The Twins, Countdown (1)

The guards walked in a tight circle around Nathan. Officially, it was to prevent any accidents before the match, but in reality, it was a childish power play. While the arena owner deliberately led them at a snail’s pace, the guards clung to Nathan’s arms and struggled to rip off his prosthetic hands. They used their own bodies as shields. They looked like bees swarming a wasp to sting it to death.

All kinds of tools scraped at the steel hands. Hammers, daggers, screwdrivers, even files meant for trimming fingernails. But the welds Bendeber had sealed were rock-solid, and not even a sheet of paper could slip into the screw gaps. In the end, the very bone saw that had hacked off his wrists made an appearance.

Nathan screamed silently behind his calm expression. Fortunately, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the mechanical wrists didn’t even get a scratch. When the saw teeth that had once torn through bone snapped and broke, the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠arena owner’s pupils trembled violently.

“Got nothing to say to me, Sapiens?”

“Nope. One hundred percent satisfied with the service. The boss is so kind, and his ears taste great.”

The arena owner’s reaction was comically honest. The pig who had been stroking his taped-up ear suddenly trembled with rage and charged at him. The secretary, her face a mask of pure misery, blocked him with her back.

“Representative, please…!”

The guards grabbed Nathan and shoved him in the opposite direction from the owner. Nathan relaxed his body and let them push him. Dozens of soldiers clung to the side that had no desire to fight, yet only one female secretary stood in the way of that fat bastard.

“Calm down, boss. Your blood pressure’s gonna spike again and you’ll collapse. I got my arm back, and you got your ear reattached. Can’t we just pretend none of this ever happened?”

“Shut your filthy mouth, you vulgar ground-dweller! No one shakes my business. Every bastard who tried to trip me up is buried six feet under in the Celestial Realm. Liars became fertilizer for the vineyards. Challengers became ashes in the incinerator!”

Even though he couldn’t push past a single female secretary no matter how hard he tried, his voice boomed like a general’s.

“I don’t know whether I’ll end up as vineyard fertilizer or incinerator ash, but there’s one thing that’s already happened and can’t be changed.”

Nathan clicked his teeth together with mocking cheer.

“Either way, I took a bite out of you.”

The tooth marks were clear. On the future of his business. On his left ear. And on the owner’s pride.

The arena owner swung a ham-sized fist in a fit of rage. The secretary who barely dodged it by a hair’s breadth tumbled across the corridor floor. Two guards rushed in, hoisted the owner onto their shoulders, and disappeared with him.

“Sapiieeeeens—!”

Once the arena owner vanished around the corner, the secretary rose with the guards’ help. They bowed their heads to each other and exchanged complicated glances. There seemed to be a sense of solidarity between those who served the same tyrant.

“...Secretary. It looks like we won’t be able to dismantle that mechanical arm.”

“Forget it. If the Conclave finds out, we’ll all get hurt.”

The secretary straightened her disheveled hair and asked,

“Who gave him such high-quality goods?”

“Why? Are you anxious because you can’t cut it off? Why don’t you stab that tool into your boss’s belly fat instead of his fingers and ask him? That seems far more reasonable.”

The guards looked defeated. Nathan had already realized they couldn’t harm him directly anymore. Threats and intimidation would no longer work. Perhaps that was why they seemed at a complete loss for words.

“...Interfering with arena matches beforehand is illegal.”

Nathan burst out laughing.

“If I report that this arm is the result of match-fixing, won’t they investigate why my hands were cut off in the first place? If you hadn’t cut them off, there wouldn’t have been any need to attach new ones, right? What about you? Think you’ll be safe once the whole story comes out? I still remember clearly how you were jabbing me full of drugs.”

The secretary smiled with sad eyes. An endlessly harmless, innocent expression.

“If you’re looking for an apology about the anesthetic, I’m afraid I can’t give you one. Just as you did everything you could to survive, that was the best I could do. Thousands of jobs depend on maintaining this arena in the upcoming match. Jobs that might disappear if you win.”

“If that’s what happens, I couldn’t ask for anything better. A system that runs on children’s blood as fertilizer is better off gone.”

The secretary’s face hardened. Nathan sneered inwardly. So she does feel guilty.

