There Is Still Hope (3)

Kankan's parting words had left them with more than a few questions.

Still, forcing someone who clearly wanted nothing to do with them to stick around felt wrong. In the end, they carried those unanswered questions with them and made for the temple.

The building was whiter than most, and though it had clearly adapted to desert architecture, it was otherwise not so different from any other temple they had seen.

"For the record, I've already scouted out a restaurant the fighters supposedly flock to."

Once they had settled their bags at the temple, they headed to the place Dev had found. It was a choice made entirely in service of their goal: recruiting talent.

Not that the food was bad, either.

"Good pick. Well done."

"Just doing my job."

I shoveled down mashed cactus and swept a glance around the room. True to the claim that fighters favored the place, the patrons were almost exclusively warriors.

There was, however, one small problem: most of them had come alone, and they were eating in complete silence.

Eavesdropping was going to be difficult.

"…Looking at it now, there are some miscalculations here too."

Dev must have realized the same thing, because he clicked his tongue under his breath.

"……?"

"What is it, Inquisitor?"

"It's nothing major. It's just that ever since we entered this city, I've been catching sight of people who… rub me the wrong way."

"…Demon Energy?"

"I don't think so, but… I'm not sure."

Not that anyone was particularly worried about it. They had bigger concerns.

"Who here is giving you that feeling?"

"That table over there, and the one on that side?"

"Do you know them?"

"…Uh, yeah. Just going by appearance, both of them are pretty well-known names in the arena. Not at Red Mane's level, but solid mid-to-upper tier."

"Hmm."

At Dev's words, the Archmage's face clouded with unease. I felt much the same.

If a cleric said someone rubbed her the wrong way, then that someone rubbed her the wrong way. End of story.

"I have a few guesses, but nothing certain. If they had reacted to Holy Power, the temple would never have left them alone this long."

"Then…"

"There's nothing we can do about it right now, so let's set it aside for the moment. Instead, I'd like to entrust this matter to you. Once we've finished talking, could you look into it further?"

With no clear course of action available, the Archmage simply handed the problem off to Dev.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

"Sure."

Dev took another good look at the people the Inquisitor had pointed out, then turned back to the table.

A moment later, the remaining dishes began arriving one after another in the hands of the waitstaff.

"More importantly—Kankan, was it? Do you know why he said what he said before he left?"

"Ah, you mean about not meeting the Martial King."

The Archmage steered the conversation to a different problem.

Unlike the rest of us, who had no idea, Dev seemed to have a lead. The heat had finally forced him to pull back his hood, and he slowly stroked the stubble on his chin.

"It was a rather nasty rumor, so I was planning to verify it properly before saying anything… but for now, I'll just tell you what I've heard. It seems the Martial King has developed a bit of a problem."

As he spoke, he lowered his voice. No—he went further than that, abandoning speech entirely and starting to write instead. He was clearly conscious of the fighters around them.

"……!"

Thank goodness all of us could read.

The Inquisitor's eyes went wide as she deciphered the letters, and the Archmage began absently rubbing the back of his own hand.

Socially naive as she might be, the Inquisitor was not so far gone as to speak this kind ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of thing out loud. She took up the pen. Her handwriting was so neat it looked printed—exactly like her personality.

Dev paused at the Archmage's sudden interjection. While he hesitated, a drop of ink fell from the pen.

So whether he was irritable or just being himself, he was equally foul either way, making the difference impossible to tell. I had no idea how bad someone's personality had to be to earn that kind of reputation.

Not that I had any right to talk, given the concept I'd chosen for myself.

"Anyway, none of this has been confirmed."

That seemed to be the end of the information. Dev set the pen down.

The Archmage—the one whose opinion actually carried weight when it came to choosing companions—wore a face deep in troubled thought.

"If that's the case… we may need to reconsider. Irritability can be managed, but a problem like this…"

At that point, my conscience gave a little twinge. We were talking about the Martial King—so why did it feel like every word was jabbing at my own weak points?

"But judging someone without even meeting them is foolish, is it not?"

