Men's Pride on the Line (2)
Coliseum Exclusive Event Activated!
"Fight, and Conquer!"
An honorable arena of combat has opened within the Coliseum! Warriors from across the continent will hear of this news and flock to the Coliseum's duels in pursuit of glory and renown!
The User must preside over this honorable contest and bring the event to a successful close by offering suitable rewards.
The User may put forward a variety of items as prizes in the Coliseum. The more expensive and rare the prizes, the higher the chance that hero-class adventurers will visit.
For the duration of the event, Faith Points collected from every territory and the visit rate of hero-class adventurers will increase dramatically.
For further details, please refer to the Coliseum's "More Info" section.
I'd thought this was a total trash game because nothing ever happened after I started playing—turns out events weren't missing. I was the one who had to open them.
I'd always been the guy who just showed up for other people's events. Now I was the host? That was a fresh twist.
"Prizes, huh? So I have to put up prizes?"
After reading the messages a few times, the picture came together. Duels would be held in the Coliseum, and the prizes were whatever items I decided to offer. The rarer and more expensive those items, the better the odds of drawing hero-class adventurers.
In short, it was an event for luring hero-tier adventurers with expensive bait. The description itself said visit rates climbed with price and rarity, so I basically had to pour my soul into the prize pool.
"Tch… what's the most expensive thing I've got?"
I rifled through my inventory at once. Nothing but F- and D-Grade weapons stared back at me. Offer junk like that as prizes and the whole thing would flop, no question.
Was I going to have to whale again? Visions of ketchup and bean sprouts danced before my eyes. I'd already blown money on a pure impulse last night; right now I just wanted to pinch every coin I could.
First things first—I tapped the Coliseum to get a feel for how it worked.
The moment I entered, a prize-setting screen appeared. Scrolling down the list, I saw I could put up quite a few. The total number of prize slots: ninety-nine. In other words, I needed ninety-nine expensive, rare items to offer as rewards.
"Ninety-nine? Haah—"
A sigh escaped me first. Not two or three—ninety-nine? They might as well have demanded a hundred. No knife at my throat, but this was straight-up robbery.
Should I just dump ninety-nine hunks of ore in there out of spite and let the whole thing crash? Petty thoughts like that kept bobbing up, but the efficiency-obsessed gamer in me twitched. Even if I sold ninety-nine pricey rarities, they'd only turn into gold. This event converted them into hero-class adventurers—an opportunity that might never come around again.
"Ninety-nine… where am I supposed to dig up ninety-nine of them?"
It looked like the top ten prizes could be set separately, but that still left eighty-nine items I had no idea how to source. Sighing heavily, I habitually opened the Mystery Shop. I was blankly browsing the gift items when a flash of inspiration cut through my mind.
The Mystery Shop's goods were items too, right? Couldn't they work as prizes? I tried buying one as a test—and failed for lack of Faith Points.
"Ah. I dumped everything into skills…"
Most of the blame lay with the nearly forty thousand Faith Points I'd vaporized on the Glorious Cavalry skill during the defense battle. I couldn't buy anything right this second, but Faith Points would accumulate if I just waited a little. I could take it slow.
A fresh sigh slipped out at the memory of torching forty thousand points in a fit of pique. With no other options left, I was about to quit the game when a blinking mailbox caught my eye.
"Didn't something about a reward come in earlier?"
I tapped the sparkling mailbox, and a single item dropped into my inventory.
"A unicorn?"
The name said "fairy steed," but the single horn growing from its forehead made it a unicorn no matter how you looked at it. Pure white body, pure white mane. When I gave it a light tap, the unicorn snuffled and snorted in continuous protest.
Unicorns were supposed to love maidens—it looked like it was sulking because I was a man.
"Hmm… should I put this up as a prize too?"
I wondered whether a living creature would even register as a prize item.
"What the hell are all of you doing here?!"
Hans and the unit's sparring session was ruined by the sudden intrusion of their company commander. The bald commander, whose gleaming scalp was his most striking feature, stormed in.
"You! You! Rohan, get over here! Hans, you too! I told you to rehab, and you're sparring?! You think the priests will just fix you if you break a bone?!"
He'd given them leave to rest and heal, and the men had so much leftover energy they couldn't sit still. Wearing plague-rat pelts and goofing off was the least of it. One of them had even claimed his "vital energy was depleted," limped up the back mountain to pick herbs, and come tumbling all the way back down.
With the unit causing some bizarre accident nearly every day, the commander felt like the hair he had already lost was about to shed a second time.