“...The arena has many safety measures to prevent such things. The gladiators you’ll meet soon are one of them. I wish you luck, Nathan Maia.”

The secretary walked off in the direction the arena owner had gone.

“I wonder if the luck that’s protected you until now will work against executioners as well.”

Professional executioners, huh…

Pulled along by the guards toward the waiting room, Nathan gradually tensed his body. What kind of scheme was it to shove opponents who would fight each other soon into the same waiting room? Maybe it was like making fighting dogs stare at each other to stir up more emotion before the match.

By the time they reached the waiting room door, Nathan’s heart was pounding wildly. He had been told they were inside this room. It felt like killing intent was slowly crawling out from beyond the door.

The Twins. Beings who had fought in perfect sync for a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠full one hundred and ten years. In the Lower World, that span of time would easily qualify them as ancient monsters. At the very least, the Twins he had seen in the videos on Beni’s tablet were anything but pushovers.

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

“Their individual records when apart are decent enough, but when they’re together… whether it’s Eleim, human, or orc, they’ve beaten every four-limbed race and always taken their lives.”

“If you want to catch a Lion Wing Knight, teamwork alone won’t cut it.”

“Still, watch them. They’ve probably seen you fight, but you haven’t seen them.”

The opponents the Twins faced that day were two Eleim prisoners sentenced to arena combat. They had been charged with injuring the children of a prestigious family and killing their escorts. Instead of two hundred years in prison, the two swordsmen accepted two hundred arena appearances. Like Nathan, they had overflowing confidence in their own skills. They even danced gracefully with their blades in front of the cheering crowd.

The strength and balance in their swings were perfect. Except for the beginner mistake of letting the tip of their descending swords scrape roughly against the ground.

But the blades did not bounce back violently as expected. Instead, the sword sliced straight through the ground and flew in the opposite direction. The sword gripped in their hand glowed with an eerie blue light. It was too strange to be a mere reflection of the arena lights.

Beni of the Sword Star Sect had explained that it was Sword Qi. A technique only the blessed among the Eleim could use, channeling magical power into their blades. He said the difference between masters who could create such Sword Qi and ordinary warriors who could not was like the difference between heaven and earth.

At least in normal cases.

The Twins were the exception.

Thud.

It was as easy and unreal as a dream. A cleanly severed head flew through the air, trailing blood. The remaining swordsman finally noticed the ambush. As he looked around in panic, his comrade’s wide-eyed skull rolled across the floor and bumped against his foot.

The next instant, a chain shot forward like a raptor, smashing into his knee and hammering his forearm. He nearly dropped his sword. His balance broke and he fell to one knee. The swordsman’s eyes widened in horror.

But the next attack showed no mercy. Something charged straight at him. There was no time to stand. The swordsman tried to cut it down from his seated position. However, the chain jerked to a stop before reaching the blade’s path. Instead, another chain flew in from the opposite direction and struck his temple.

With a loud crack, his head snapped forward. It was a blow that would have killed an ordinary person instantly. An overwhelming sense of mortal danger. Instinctive defense. The posture honed over hundreds of years collapsed as he raised his sword and arm to protect his head.

The chain that had stopped abruptly a moment earlier returned at that exact instant. It swung in a full circle. Attached to the end of the chain was a terrifying steel sickle loaded with centrifugal force.

The scream was cut in half the moment it burst out. The merciless iron blade tore through muscle and dug in deep. It ripped open his poorly guarded abdomen and shoved his organs aside. The sword he had refused to drop even when his arm cracked slipped helplessly from his hand the moment his involuntary muscles were struck.

The swordsman clutched the sickle embedded in his stomach with both hands, trembling and drooling. Preventing it from sinking any deeper was all he could do. The time it took to drive him this far was only sixteen seconds from the first attack.

More iron chains flew in. One slithered smoothly between the prisoner’s legs. Another with three-pronged hooks snatched up the fallen sword and dragged it away. He had neither weapon nor will to resist.

Mocking their opponent who could no longer fight, they approached. The executioner siblings drew closer, unhurried. At a leisurely pace, as if taking a stroll.

