The Weakness of Uprightness
“You won’t kill me, you mutt. Upright walking is weak. That’s a universal truth. Just as a dog raised with care can never defeat a wolf. Just as a domesticated fox gets torn apart by a wild rat. Muscle atrophy. Upright posture, having lost the principle of struggling with the ground using one’s entire body, has grown lazy and slow. That’s why it’s reduced to nothing more than prey for quadrupeds. The impact of falling. The farther one is from the ground, the greater the price when one tumbles. Shoulders dislocate, heads shatter helplessly. The spine and ankles, once the core of bestial strength, have become as fragile as dried sorghum stalks. Do you understand? What I’m saying?”
Nathan wasn’t listening. Yet the Eleim, absorbed in his own speech, didn’t take it as an insult. The dazed opponent’s faint reaction. The executioner judged that the Sapiens was clearly terrified, chuckled, and slammed his steel gauntlet against the ground. Cruel iron claws slid out between his fingers. Each twenty centimeters long. A weapon worthy of a true beast. More than enough to dismember limbs in an instant.
“We’ve forgotten the strength nature gave us. That’s why I decided to return to the past.”
To the strength of nature. To primordial beauty. Ulfragr, one of the designated executioners of the Punishment Arena, was the type of Eleim who would stop at nothing to secure victory. Even if it meant twisting his own bones for centuries in brutal self-torture. Modification. Transformation. Designed for slaughter. A skeleton relentlessly pressed, bent, and twisted over 150 years. Ulfragr’s height of two meters ten centimeters lowered until it matched a dwarf standing on tiptoe. He bent forward. Bowed. Fixed in a prone posture. Like a four-legged beast. His artificially altered physique had transformed into something as vicious as that of a carnivorous mammal. When he donned a mask made from a wolf pelt and a meticulously crafted fur coat and walked into the middle of a pack of gray wolves at the zoo, the wolves showed no suspicion. His goal was complete. He shed tears. Realizing he had finally reached it—no, reclaimed it. The wild strength the Eleim race had lost. The primal state.
“You may fear me. What you face is neither Eleim nor wolf.”
The infamous “Wolf Executioner” began circling Nathan with a smile no sane person could produce.
“A true monster possessing both the intellect of the Eleim, the pinnacle of intelligent life, and the body of a carnivore, the ruler of nature.”
“Huh? Huh.”
Executioner Ulfragr blinked. Tilting his head, he studied Nathan’s expression. The Sapiens still wasn’t listening. He merely kept sighing with a deeply troubled look.
“This… son of a bitch…”
Ulfragr’s teeth ground together. Both the fangs attached to his helmet’s snout and the sharpened teeth inside his actual maw. “The moment the gong rings, I’ll tear you apart…!”
Benny clutched her head. This wasn’t right. The first match broadcast across all of the Heavens. Yet Nathan’s condition was far from normal. He could die. This battlefield could see him bitten anywhere the moment he let his guard down. Even if he somehow survived today, the war wouldn’t end. Today’s wounds would hinder the next fight, and new injuries would further limit his options in the struggle after that. The longer the road, the more important the first button. But Nathan wasn’t even looking at his opponent. He was staring blankly at the ground. Or rather, it would be fortunate if he could at least catch the opponent’s shadow by looking at the ground. That expression was one of being lost in idle thoughts, unable to escape them.
“Pleeease! Nooooooo—!”
Driven mad by tension, Benny kicked off the sofa and began to rage. She tore at her hair, gulped down water, and repeatedly grabbed and slammed the door handle at the entrance. Kilika, seated beside the now-empty spot, let out a sigh. She usually preferred a quiet environment when analyzing other executioners’ matches. Normally, she would have kicked anyone throwing such a fit in the solar plexus. But Kilika held back. They were friends. And this was her friend’s house. More than anything, she understood Benny’s feelings.
“That’s insane. Truly, truly insane. Ulfragr is an incredibly dangerous guy.”
After pausing briefly, Kilika relayed the message Hodrick had urgently sent through the communicator.
“Hodrick says Ulfragr has never lost in a Punishment Arena fighter’s debut match. He’s lost occasionally in non-debut matches, but he’s never failed to inflict a wound that would become a burden later. See! I told you he shouldn’t be acting like that. What do we do? Should I run over and shake that guy awake?”
