casually and rather happily waved and cheered back at the crowd.

The king and his children sat in an elevated platform with the hero standing behind them. Just below that royal platform lay four smaller but just as majestic areas where the families of the four ducal houses watched on.

There were numerous even smaller special areas where Lone presumed the lower nobles were seated.

'Holy fucking shit. I mean... This is really fucking cool. Is this what it felt like to be a gladiator of Rome back in the day? Minus the slave part, I mean... If I wasn't in the situation I am, then this would be such an amazing experience...' Lone's inner classical history nut was going wild with joy.

He was so engrossed in taking in the architecture and the raw atmosphere that he completely zoned out and missed whatever the announcer had said.

Before he knew it, the battle royale had begun. He broke out of his stupor when the smell of iron hit his nose.

Blood everywhere. Swords, spears, axes, bows and every other which-weapon was being swung and fired around wildly as screams and roars of victory flooded the arena.

Lone quickly shook his head and then used his swordspear to deflect an incoming set of daggers. He then spun on his heels and kicked his aggressor in the face, sending the man sprawling out on the floor.

'No time for appreciation, Lone. I need to find a quiet corner to stand in and fight off whoever guns for me. The easiest way to get in the top 16 of this group will be to conserve my SP and let everyone else do the work for me,' he reasoned out.

He wasn't here to play around or to get distracted, after all. He could easily die if he let his guard down.

Doing a quick scan of the open stage, Lone noticed a few individuals doing exactly what he was also planning to do.

With no more time to hesitate, he rushed through the crowd using all of the passive Agility he could to avoid any passing blows. His destination was the western edge of the arena where only a handful of people were fighting as opposed to the chaotic and crowded central ring of fighters.

"Die, demi scum!" a human woman shouted as she let loose a nocked arrow.

A horrendous screech pierced the air as the arrow flew with a red trail behind it, clearly the effect of some sort of skill.

'I can't dodge that and I don't want to use Momentum Shift just yet. I need to reach that clearing first,' Lone decided in a split second.

He raised his swordspear and said, "Weapon Block!"

The arrow met the long end of his dual-ended weapon. The sound of metal scrapping off metal invaded Lone's ears.

Without any hesitation he put his Strength into his arms and grunted as he redirected the arrow, sending it flying into the flank of an unfortunate adventurer.

The host has developed the passive skill: Shortbow Mastery.

He dismissed the skill’s information screen as soon as it entered his vision. At a glance, it wasn’t too interesting, and staring at it wasn’t exactly wise given the circumstances.

Congratulations! The host's active skill [Weapon Block] has levelled up! It is now Intermediate Level 3.

'And just like that, a tenth of my SP is gone. Motherfucker. Thank fuck that wasn't a longbow being fired by some 200-kilo mass of muscles or something,' Lone swore mentally as he kept running, leaving the female archer with the fighters surrounding her.

People's wariness of him increased exponentially after that little exchange. Blocking an arrow by itself was extremely difficult. Needless to say it was even harder to do so with a blade and not a shield or strong enough armour. To add to that it was an arrow that had a skill applied to it.

This was good news for Lone. Discriminatory dispositions or not, no one attacked Lone again while he was sprinting, enabling him to reach the relatively empty western section of the arena.

He made sure there wasn’t anyone at his back as he stood cautiously in a defensive stance. 'Well, that's the quick bit out of the way. Now I have to just wait and endure until there are only 16 people remaining.'

He prayed to whoever was listening and to Sofia's absurdly high luck that things would work out as planned.

In just two encounters he'd used up over a tenth of his total SP. He needed to conserve as much of that as he possibly could for the entire day and it only started recharging when the host was in a relaxed state and not moving.

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Lone had no idea how long the breaks between matches and fights would be after this point, but it made sense to him to not foolishly drain his SP reserves without sufficient reason.

For all he knew, his escape with Sofia and the former slave of Daisuke's, Breena, could involve a lot of running and fighting if it all went pear-shaped.

Time slowly ticked on by as dozens and dozens of participants fell, either severely injured or dead.

Murder very much so was not allowed during the tournament, but since it usually hyped up the crowd, the city guard only issued warnings and very minor fines to those that broke this rule, on the royal family's orders, of course.

This was something that Lone was thankfully aware of going into this tournament. There was, however, an exception to this leniency.

No mercy would be afforded to those who killed a noble or someone of interest to the crown, which meant Daisuke.

Lone wiped his forehead with his sleeve as he did a quick count of the remaining participants. '52- no, 51 now. I can see a few folk eyeballing me. More and more of the remaining people are those like me who chose to wait and watch, huh? I guess the real battle royale will start now... I was hoping there were less smart people in this group. At least not everyone seems to be gunning for me.'

He could see several people flashing hateful looks at one another. Lone assumed they had prior disagreements that lead to such emotions, and he was thankful for it.

Gilbert wanted him to do moderately well, and he felt he needed to do so as well in order to avoid angering the royals and Duke Malik more than he already had, so less immediate opponents was definitely a welcome thing.