"And Hans! I heard from the Hero himself—you're the guy who took down a demon solo. You want to mess around with your squadmates like this?!"
"Huh? Hans took down what?"
"A demon? He killed a demon by himself?"
The unit members' eyes went round as saucers as they stared at Hans. Had the commander just said Hans had slain a demon alone?
"Oh no…"
Hans muttered in dismay. He'd been planning to use the spar as an excuse to thrash his comrades thoroughly—now that plan was dead in the water.
"Hey! Why didn't you say anything?!"
"You killed a demon by yourself? Why the hell didn't you tell us that?!"
Rohan immediately seized Hans by the shoulders and shook him hard. Hans's head whipped back and forth like a reed in a typhoon.
"Uh—uh—er—"
"You took down a demon alone!"
"Why are you keeping an insane war story like that to yourself?!"
"What?"
Hans snapped back to his senses and looked around. The unit members' eyes were shining with an almost nauseating brightness. Seeing a bunch of muscle-bound men with clear, sparkling gazes made him want to throw up.
"You bastard, you should've spilled that the second it happened! That's it! Everybody gather up! Hans is telling the story of how he soloed a demon!"
"What? Hans took down what?"
"What are you talking about?"
Rohan's bellowing voice drew more unit members out one by one. The commander had just finished chewing them out, and already the place was getting noisy again. He pinched the bridge of his nose and scowled.
"ENOUGH—!!"
"Ugh!"
"My ears—my ears!"
The bald commander's roar thundered across the yard. Faint holy power wrapped his throat, amplifying his voice. He had been the first among the unit to awaken sacred power.
"All of you, stop!! I'm going to lose my mind! Can't you stay quiet for a single day without thorns growing out of your asses?! Are you still adventurers? How can you act this childish?!"
Blood rushed to the commander's scalp until it turned bright red. The crimson dome undercut some of his dignity, but the unit members at least pretended to reflect and hung their heads.
After ranting himself hoarse, the commander finally let out a long sigh.
"Haaah—forget it. If this could be fixed in a day or two I wouldn't even bother talking… I was going to announce this at evening roll call, but since you're all here, I'll just say it now. Imperial troops will arrive around noon tomorrow. We'll head straight back to the Holy City with them, so pack your gear in advance."
"Commander! Question, sir!"
A hand shot up among the men.
"Why are the Imperials coming back with us? Aren't they done here?"
The others nodded. The Imperial forces had come to this place to suppress the plague rats in the first place. With most of the rats already wiped out, there seemed no reason for them to travel to the Holy City.
"Mm… two reasons. First, the plague rats' mother body was never found. No—rather than never found… it was found, but its condition is apparently strange. So we need to discuss it with the High Priests."
The commander paused to catch his breath, then continued.
"And the other reason is something I heard directly from the Hero himself…"
He trailed off, deliberately drawing out the silence as he swept his gaze over the unit. The men stared at him with laser intensity, practically begging him to spit it out. The bald commander grinned mischievously.
"You'll find out when we get to the Holy City. That is all!"
"Come on, Commander! You can't just leave it like that!"
"Booo—bald and shameless, Commander!!"
The bald commander cheerfully accepted the boos raining down on him. Considering everything he'd suffered so far, this much was a modest little pleasure, wasn't it?
Once the commander left, Hans looked down at the tug on his pant leg. Daisy was gazing up at him with uneasy eyes.
"Hans… a-are you leaving now?"
"Yeah. Time to go. We're heading to the Holy City."
"Ah…"
Daisy hung her head. Her small, fern-like hands clenched and unclenched the hem of her clothes over and over. Hans watched blankly for a moment, then let out a soft chuckle.
"Daisy, you're coming with us."
"…What?"
"You're not coming? Why do you think God guided us here? Why do you think His warriors descended?"
Hans's large hand gently ruffled Daisy's hair.
"All of it was to save you and your mother."
"God did…?"
"That's what I believe. God looked down on you, Daisy, and sent us to rescue you. To save the people who never wavered under a demon's temptation."
"Ah…"
"So go home right away and start packing with your mother. If anything's too heavy, call me and Rohan."
"…Yes!"
Daisy beamed up at Hans. Then she tightly clasped the large hand still resting on her head.
Even if God had sent soldiers for her sake, the one who had actually saved her was this very hand.
She would never let go.
Never.
She would never let go.
Huh. Suddenly got a chill…
Walking side by side with Daisy's hand in his, Hans shivered for no reason he could name.