Chapter 7. A gimlet inside a pocket(3)

Some time had passed. Juan slowly opened his eyes.

His body ached a little. Juan wiggled around and pulled out his left arm from the creature’s mouth.

His left arm was glowing red. Juan was unsure if this was due to his arm being soaked in blood all night or if it was the fact his arm was only just reconstructed that was making it glow .

Or maybe…. It was because he used the creature’s blood to reconstruct it.

“Anyways, I’m sorry.”

Juan muttered silently, while looking down at the dead creature. Streams of blood were flowing out from its mouth and neck.

When the creature closed in, Juan was willing to accept death. But his body reacted on its own.

When he presented his arm to the creature he was only half sure of what he was doing.

His body could regenerate simply with mana. So he thought; creatures who unlike beasts had an abundance of mana, could be used to his advantage.

When he was initially bitten, his left arm had almost been bitten off completely. Yet Juan moved his hand deeper into the mouth.

Dogs and beasts don’t have teeth towards the back of their mouth to cut an arm. They usually spit anything back out that they can’t swallow.

The creature faltered when it couldn’t chew on Juan’s arm properly. Juan pushed his arm deep into its mouth and desperately hung on. Then, he went at the creature’s neck and ripped it apart with his mouth.

Juan lost a vast amount of blood from this.

His left arm was barely connected by his flesh. He immediately fell into a deep sleep as he had used an enormous amount of strength, incomparable to the amount he used when working in the cave.

After waking up, he had noticed his arm had recovered as if nothing had happened.

‘Maybe if it was entirely swallowed by the creature, my arm would have reappeared inside its belly…’

He wasn’t entirely sure if his regeneration skill was good for him or not.

Juan increasingly lost his confidence. His confidence that he would surely die.

“Hmm..”

He moved his arm around and titled his head in puzzlement. Losing a lot of blood, he had thought his current state would not be good, but rather his body felt lighter than before. Seemed like his strength had increased as well. His mana capacity had also grown a frightening amount.

‘All thanks to the creature….’

He had consumed it’s raw blood. And much of his left arm reconfiguration phase had involved the creature’s blood.

It wasn’t something he was aiming for but a significant improvement nonetheless.

He wasn’t exactly sure how much stronger he had become, but he felt it was now possible to send mana to his physical body to empower it.

Grrrr…. although he had the opportunity to somewhat satisfy his hunger by drinking raw blood, his stomach violently grumbled at him. He knew with mana he couldn’t die of starvation but the emptiness inside his stomach didn’t feel right.

He had half a thought to endure but then his eyes had already noticed the creature’s corpse.

“……”

A complex thought drifted past his head.

Then, he heard someone calling.

“Hey kid.”

“Huh? What? Why are you here?”

It was none other than the Faun. He scanned the nearby area with a scared look.

“I came after hearing you were imprisoned. The other side of this dungeon is linked to where I’m working at. What caused the inspector to do this…. Ughhh, What is this smell? Dried raw blood? Are you hurt?”

“I’m not hurt now.”

What do you mean ‘now’? Wait, what is that behind you! A creature? You alright?

“I’m alright now.”

“……….”

The Faun looked at Juan with a complicated look. His vision drifted between Juan and the fallen creature.

The cave was quite dark so he guessed that the creature was asleep.

The Faun extended his hand to give something.“Take this.”

What Juan received was a stiff hardened bread.

“The inspector gave this to me. He was raving on about the fact it’s a special meal that’s chewable unlike porridge. I heard you’re imprisoned so I thought you wouldn’t have had a proper meal for a while.”

Juan chewed on the bread while looking at the Faun. He was nodding at him.

“Yeah…. She misses you a lot. Always crying. So I decided to come and check up on you.”

“…… I didn’t ask.”

We were referring to the crazy woman. The Faun only chuckled back.

Juan felt complicated yet baffled at what he should do. He couldn’t stay around her side. Especially while they were still slaves.

On one hand, he felt staying away from her would help her find her rationality back.

“I can’t leave today. They said they’ll let me go tomorrow.”

“I know. Phew…… They mentioned we will be working at the Colosseum tomorrow. Might not even get to see you during meal time.”

“Colosseum?”

As Juan raised his eyebrows, the Faun waived his hands.

“Work at the Colosseum is not always dangerous. Our work is sand dyeing or something similar. Noona is also going with me. Plus, I don’t think they will kill me. I’m a valuable worker who can work on the walls expertly remember?”

Juan nodded back. He agreed it shouldn’t be dangerous as they stationed the crazy woman to work there as well.

Sand dyeing…. Sounded like coating colour onto the sand.

Yet he couldn’t stop but feel something was wrong.

“Can’t you ask to work at the same usual place?”

“We wouldn’t be slaves if we could decide what we wanted to do.”

“I guess so.”

Him being imprisoned was a prime example of this. He gave a quick thought and chose not to worry anymore.

“Right then. Imma head back seeing as I’ve seen you are alive and kicking. Staying out here too long might furiate the gladiator I’ve bribed off.”

Juan nodded. But as the Faun stood, he held him in place.

“Wait.”

