The months and weeks pass, but not much has changed. I continued to clean the sewers on my own, not out of my choice but I Lan has started to avoid me, and I haven't dared to approach anyone else. I will say, I have been saving a bit of my bread, when Bur doesn’t take it that is, for any Slime I pass near. I don’t have a reason for this, and I know it’s probably just a waste of my food, with them being able to get their own. But the Slimes became my only companions in the tunnels. They have started to follow me around and sometimes help me clear the more blocked pipes which is nice. It always seems to be different Slimes every day except for the Slime with the chip in its core he or is it she... I’ll just go with he. Anyways, he always follows along, and I usually give him the biggest crumb, what can I say I like the little guy. I have also started to call him Notch, he seemed to like it, or at least he jiggles and a happy way when I call him that. If anyone saw me walking in the sewers with a line of half-foot tall Slimes of various colors they would probably take me for a tamer of a very weak spirit level. Slimes are some of the lowest monsters with most only taking one spirit level to tame.
Today will not be business as usual, Today is New Years and so the Emperor Tournament to see who will be the Emperor for the coming year. This event is the one day a year that is a holiday for everyone even Zero’s. The tournament day is a huge celebration that takes place in the city of the current Royal Family, in this case, the city of Ignus and the Firestorm family, with entertainers and free food flood the streets for everyone’s enjoyment. There are many events throughout the day ranging from plays, jugglers, and acrobats, but the main events are held at the Coliseum. There the many different fights are held it starts off with a new tamer bracket where anybody that became a tamer in the last year can sign up to fight and the winner if they are not already, can be adopted into a Noble family and in the very rare case a Royal family. From there they have just monster fights, then Tamer fights with no monsters, and Tamer with monster fights.Finally, the main event will start and everyone who wishes to challenge the current Emperor fights in another bracket, always being healed between battles to make sure it’s entirely fair, the winner will then fight the Emperor. The winner will be crowned Emperor by the Head Priest of the Church of Niwrad, and then a feist will start.
With even the Zero’s having the day off a lot of them are going to the Coliseum to watch the fights. I was planning on staying behind. I didn’t want to see my parents being the current Emperor and Empress they will be presiding over the fights. But while everyone was leaving Lan comes up to me.
“Hey Nox, are you coming? We can still catch the start of the new Tamer fights if we hurry,” asks Lan smiling, like the last few months didn’t happen and we have been friends the whole time.
I wanted to say no but honestly… I was starved for someone human to talk to. My slime friends are great, but they can’t talk, and I have been lonely, so I respond, “Yeah I’m coming.” and run out the door with him.
While running for the colosseum, we stop and grab some food at one of the many stalls. Real food I never knew how exciting that could be, I got a meat pie with real meat, crust, and vegetables! Not some green, brown, or any other color mush but actual meat with a golden brown crust and crisp vegetables. I could have been struck down then, and I couldn’t have been happier, I will remember this meat pie for the rest of my life. After many pitstops at other food stands, I grab a few apples for my Slime friends and myself, and just some small talk between us, we finally arrived at the Colosseum a little late but with a belly far more full than it has been in well… a long time.
When we find our seats in the Zero zone near the top of the stands the final is about to begin.
“Holy shit isn’t that the Royal with his big spider you yelled at in the area?” asked Lan while hitting my arm.
I look down into the area, and sure enough, there’s Axel with his Black Mist Spider, Arachne, standing there with his arms raised waving at the crowd. As soon as I see the spider, I nearly jump out of my seat to run away, but I am barely… barely able to keep my seat and just nod towards Lan. Then I hear a magically enhanced voice.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, we are finally ready to start the final for our newest tamers this year,” shouts the announcer to the cheers of the crowd. “Our finalist are Axel Darkstorm, heir to the Darkstorm family, with his Black Mist Spider, ARACHNE!” loud cheers from around the stadium. “And with a huge upset, the commoner with nothing common about her, Aria Tanner with her Ice Kumiho, YAKO!” Once this is announced, a colossal wave of cheers from the audience rocks the stadium. But one look toward where the Royals and Nobles are seated show a quite fury directed towards this girl that dare challenge their superiority.