"Indeed. The Inquisitor is right. Let prejudice cloud your vision, and you will miss what truly matters."

Watching the Inquisitor grow like this was genuinely moving.

Compared to our first meeting, she was turning out so well. I felt an absurd swell of pride. Our little Kimchi Dumpling was growing up so nicely.

"I want to meet him face-to-face before making any decision."

Kankan's advice—delivered unsolicited, even though it was their first meeting—seemed destined to go unheeded.

"Understood. And what about you?"

"Me? I don't really care either way. Even if the rumors are true, there's no way that guy's going to get the better of you lot. And if things work out and he joins the party, our combat power goes up. That's a fact."

Still, I figured it wouldn't matter much. If the reason for Kankan's warning really was the madness, we could just cut ties. And if it turned out to be something else entirely, all the better—like Dev said, if it wasn't madness, we could try recruiting him and bolster our strength.

Even without the madness, if his personality was a complete mismatch, we still had the option of declining. Either way, there was no real downside for us. Just a bit of time and effort.

"And you?"

"Don't care."

"Very well. Then we shall postpone any offer to the Martial King until after we have met him and formed our own judgment."

The Archmage seemed inclined toward seeing him in person as well. He gathered the conclusion and laid it out cleanly.

First item of business: done.

"Next, then, we need a way to arrange a meeting with the Martial King."

That was the second item. If they were going to ignore the advice not to meet him, they would need a method of getting in front of him.

"The fastest routes would be securing an appointment or going directly to his residence, but…"

The Archmage trailed off and looked at Dev. The man who'd been sucking down cactus juice set his cup down.

"That'll be tough. The Martial King never liked meeting people to begin with. These days he's basically a recluse."

"I see."

"Though you never know. Maybe connections could get us in?"

There was a hint of a joke in Dev's words, and the Archmage and Inquisitor both made complicated faces.

"The Magic Tower has no presence here, so we cannot borrow their influence. As for the temple…"

"…I will ask. But I honestly don't know if it will be possible."

The arena was officially sanctioned by the city, so the temple didn't actively oppose it. But with so much of it at odds with doctrine, the Inquisitor warned them in advance that the two sides were unlikely to be close.

From my position of knowing almost nothing, it was just one of those "if you say so" stories.

"Come on. An arena means injuries, and injured people mostly end up at the temple. You're telling me they don't have a single connection?"

"That is true, but… I am not certain. At the Great Temple, unless someone made a substantial donation, they rarely treated those wounded in this fashion."

"Isn't that discrimination?"

"It is less discrimination and more a matter of priority. Priests capable of treating serious wounds are few to begin with, and… those we treat first are people injured fighting demons, or those wounded eliminating shared threats like bandits and highwaymen."

That, at least, made a certain amount of sense. There was a difference between someone hurt protecting others and people who got banged up fighting for personal money and glory.

"Huh. That's pretty different from some temples I've seen."

"…That place is… something I am not proud of."

"Anyway—what are you going to do if the temple route doesn't work either?"

"In that case…"

Dev's attempt to redirect the conversation had landed squarely in everyone's blind spot. All of them—well, both of them—seemed not to have considered this possibility at all.

It was surprising to me. Games, novels, manga—I'd seen the setup so many times that I'd fully expected someone to say, "We'll enter the arena and meet him there!"

Even Kankan had said it, hadn't he? That there was no way to meet him outside the arena.

"We could watch one of his matches, perhaps?"

"…If you try to meet him from the spectator seats, he'll just write you off as a fan, won't he?"

"Is that so."

"Approaching his associates would not leave a favorable impression either… If it doesn't work out, we should simply accept that. There is no reason it must be the Martial King specifically."

But they weren't saying it.

Then again, challenging an entire arena just to meet one person wasn't exactly a normal approach either.

"Still, as the Inquisitor suggested, attending as spectators seems worthwhile. Before we worry about how to meet him, it is all for nothing if he does not meet our standards in the first place."

"Then let's go buy tickets after we finish eating."

