by A O Storm
He was standing inside a gladiatorial arena, the stadium half full with spectators. As Kano looked over the crowd, they started cheering. Smiling, Kano held up a hand and waved. Seems like they're happy to see me, Kano thought. Never had a crowd cheer for me before, it's kind of cool. Minus the smells.
Here Kano was clad in the weirdest outfit he had ever worn, like something halfway between a Renaissance Faire warrior and a Stormtrooper, without a weapon of any kind. From what Morrigan had said, violence was guaranteed and Kano attempted to prepare himself for the necessity. The audience's cheers were uplifting and helped him relax, thinking he just might have an advantage with his improved physical skills. Then the erstwhile snowboarding teacher looked around the arena to see which door his opponent might exit.
What Kano saw next made him wish he'd peed in the small room, even if it wasn't into a toilet and just on the floor. "This sucks," he exclaimed, as he took in the appearance of the contestant he was about to fight.
The man walking into the arena from the large door at the other end of the arena was unnaturally huge. Kano's new height was a full head shorter than the massive opponent. Even with his growth and extra twenty plus pounds of muscle, when Kano looked at the massive barbarian facing him, he knew he was not going to win by brute strength. Not when the other man had biceps the size of Kano's head. The other gladiator had a hundred pounds on him, if not more. His clothing was near twin to Kano's own outfit, an emphasis on freedom of movement, with hard-boiled leather plates in various locations. Jagged scar tissue decorated the giant’s exposed arms and a leather helmet covered his face, eyes peering out of a horizontal slit. The helmet had a long black mane attached to the top which flung out, flapping in the light breeze as the giant walked toward the center of the arena.
Unfortunately, just when Kano was taking in the details of the man's menacing attire, the door behind him slammed shut with a loud bang. "Really?" Kano muttered to himself. Not that he had planned to run away screaming, but, the door closing meant there was no way to avoid the confrontation with the human death machine walking toward him from the other side of the stadium.
Kano had felt a brief, irrational fear urging him to escape, but seeing all the doors shut, he just knew they’d be locked and barred from inside, giving no possible egress. He took a deep breath and tried to steady his nerves.
The big man was more interested in fighting than Kano was, judging by his walk. He stopped in the middle of the arena and shouted. "You're mine!" He slapped a hand to his chest as his deep baritone boomed out. "I've never been beaten!” His meaty hand pointed a thick, stubby finger toward Kano. “You will die like the others." The huge gladiator began to advance on Kano, not fifty yards away. Kano panicked, trying to think of a way to stop the train of death heading toward him.
"You're an idiot for not waiting for me there, " Kano shouted, tilting his head to the side and stretching his neck to appear casual, relaxed. The giant stopped his advance. "You are either a moron or a Grade A dipshit if you are coming over here."
"Excuse me?" The large man paused and his voice raised a full octave as the crowd chuckled sporadically.
"That was an insult," Kano smirked, waving to the crowd and blowing a kiss, "or was it too complicated for your small brain to process?"
Kano didn't know why he kept insulting the other man; he just knew that if they were talking, they weren't fighting. Morrigan's reference to dying made him understand what kind of fight this was going to be. Without weapons, it could be long and brutal. Kano corrected himself. If he lost, it would probably be short and painful. The large man turned to look up at the spectators, confused by Kano’s words. The crowd laughed and then the giant wailed in anger, swiveling back to face Kano and stomping a massive foot on the ground.
"Bring it, tiny," the snowboarder said, his words lost on most of the crowd over the noise of the still laughing patrons.
The giant charged him then, closing the remaining forty yards quickly, reaching out with his tree trunk arms to grab Kano. Grunting, the giant's eyes glared furiously at him from the helm and Kano knew that, if caught up in a bear hug, he'd be squeezed to death faster than if Zangief from Street Fighter had pile-driven him into the clay soil beneath his feet.
However, Kano's reflexes were more than fast enough to dodge the attack. He jumped back, just out of reach, and stepped a few paces to the side. The other man stumbled, sliding on the ground and barely stayed upright. "Missed me," he said, turning and hurriedly sidestepping toward the center of the ring.
Kano wanted to put as much space between them as he could manage, while being able to dodge in any direction. The huge man caught up with him after he turned and settled into a fighting stance.