“Mouth. Shh.”
At a request she hadn’t heard since her fifty-year-old toddler days, Kilika snorted in disbelief. Who do you think you are? She was about to say that when she saw what Aspen was doing and her mouth fell open.
“What’s with that attitude?”
Aspen, who moments ago had seemed tense, had now taken a posture no one would have expected. Aspen was lying down. She had even crossed her legs propped on the sofa. At that perfectly relaxed pose, Kilika thought her insides would burst.
“Hey, groundling kid. Your boyfriend’s dying!”
“Even if he dies, will worrying solve it?”
“No, but—”
A terrifying thought flashed through Kilika’s mind. This Sapiens girl, surely not. She had heard from Benny that the Sapiens named Nathan Maia had once been betrayed by a lover who came to the Heavens with him. And recently she’d heard rumors. A few days ago, the two Sapiens had something like a reconciliation, and the woman had said something shocking to Nathan. There were also whispers that Nathan Maia kept staring blankly at the sky, lost in whatever she had said. Surely not. It wasn’t Kilika’s business, but just in case.
“You, did you pull some trick on that guy—”
“Have you ever seen the Lion Wing Knights fight?”
The sudden question left Kilika’s words tangled in her mouth. While Kilika gaped in confusion, Hodrick answered instead. Holding up three fingers. ‘Three times.’ Kilika collected her twisted tongue and replied.
“Yeah. I’ve seen it three times myself. The first was the two of us fighting Nathan. That day my body wasn’t warmed up, so we lost pretty embarrassingly.”
“Making excuses after fighting two-on-one. Next?”
Hit where it hurt, Kilika unconsciously looked away.
“Uh, I also saw him fight a monster I’d never seen before. The grandchild of the stars? Descendant of the star? Anyway, I was shocked watching him sever a neck with two axe swings. Later I heard he specialized in hunting monsters. Said his field was different from ours, who excel at fighting people, probably.”
Kilika’s expression had brightened just before mentioning the third, but she grew gloomy before she could speak. Then she glanced at Benny.
“Damn. Not the time to be happy. The last time, I beat Nathan alone. Instantly. One shot from the net gun and it was over. It seemed like he’d anticipated and blocked our chain throws, but when his body was tired and we hit him with an unplanned ambush, he got caught helplessly.”
Conscious of Hodrick’s peculiar gaze, Kilika added honesty.
“I know, Hodrick. Calling that a win is a bit embarrassing. He’d just fought the Winter King’s son. But it’s true he couldn’t react even though he still had plenty of strength left. Moreover, that guy Ulfragr is a master at creating such variables. A born slaughter demon.”
“What did you catch Nathan with?”
“Well. Uh. A net for catching beasts in back alleys. We carry it often because meat is hard to come by—”
“—Actually, that’s a net suited only for small animals like cats or foxes. The equipment you had. Benny showed me.”
Aspen’s lips curled into a smile.
“Did you ever consider that Nathan might tear it apart with sheer strength?”
Kilika snorted.
“Come on, that thing’s made from nets used to catch meat. Even mutant fish several meters long living in polluted rivers can’t break free, so what could that guy do?”
Hodrick grabbed Kilika’s shoulder. Then he tapped his mask. Staring blankly at her brother, Kilika suddenly recalled an unpleasant memory and made an ‘oh no’ expression. That guy had crushed an iron plate mask with his fist. Kilika had also had her heel-mounted blade severed by force. Of course, back then she thought it was possible thanks to Benny’s mechanical arm, but now, after Nathan had somehow regained his hands, killed Mornid, and even slaughtered a Protector Lord…
“Uh, um. I get what you mean.”
“There’s nothing he can’t destroy with his bare hands. In his first fight in the Heavens, he even snapped thick iron handcuffs with arm strength alone. A beast-catching net isn’t worth mentioning. So remember this well. The reason Nathan let himself be caught obediently, and why he’s acting without tension—”
At the slightly mocking tone, Kilika flared up and glared at Aspen. Then immediately lowered her eyes.
“It’s because Nathan’s senses didn’t judge it a crisis. What are those eyes?”
The silent message read in that brief eye contact was intense. An analysis from losers who hadn’t even scratched Nathan. How cute. Shut your mouths and watch. Feeling sweat bead on her spine, Kilika decided to comply.