"Ah—so next we're heading to Ainoxar?"

"Yes."

"It is not a place I welcome, but I find myself looking forward to it all the same. I am curious how a place like that operates."

I set down my spoon, fretting that my brain had been a little too pickled in fiction.

Today I'd finished eating first. Nice.

His hands trembled.

The man clutched a letter that had arrived three months ago, his fingers shaking. He had read the words so many times he could recite every sentence from memory, and still each reading delivered a fresh wave of terror. Why me—why a letter like this. The resolve he steeled himself with before every reading proved useless every single time.

"Damn it!!"

Crash!

At last he swept everything off the table. Objects tumbled to the floor in a cacophony of shattering and clattering.

Even then, the letter remained carefully held in his hand.

"…Why—why are you coming here?!"

When he left his hometown, he had been certain they would never meet again. So why. Why.

He flung the letter onto the now-empty table and clawed at his own head with empty hands.

"I'm going to die. This time I'm really going to die."

In that moment, the man himself was scarcely different from the wreckage scattered around him.

"I'm going to be killed…"

Desperate. Pathetic.

In that moment, a voice rang through the space where the man stood.

It was a strange timbre—something like the hollow thump of a camel-hide tambourine mixed with the clear ring of an oud—and it did not sound human.

"……! You—!"

The man spun toward his visitor and recoiled in shock. The body that had been trembling with the fear of death now shook for an entirely different reason.

The visitor casually read through the letter and giggled.

"This is not my nightmare!"

Perhaps the man had snapped instinctively. Beneath the bear-hide covering the visitor's face, the half-visible eyes curved into a pretty crescent.

The visitor drifted back lightly and reclined on a backless couch.

The motion loosened the visitor's clothing, baring glimpses of skin—but there was nothing alluring or sensual about it. What it carried instead was a deeper ennui, a profound boredom.

As befitting the domain this being represented.

"…No. Don't go."

"Damn it, you know that's impossible!"

The man who had bound himself to such a being was not so different.

"I—if I train, of course I can win. But I didn't know that bastard was coming. How am I supposed to win with no time to prepare?"

The man reached a hand toward the visitor.

A pill that would fulfill a dream without a price fell into his open palm.

Right after finishing the meal, we paid Ainoxar a proper visit.

"Here to compete?"

"No. We have no intention of participating."

Maybe it was the strange figure still wearing full plate armor in the desert, or the sharp-looking one with a greatsword on his back.

At the ticket booth, they got mistaken for contestants. Thanks to the Archmage and Dev, they managed to clear up that misunderstanding.

"These ticket prices are rather steep."

"I didn't expect them to be this expensive…"

Since their goal was finding the skilled, the tickets they needed—tokens, actually, paper being precious—naturally cost more. The skilled tended to be popular, and popularity meant more people wanting to watch. It was only natural.

"There are people bold enough to come all the way to the front lines just to watch this, after all."

Dev explained that money generated by the arena also flowed into maintaining the front, all while tightly clutching a chunk of ice. The Archmage had made it for him by hand, taking pity on how he still panted even inside the city.

The duration was short and the mana cost considerable, so outside—where they had to stay ready for anything—it was a luxury they had rarely been able to enjoy.

"Ah—isn't this the one we saw earlier?"

"Oh, you're right. This man's match is scheduled as well."

Just then the Inquisitor found someone's bout on the schedule. It was Red Mane Kankan's.

"Longest win streak: seventeen… Win rate: seventy-three percent…"

The Inquisitor studied Kankan's information, then compared it against the others. Most fell well short of his record, but a few stood higher.

"Remarkable. He didn't seem weak at all, and yet there are this many stronger than him."

She marveled at the sheer number of powerhouses, laid out so clearly in hard numbers.

"I've never seen anything like this elsewhere. Why does this arena have so many strong fighters?"

"That would be… because of this city's—no, because of the southern front's unique nature."

The Archmage told the Inquisitor to recall her maps and her lessons, then carefully walked her through the knowledge.

With nothing better to do, I casually eavesdropped as well.