"I'm going to tear you in half," he snarled, rushing Kano once more.
"You'll try," Kano said, shifting his feet.
The giant ran up to him and lunged, this time extending himself even further, arms spread wide as possible. The confidence in the giant’s eyes shone, he was sure Kano wouldn't be able to escape his grip.
Kano knew that the same trick would be useless twice in a row, especially if the other man knew anything about fighting. This time, instead of ducking and sliding, he stood his ground, carefully balanced, waiting for the perfect moment. Kano wasn't proud of his idea but he knew it would be effective. As the giant lunged, Kano dropped backwards, arching his back and moving his hands into position. He landed on his middle back, rolling as the giant's arms missed their grab. The snowboarder used his momentum from the roll back to raise one leg, then the other. Kano launched a kick that caught the larger man between his legs. The kick was similar to what a footballer might do when punting. First, his left leg pushed off the ground, and then his right leg hit the other man's groin.
Unfortunately for the giant, the armor did not include a cup. Kano was on the ground, on his back and with his right leg, and the other man's momentum, heaved the giant ass over teakettle into the solid clay dirt. Eyes wide, the gigantic man grunted in pain and flew over Kano in a brief, pain-filled flight. Landing in a heap, the massive man curled over on his side and the crowd went wild. During the brief yet vicious struggle, Kano had forgotten they were being watched and smiled when they cheered.
A message popped up in his display briefly before disappearing.
Skill Acquired: Hand to hand combat, current rank Ignorant, +10 skill points gained
Cool, Kano thought, dismissing the notification.
"Who are you?" A voice shouted from the stands and he looked around for a moment. Kano could not immediately see who had called out and stopped scanning the crowd, looking back towards the giant. The massive man was still crying out on the ground. Kano was unsure if the larger man was pretending or really in that much pain. Deciding he could safely ignore the man for a moment, Kano looked around the half packed arena once more, trying to find the voice in the crowd.
Six - The Grape Challenge
Shading his eyes as he turned, Kano finally realized the arena held thousands of people, far, far too many to quickly figure out who shouted. He looked down again at his opponent and saw the man had stopped moving at all.
"I am Kano." He spoke loudly, without shouting, and knew some of the audience could hear him. A few echoes of his name reverberated from the stadium and then a new chant began.
"Kano the Giantslayer!" Soon, booted feet stomped and clapping began, Kano could not believe the crowd was shouting his name.
When more of the crowd started to pick up the chant Kano felt less bad for hurting the other man. While the other man seemed to have passed out from the pain, Kano told himself he hadn't actually killed him. Or if he had, it was a video game. "Maybe he was a player," he said to himself. "Then he'd respawn, I think." He smiled. "Maybe next time, he gets an easier fight, too. Morrigan did say it got easier if you lost the first match."
The crowd stopped chanting and Kano heard another set of doors begin to open. From across the grounds he saw four men enter the arena carr
ying a stretcher. The larger man still hadn't stirred. Kano watched as he was carried away. When the group was finished the body was removed and the four men retreated back through the same door used to enter. Kano looked around the audience and noticed a section that was set up differently than the closely packed benches most people were using.
There were awnings covering the people seated on one side of the arena from the sun, and in place of concrete benches, they had elaborate chairs with soft-looking fabric cushions. Among the group were elaborately dressed men and women in varying styles. They seemed to be out of a random assortment of time periods given their state of dress. VIP, Kano thought to himself, these are obviously important guests to this test, or whatever.
Looking closer, Kano noticed some of the people seated there might not have been human. Ears too pointed, heads far too large, skin too green and other oddities started to stand out the longer he looked.
"Well done," one of the people shouted, a masculine voice, full of confidence, from the important people section. Kano's gaze honed in on the man instantly. He was dressed like a Roman noble, in a toga, a gold wreath around his head. Kano judged the man's age to be around his father's early forties. Thinking of his family made him miss the next words out of the man's mouth, despite the Roman noble's shouting.
Kano walked closer to the platform and noticed the man was human, or at least appeared so, with short cropped dark brown hair and matching beard. The man was holding a cup in one hand and his other was placed on his chair, seemingly for physical support. The snowboarder realized the man might be a little drunk.