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When I hear who’s fighting Axel in the finales, I am shocked to hear it is a commoner. The Royals and Nobles are the by far the strongest and for someone not of the Blood to beat out all of them before her and make it to the finales is quite amazing. That is not even taking into account her Kumiho which is a beautiful pure white fox monster with nine tails caped in ice. Kumiho are a variant of the standard Ice Fox that most people don’t tame due to it having a high spirit level is quite weak compared to the other monsters in its range, and it takes forever to get it to evolve into a variant if it will at all that is. These thoughts flashed through my mind when…
“Rules are the same as all the previous rounds. No kill shots and first to knock out, make the other tamer forfeit, or if the judges believe a killing blow could have been given it will be counted as a win,” continues the announcer. “READY?!!” Axel nods and draws two black daggers. Aria nods and casts a magic, and an ice spear appears in her hands. “START!”
Before the announcer even finished saying start an explosion of ice came from the tail of Yako aimed at Arachne, as this was happening Aria charged towards Axel with her spear leveled at his heart. But Arachne jumped before the ice could hit her when she reached the maximum height of her jump she curled into a ball and seemed to squeeze herself. A black mist issued forth from her body blanketing the area below. From above I could still make out what was going on, but I couldn’t imagine what the combatants being able to see. As soon as the black mist settled around Axel and just before Aria pierced him with her spear. Axel seemed to disappear with a smirk on his face. Aria stunned stopped her thrust before over-committing to the strike and slipped into a defensive stance. At the same time, Yako sent out a wave of freezing wind to clear the mist just as Arachne landed on his back and bit him to inject her venom. Seeing this Aria turns to help Yako but before can run to help Axel seems to step out of her shadow with one dagger at her throat and another pressed to her side.
Aria freezes, and the announcer calls out, “The match is over, Axel wins with a potential killing move!” The crowd cheers wildly with the seemingly one-sided match.
“Wow, that was amazing, how the hell did he do that?” Lan asks once he was done cheering himself ragged.
“I think he used an advanced dark magic Shadow Hide,” I answer remembering Axel always talking about that spell when we were kids. “It allows him to slip into his own shadow for a few seconds if I remember right. But the problem is that you can’t move while in the shadow, so that is probably why he used the dark mist to obscure his shadow, and waited until she was distracted with Yako being attacked before attacking. Honestly, she may have won if she didn’t let her monster distract her from the fight.”
Lan just stares at me with a blank look on his face. “How do you know all that?” he asks still staring at me.
“Oh… um… I just liked Tamer fights growing up, so I just learned a few things by watching,” I explained hastily.
“Ah, that makes sense I liked watching them too. I guess I just didn’t pay much attention back then,” says Lan with his attention back on the area.
They were rewarding Axel with a medal now. This seems to make him very proud because he’s waving it up for his parents to see in the Royal’s viewing area. I look up without thinking about it and see his parents waving back, and that’s when I notice right above Axel's parents are mine. They are smiling and waving back down at Axel too… they seem happy. A kind of boiling hatred starts to build up in my body. The thought of them happy and cheering sends me into a spiral of anger as I have never known before. They had their child enslaved only a few months ago, and there they are enjoying themselves.
Before I do something stupid, I get up to leave without saying a word and head back to the sewers. I was right, I wasn’t ready to see them, but now I know it’s with anger more than sadness that I feel towards them and that I am likely to attack them in blind hatred before I can stop myself. The primal part of me glories in the thought of attacking them, but the more logical side recognizes that as a Zero I have no chance even to touch them. These dark thoughts and simmering anger stay with me until I reach the kennel’s and lay on my hay pile to cry in loss and anger.
A few hours later Lan walks in and asks,”What happened? You missed the Emperor fighting that Axel guy’s mother. It was the most exciting and scary fight I have ever saw. It was like two gods fighting before my very eyes.” Lan has a faraway look in his eyes near the end.
“I started to feel sick from all that food. Didn’t want to ruin the fun by throwing up, so I left,” I explain hurriedly with the excuse I thought up a while ago. And with some trepidation, “Who won?”
“Norix Firestorm, he’ll be Emperor for another year. Isn’t that 14 years now?” Lan wonders.
“15… I’m tired, so I’ll talk to you tomorrow Lan, Night,” I said.
“Yeah Night,” says Lan as he walks off to his pile.
I turn over and attempt to fall asleep.