"You will recall that the mountain range rising along the desert's edge makes the southern front rather narrow."

"I remember. The mountains are harsh and barren—even demons cannot cross them easily."

"Precisely. So the paths by which demons can cross the desert are limited."

For reference, demons were still living creatures, and most of them needed to consume nutrients to survive. That was why they couldn't casually cross deserts or rugged rocky mountains.

"And one of those limited paths is the pass where Far Enoch sits."

"Yes, I remember that as well. But what does that have to do with anything? Ah—are you saying skilled fighters gather here to hold back the demons?"

"As a conclusion, that is correct. But that alone does not explain the existence of the arena."

The Archmage smiled faintly and held up the tickets they had just purchased—his way of saying they should talk as they went in, since the match was about to start.

"The routes by which demons cross the desert are limited, yes—but the occasions on which they cross at all are also rare. They only come when the Great Demon settled in the desert wills it."

The Inquisitor looked as though she hadn't quite followed, but when the Archmage started walking she automatically followed. Dev and I fell in two paces behind them.

"The problem is that those intervals are wildly inconsistent. Sometimes they attack on a monthly cycle. At the longest, there was a seven-year gap between invasions."

By then I was starting to understand what the Archmage and Dev had been talking about.

The Archmage's enemies who might take seven years to arrive. Dev's bait for keeping the strong in place.

"After that long, some people inevitably grow weary and leave. But while the desert's Great Demon may not come often, every visit brings a tremendous host… so manpower must always be maintained."

In short, the arena really was bait. A lure to catch the interest of the strong and hold them here, ready for a fight that could erupt at any time.

"And so the arena was created—to keep the strong from growing bored during the periods when no demons came."

"Ah… so that's why."

"Yes. When people say this city is the axis, and that is why the arena was born—this is what they mean."

"I was never taught any of this… What a fascinating story."

"Knowing how the arena in Far Enoch came to exist does not make one better at fighting demons. That is likely why they never taught it."

Fair enough. Interesting knowledge, but not the kind you'd use in daily life.

I found myself thinking of my school days. The Inquisitor learning things at the temple probably hadn't been so different from the school I'd attended.

"The pirates, and now the arena… Now that I understand the details, I think I can… I think I can understand a little. That in this world… there are some things that simply cannot be helped."

"……! Yes—yes, Inquisitor. Many things that appear wrong have their own circumstances, once you look closer. Of course, circumstances alone must never become a blanket excuse for everything…"

But why was our Kimchi Dumpling having another epiphany? Impressive, sure, but she'd been growing so fast lately it was starting to throw me off.

Maybe that stubborn rigidity of hers hadn't come purely from her disposition—maybe being a total social novice had something to do with it too…!

"…What's gotten into that brick wall?"

Meat Dumpling, wipe that creeped-out look off your face and try looking moved for a second, would you?

"Ah—this must be our section."

Meanwhile, the Archmage found seats matching the numbers on the tickets. For something bought so late, they were surprisingly close to the stage.

There were more empty seats than occupied ones, too—probably not a popular fight.

"Who's fighting this time?"

"Omar of the Red Tattoo and a newcomer who just debuted. Registered name ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠is Berserker, I believe…"

"Omar? If he's not ringing any bells, he's probably not anyone worth ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠noting."

"I simply chose the soonest match available. I wanted to see how things worked here."

Ah. That explained it.

"Ah—it looks like they're starting."

They must have arrived near the end of the wait. The fight began before long.

"In blue! The man who claims dominion by the sword alone—Omar of the Red Tattoo!"

I'd expected a long, overblown introduction, but the announcer's words were remarkably short and plain.

"In white! Fresh from her debut—Norda warrior, Berserker!"

At the same time, people burst from the openings on either side of the stage. One was a woman covered in red tattoos, true to the moniker. The other was—

"It's not Berserker, it's Berserk! Can't even get one damn pronunciation right, you idiots!"

—a towering Slend, Berserk herself.

"That one?!"

"What the hell is she doing here?!"

I was thinking the exact same thing.