The swordsman who had barely pulled out the dull sickle tried to flee, clutching his pierced belly. But he overlooked what lay beneath his feet. The noose that had lain limp as if dead suddenly reared up and bit into his ankle. The prisoner, his ankle tightly bound, fell face-first into the sand.

The giant younger brother slowly pulled the chain and chuckled. The older sister, shorter than her brother, sang in a deranged voice. It sounded like a lullaby, but the rough tone was harsh enough to wake even the deaf in terror.

The prisoner desperately clawed at the ground. The audience roared with laughter, but he had no room to care about humiliation. Blood-soaked sand slipped through his fingers. No matter how hard he struggled forward, his body caught in the iron chains kept getting dragged backward.

It took two minutes for him to be delivered to the siblings’ feet. Like on the first day he entered this world, the swordsman burst into tears. But the hands that touched him were nothing like the gentle touch of that time.

The older sister grabbed a fistful of his hair and lifted it, pressing her index finger to her lips.

The executioners took their time. While listening to desperate pleas of “spare me” and “I was wrong,” they bound his limbs with chains. When his struggling grew too violent, they crushed his joints with small hammers. The wound on his stomach, past the point of being staunched, horribly soaked the sandy floor.

Even Beni, who had been showing Nathan the match on the tablet, frowned. He manipulated the device and skipped to the end of the video. The prisoner could no longer move his limbs. The older sister yanked his hair and pinned his head to the floor. The giant younger brother pulled out a cleaver from behind his back.

Crunch.

The sound of bone and flesh being severed all at once. The leisurely execution ended in an instant. The head that flew into the air finally seemed to accept that it could not be saved.

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

Nathan calmly recalled the video Beni had shown him. Then he compared those demonic siblings with the pair before his eyes. Their appearances roughly matched. Only their appearances.

Snore. Groan.

The woman sprawled across the bench in the waiting room was using her neatly braided hair as a pillow. She looked nothing like the murderer from the video. More like a countryside girl exhausted from farm work, if anything.

The younger brother noticed Nathan’s presence a little later. He had been sitting hunched in the corner of the bench, obsessively polishing his steel helmet until it shone.

His facial features looked quite innocent too. Except for the fact that he was nearly two meters tall and had an iron plate melted over his mouth.

The giant who had unconsciously waved at Nathan suddenly panicked and shook his older sister awake. The female elf made a face of pure annoyance, spat out every curse she could think of, and rolled over. The younger brother, unable to endure it any longer, resorted to physical force. His rough palm urgently patted the center of her face.

“Grrrng. Kgh. Hack. You fucking— Hodrick. What the hell are you doing?”

Instead of repeating the question to her mute younger brother, the woman flailed her arms to block him and sat up.

“What? You’re our opponent? You’re that Sapiens?”

The pointy-eared woman who had been rubbing her eyes to shake off sleep let out a sigh the moment she saw Nathan’s face.

“Has our perverted pig boss finally lost his mind? He wants us to fight such a soft, fluffy kid?”

The elf who stood up and stretched immediately held out her hand toward Nathan.

“Must’ve been tough getting dragged here against your will.”

It was a gesture requesting a handshake. Nathan stared silently at the hand. It was hardly the attitude one would show toward an opponent in a fight to the death. Perhaps the Twins from a hundred years ago that he had seen on the tablet were still their true selves… No way.

His father had said: When an enemy offers a comforting hand when you’re tired or don’t want to fight anymore, be wary. Why had they deliberately put them in the same waiting room? What had happened the last time the pointy-eared woman pretended to be humane? The secretary who had acted like an idiot had stabbed a poisoned needle into an unguarded chest. When he shook off the paralyzing effect with the rune engraved on his hand, they had gotten angry and cut off his wrist.

If he hadn’t been deceived from the start, if they hadn’t known about the rune, what would have happened? His mind snapped awake as if he had cast a detoxification spell.

Nathan did not take the hand. The elf withdrew her arm with an awkward expression.

“Uh… I’m Emil Niko. And this is my little brother Hodrick Niko. We’ve heard a lot about you from our pig boss, Nathan. But you’re pretty tall. Not much difference from Hodrick.”

Having introduced themselves without permission, the pointy-eared woman jerked her head as if telling him to follow. But Nathan didn’t move an inch. The elf scratched her head as if the situation was utterly baffling.