Benny, anxiously stamping her feet, quickly returned to her seat at the commentator’s shout.
“Please please please please please—”
‘At least they’re calling the name properly now.’
In a corner of Nathan’s dazed, absent self, a part of him seething with irritation whispered so. That voice. He hadn’t forgotten it. It was the commentator who had been grating on Nathan’s nerves at the Floating Arena. The name he only learned after staggering into an alley in Graveyard Valley with severe injuries. ‘The Arena’s Mouth.’ Saal.
“Fucking bastard.”
Commentators rarely appeared in the Punishment Arena. There weren’t many spectators either. The Punishment Arena wasn’t a place where fighters clashed in peak condition to display their finest skills. Nor was it a venue where one could enjoy betting on wins and losses. Of course, illegal life-or-death gambling might happen quietly, but that wasn’t a service the Punishment Arena provided. This place was the extreme end of the law. A space where those sentenced to the worst punishments got injured, exhausted, and died. A solemn slaughterhouse where lively entertainment was hard to find. Yet now it overflowed with energy. Because the match everyone had been eagerly awaiting had begun. The Eleim unanimously wanted to witness it. The Sapiens who had caused the war between the northern Eleim and the rest of the Heavens, inflicting massive damage on lives and the economy. The sight of him dying miserably and vanishing.
“No. Correction. Fucking bastards.”
“Can you hear that roar, Sapiens? Look, all those citizens are your enemies.”
A chuckling metallic sound. Thanks to anger, Nathan returned to reality and finally noticed the opponent before him. Ulfragr was trembling. As if intoxicated by the audience’s roar boiling like a kettle.
“With countless spectators desperately hoping for it, you’ll have to die, won’t you? If you had any sense, you shouldn’t have made so many enemies. Don’t you think?”
Nathan blinked a few times, then smirked.
“Right. You shouldn’t make enemies. Because one of them might just cut your throat.”
“You know well. But the foolishness of not putting it into practice will become your death today—”
The moment the gong rang, Ulfragr thrust his forepaw into the gap between words and swung. An ambush. A wild attack. Free as the wind. Unpredictable as a downpour. Fools bound by the civilized tool called conversation usually fell to this first strike. The moment he felt the satisfying sensation of cleanly tearing flesh, Ulfragr experienced conflicting emotions. Joy. The ecstasy of a successful hunt, proof that his choice today was not wrong. And emptiness. Whenever he saw blood this easily, he always thought the same: there was no point in remaking his body into a beast to grow stronger—
“Graaaaaah—!”
What was this? It wasn’t the Sapiens’ scream. It was a scream boiling up from his own throat. Only after his spinal cord registered it did he realize. The pain surging in. His mangled steel claws, and fingers crushed along with the gauntlet. Only after everything had happened did Ulfragr realize. It wasn’t he who had landed the first blow.
“How could I not know? You were preparing the exact same motion from head to toe. You call that an ambush? You might as well use a war trumpet to put babies to sleep.”
Clutching his ruined hand, Ulfragr backed away several steps. Then he glared at his opponent with wide eyes. ‘He’s holding a longsword. Only a longsword. No hidden weapons.’ But what happened? How could he inflict a wound that looked like it had been smashed with a blunt weapon?
Already pushed back in momentum, the ‘dangerous opponent’ retreated. The broken-spirited executioner withdrew from Nathan. In Benny’s mansion, the grand lounge. The murmurs of the Graveyard House residents watching the match on the large screen had turned far more hopeful than before. Having escaped the slums, they were still staying at Benny’s residence.
“Ramkaf! Bring beer! Watching my comrade’s match sober is making the pickaxe stuck in my skull start aching!”
“Lower your head, I can’t see! We’re in a good spot now, right? Right? You shameless centaur bastards in the front row, aren’t you going to answer?!”
“Hey! Benny’s crying! She’s crying!”
“I’m not crying—!”
Unlike Benny, whose eyes were still brimming with tears, Aspen clapped vigorously and raised both hands high.
“It’s over! As expected!”
A triumphant cry. Yet her expression showed more relief and joy than anyone. About to point out the contradiction with twitching eyelids, Kilika shook her head and closed her mouth. Running away because you’re scared of shit. ‘Yeah. Actually, I’m running because I’m scared.’