No meaningless words were exchanged between fighters as their weapons clashed. Were it not for the blatant murders and his being a part of the contest, Lone was pretty confident he’d have greatly enjoyed watching the tournament.

‘Maybe one day I’ll get to watch a friendly tournament. Wouldn’t that be cool?’ he thought with a wry grin.

Just then, Lone noted that two men had decided to team up in an attempt to defeat or perhaps kill him.

He didn't know if they were being overly cautious, were wary of how effectively he had dealt with the arrow from earlier, or were just working together as a team from the start, but regardless, he wouldn't allow his mind to wander.

'He has a shortspear and a kite shield while the other one has a typical sword and board. Short-range then. Their gear looks decent but not like anything special, so they likely aren't overly strong. Let's get one of them out of the picture first. I have a longer weapon, so if I can even the numbers, I'll hold the advantage,' Lone calculated in less than a split-second.

Kicking off with his feet he flew towards the men and then said, "Pierce!"

Not expecting such a powerfully decisive move right out of the gate, the man with the sword and wooden buckler reeling back a bit as he raised his arm to deflect the blow.

Unfortunately for him, Lone's spear was of the highest quality steel, and the passive boost to his power he enjoyed from his Strength stat afforded him more than enough force to shred right through the shield and the hand holding it.

The man screamed in pain as blood flowed out of both ends of his hand.

Lone ignored him as he crouched and swiped down with the front blade of his swordspear, resulting in it cutting right through the rest of the man's hand and his shield.

The back end of his weapon solidly deflected the incoming spear strike, though Lone could feel the impact and recoil on his shoulder from not using Weapon Block.

He successfully evaded another two incoming jabs as he quickly retreated to give himself some space. Being near such a fast and sharp weapon was certainly not a good idea.

Congratulations! The host's passive skill [Swordspear Mastery] has levelled up! It is now Advanced Level 9.

Congratulations! The host's passive skill [Evasion Mastery] has levelled up! It is now Advanced Level 3.

The host has developed the passive skill: Shortspear Mastery.

Again, Lone quickly dismissed the new skill’s information. It could be read later, not now.

"Trey, are you okay?!" the shortspear-wielding man asked.

Having dropped his sword to nurse his lacerated hand, Trey shook his head as he grit his teeth. "I'm fucked. I'll need healing magic to fix this if I leave it to get worse. I-I'm forfeiting."

The man with the kite shield and shortspear nodded as he gazed into Lone's cold eyes. He then looked around briefly at the remaining participants before he shook his head. "Me too."

Lone didn't stop the men from getting out of the arena, though he watched them very carefully in case they tried anything funny. Thankfully, they genuinely did wish to forfeit, and no one stopped them.

'Two down with only 800 SP consumed. That's a decent trade. I have a bit over 32,000 left now,' Lone thought as he eyed the few remaining people that were within 15 metres of himself.

'Fingers crossed they see how willing to cut up that man's hand I was. Just fight each other until only 16 are left, would you?' Lone thought sarcastically.

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

Lone exhaled a sigh of relief as the announcer for the event signalled for everyone to stop fighting.

He had successfully made it to the top 16 of his bracket and would now move on to the first real stage of the tournament.

No one attacked him directly after his battle with the duo of shield-bearers. A few glancing attacks had been made in the hope of eliminating Lone when his guard was down but to no avail.

He just tried his best to dodge and avoid using any more of his SP where possible. He was only willing to consume some when and if anyone directly attacked him, which no one was willing to do.

It took a while, but eventually there were only 16 people left, Lone being in the best condition among them, which earned him some dirty looks.

He didn't care. He was fighting with his head not with his heart. Who cared about honour or personally vendettas when this was only the very first stage of today's event?

He had to make sure he got just far enough to not make it obvious he wanted to flee the country. Lone was more than happy to practically win by default at this stage.

He and the other 15 remaining people were directed back to their waiting room and were told that they had 30 minutes to rest while the royal magicians reformatted the arena to host several one-on-one fights.

Lone was more than okay with that.

'Evasion Mastery reached advanced-level-six. That's good progress but it isn't enough to make a difference. I need a rank up... Damn it. I have a bad feeling about all of this. Why does it feel like I'm screwed even if I perform moderately well?... Stick to the plan, Lone. Win the first fight, then lose in the 32-set. As soon as I'm let out of the colosseum, fuckin' book it out of the city and head west to the nearby dwarven stronghold, relax, then make my way to the Crimson Foxkin Clan to deliver Breena, then head to The Academy.' Lone nodded with determination.

It was unfortunate that he had wound up in a kingdom that despised and enslaved his kind, and it certainly wasn't great that he and Soph had pissed off the wrong people, but he wouldn't let that stop him.

'Me and my stupid mouth... It felt good being a dick to the king, but fuck me was that idiotic.' He rubbed the black crystal ball in his pocket while he cracked his neck. 'Things will work out. Either they go how I want them to, or I'll fuckin' make them go how I want them to.'

With that in his mind, he closed his eyes to meditate. He needed to be relaxed to restore his SP, after all.