“We have to go do the weigh-in. Aren’t you going to pick a weapon? Did they not explain anything to you?”

“Nimrod, enraged by the countless signs of corruption, has sent me, his servant, here.”

At the arena entrance, behind a massive scale, stood a female elf with a rigid voice. Her black uniform and short-cropped white hair were intimidating.

“The laws of the Heavens watch over us. Let the gladiators make the weight of iron equal.”

Nathan frowned. What iron? In front of the scale lay a mountain of every kind of cold weapon imaginable. Daggers, pavise shields, cinquedeas, shamshirs. Countless other weapons he had never seen or heard of gleamed bleakly.

“From cute little hand axes to eight-meter-long heavy cavalry lances, we’ve got everything. Ground-born friend, pick whatever you want. But keep this in mind.”

The female warrior who had called herself Emil dumped the heavy sack she carried on her back onto one side of the scale. They were the tools he had seen in the bloody video. Bundles of chains. Iron balls, hammers, cleavers. Spiked armor.

“Ugh, you need to match the scale’s weight to mine.”

Clunk.

And one sickle. Traces of blood still remained in its crevices.

“Making the weight of iron equal means matching the weight of the equipment you’ll use in battle. Just like how warriors who fight with only their bodies match weight classes. That way it’s fair.”

Nathan raised an eyebrow. It was absurd for someone with only a single dagger to face a heavily armored knight. In that sense, it was a surprisingly reasonable system. This was his third match since being dragged to the arena, but it was the first time he was protected by fair rules.

“I like it. Except for one thing. Why should I match your weight?”

“Because you are the challenger, ground-dweller.”

The representative answered in Emil’s place.

“Therefore, if you do not choose your armament within thirty minutes, it will be considered a forfeit. In that case, you will be thrown from the Heavens and executed according to celestial law. Since you challenged us to a fight to the death, your life is already on the scale.”

“I challenged you myself? When exactly?”

The representative pulled a paper from his inner pocket and unfolded it.

“Here is the document. It bears your signature. It is the fight you chose.”

The paper, folded with meticulous right angles, bore a large signature. It was in the heavenly language that Nathan had never written before, but the handwriting was elegant, as if honed over hundreds of years. The only flaw was that the name was slightly wrong.

Damian Nyah.

Quite the colorful range of curses he had.

“Is there a way to prove that isn’t my signature?”

“A summary trial for explanation takes at least an hour, but if you refuse the duel thirty minutes from now, the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠execution will be carried out before that.”

“The law seems a bit flawed.”

The representative nodded slowly as if he understood completely.

“In that case, you may close your eyes in peace, ground-dweller. The owner of this arena, who notarized this document, will pay a price equal to the weight of your death on the scale.”

The representative put the signature away and pulled out another document from his sleeve.

“For the innocent death of a Sapiens. A fine imposed on owner Kada Sakano. Ten thousand credits. This is the law of the Heavens.”

Nathan laughed bitterly. So the reason the arena owner had moved so slowly wasn’t just to steal his arms. It had been preparation in case Nathan refused to fight.

“It really was a match forced through by any means necessary.”

Nathan carefully rummaged through the pile of weapons. And he realized even this was a calculated restraint. Among the metal tools supposedly taken from the armory, there was no armor. The weapons were also not very practical. They were either weapons not used in Nathan’s culture or finicky ones that could not be handled without considerable skill. For example, the true two-hander he had just found.

1.4 meters. The blade was satisfyingly sharp, and it even had a parrying hook on the ricasso, the second grip. If there was a flaw, it was its considerable weight. Roughly five to six kilograms. It was probably ceremonial, or perhaps they had seen a ceremonial greatsword from the Lower World and copied it haphazardly. But he had used heavier ones made to order before. While a weapon for use against people didn’t need to be that heavy, most of the enemies Knight Nathan faced were far larger than humans.

He could feel Emil’s intrigued gaze. A specialist who hunted man-sized enemies from behind was secretly observing him.

She’s analyzing the weapon I’ll use.

Thinking it was good that he had carefully observed the Twins’ fight, Nathan placed the two-hander on the scale.

“I don’t need anything else besides this.”