Juan grabbed a handful of his hair and ripped it off. Then expertly, he showed his skills as he tied his hair into a knot.

The faun with his widened eyes, stared at Juan. Juans hand skills suggested it wasn’t the first time he’s done this.

“Take this to that woman.”

“This is…..”

The Faun looked like he knew what this meant. Juan flustered a little. It was an act that wasn’t done in general practise but what you would call it a military tradition.

“Don’t say anything unnecessary and just give it to her. There’s no special meaning behind it.”

The Faun grinned in response and left holding the tied knot.

After he sent the Faun on his way, Juan plopped down leaning back on the steel bars. He didn’t particularly have any thoughts when he gave the knot away but looking back, he worried if he did something unnecessary.

It’s not something he usually did, and something that didn’t suit his current situation. The Faun had managed to notice its meaning behind it as well….

Being half human, he never thought the Faun would have known. Maybe he had a military background possibly? Juan kicked himself in regret but it was all in the past now.

Finally, he reminded himself to ask the Faun his name the next time they met.

*****

Dududududu.

Sound of hooves reverberated as a heavily armed group of people were closing on the Colosseum.

At the front, a flag flew high from a person’s hand. A blue rose was drawn on it.

The front rider halted to a stop once they arrived at the Colosseum. Along its tracks, a cloud of dust had appeared.

A soldier rushed over after noticing the flag symbol and the identity of the rider.“Sina Solbein nim![1] What brings the Knights of Blue rose to Taltere…”

“I came hearing about a suspicious activity related to a cult.”

Unfittingly, the knight’s refreshing voice belonged to a female.

The knight pulled up her visor and revealed her pale white face and blue eyes.

The soldiers’ eyes fixed themselves upon the beauty who they had not expected to meet.

The top knight from the Blue rose order, Sina Solbein squinted her eyes as she urged her horse forwards, intimidating the soldiers. Frightened, the soldiers scrambled backwards.

“Tell your superiors that the Knights Blue rose has come.”

“Again, is it to do with a cult suspicion?”

“There is never a limit in testifying one’s faith.”

“However, director Daaron is currently busy with work…..”

“Then I guess he will meet me without being notified.”

At hearing those words, the soldiers bolted back to the entrance.

The other knights by now had tied their horses and quickly caught up to Sina who had already raced ahead with great strides. One of the knights carefully asked her something.

“This place again… Sina nim?”

“That’s right. Is there a problem?”

“I thought president nim[1] told us to go somewhere else?”

“He wouldn’t have given us permission if we told him. You know that pig receives cash from keeping Tantil Colosseum in operation.

Startled from Sina’s sudden outburst, the knights looked at each other. Her comrades clearly heard her insult but pretended not to hear.

“President nim… No, the president is indeed a pig and we all know that. But still, wouldn’t this cause trouble down the line? We are ignoring instructions set on the permit letter.

“If we find evidence that a cult exists, there won’t be any trouble.”

“Won’t it be a problem that we’ve already searched 7 times? There might be talks that we’re doing targeted investigations. Sina nim. There’s not a single knight in our order that dislikes you. But if you keep acting like this, you will be kicked out.”

“Ausrey.”

Sina called out the knight’s name who was talking back and stopped walking. Then at once, smacked her guts with her hilt. Ausrey gasped for air as she was sent sprawling on the ground.

“I was born and raised in Tantil. I know Tantil should deserve more than this. So if I am to destroy this slave rotten Colosseum that is defiling my home town, I am willing to do anything to achieve this.”

*****

Next morning, the sound of marching army boots could be heard from outside.

“Kid, did you have a good night’s slee….. Huh, what’s this?”

The inspector came into the cell with a booming voice, but found himself confused at the stench of blood.

He thought the possibility that the creature could have eaten Juan. Then right on cue, Juan stood up from the pool of blood.

“I kind of expected it to be comfortable as it’s a ball of fur, but i guess not.”

He had a totally different reason for his lack of sleep but Juan with a straight face said in a nonchalant manner.

Inspector’s anger rose at seeing the creature killed but that feeling was suppressed by his overwhelming desire for Juan. A nine year old killing a creature with his bare hands?

Although he was covered in blood, it looked like he didn’t sustain any critical injuries.

‘This kid is special.’

His heart was boiling in greed.

To him, it didn’t matter if keeping him here would be limiting his potential. Like growing a baby shark in a pond.

“So, have you changed your mind?”

“You’ve already heard my conditions.”

Juan replied back as if he was annoyed but the inspector surprisingly let it slide.

“Alright. Keep thinking about it, maybe it will change.”

The inspector signaled his soldiers. They cuffed his hands and pulled him out. Juan didn’t retaliate.

“Lets go”

Escorted by soldiers, Juan followed the Inspector.

Dungeon corridors inside the Colosseum were crowded with gladiators doing last minute training and getting ready for the event. From them, Juan received many curious glances as he passed.

It was normal inside the Colosseum to see violent gladiators walking around, filthy, fully armed.

And yet, a small weak looking child in cuffs was tightly escorted by many soldiers. They all thought, ‘Hell, what kind of sin did you commit’?

[1] nim – a title of respect in Korean. Kinda similar to Sir and Ma’am.