"Prepare yourself for the next challenge," he shouted. Kano heard it that time, the man's words were slurred, fuzzy sounding. Definitely drunk. "You have just a minute."
"How am I supposed to prepare?"
The man shrugged, raising his golden mug and taking a long drink of whatever alcoholic beverage it contained. "Even after such a short battle, I imagine you may have gained some experience, sir," he paused, burping. "Kano, right?"
Kano nodded, recalling the screen Morrigan showed him how to summon. This time, when he concentrated on bringing up the overlay, Kano didn't sneeze. Smiling to himself, he looked at the extra visual layer that appeared in front of the assembled nobles. The man addressing him had an aura, as did all the other people in the VIP section, similar to Morrigan. As tempting as it was to start investigating them, Kano suspected he might need to change or alter his own character sheet, if he could, based on the experience of beating the other man in combat.
Sure enough, when Kano selected the icon representing his player in the lower right of his field of view by looking in that direction, a set of statistics and other pieces of information was revealed. Kano had played games before, of course, and knew the basics before Morrigan’s tutorial. The top section had a set of physical and mental base attributes and then the next section had other kinds of details. At the very top, there was a progress bar and his level, one; with the experience points already above the requirements for level two. There was also a blank area underneath those that he couldn’t read, but he assumed it would appear at higher levels.
Character name:
Kano
Profession:
(Blank)
Class:
(Blank)
Level:
1
Experience Points:
450
Next Level:
1,000
Energy Points (Max)
20 (20)
Health Points (Max):
60 (60)
Attributes and Scores
Physical
Score
Mental
Score
Strength
60
Intelligence
50
Speed
60
Wisdom
50
Endurance
60
Memory
50
Constitution
60
Magic
50
Beauty
60
Linguistics
50
"Leveled up already, cool." He reviewed the list of attributes on the screen. For physical stats, there were five, those included strength, speed, endurance, constitution and beauty. The next sets of stats were non-physical attributes and showed intelligence, wisdom, memory, magic and linguistics as the labels. The stats were all set to half of their potential, according to the progress bars. It seemed like a percentage-based system, with each meter having a tick mark that indicated the midpoint. After a moment, he realized that his physical stats were all higher than average, where the mental stats were all exactly at the midpoint.
Curious, Kano thought. The notification blipped showing "Available Points" and then had a number next to it. "Thirty," he said aloud then started boosting up his stats. Kano put an even amount into strength, speed, endurance and constitution, skipping on beauty. Then he decided to invest in intelligence and wisdom, spending the last of the remaining six points. Kano didn't know what kind of challenge was coming next, but figured those would be the most helpful in the short term. Each meter, after spending the points, only changed a little, indicating that he had a long way to go before hitting the highest tier on the chart in any of the attributes.
Attributes and Scores
Physical
Score
Mental
Score
Strength
66
Intelligence
50
Speed
66
Wisdom
53
Endurance
66
Memory
53
Constitution
66
Magic
50
Beauty
60
Linguistics
50
"Ready," Kano called out, and the man in the toga who spoke before nodded.
"Bring on the next champion," the noble shouted, sloshing a dark red liquid onto the ground next to him. Kano laughed softly to himself, seeing the man spill. He could not contain the elation from the level up. He clenched and unclenched his hands, excited from the feeling of health, stamina and strength coursing through his veins.
"Good luck," a woman yelled. Which woman Kano couldn't be certain, as whoever shouted made no other move. Then, he scanned the upper rows and saw a blonde woman dressed in a bulky black toga who waved from her perch. She smiled at him and Kano thought he saw her wink, making him certain it was her shout that gave him encouragement.
Bowing, Kano felt like he should at least try to give these people a show. After all, they are cheering me on.
He smiled, stretching lightly, and warmed up his muscles, feeling stronger, faster than before. "Those upgrades were nice," he said to himself. "I think I could get used to this."
A pair of far doors, a few sections away from where Kano had entered, swung outward into the arena, revealing a dark antechamber. The gloomy space was near twin to the one he'd stood in only a short time before. The sun was shining bright enough Kano had no trouble seeing two men walk out of the small stonework room.
"Two?" He couldn't believe it. They weren't as tall or muscular as the other man had been, however, they were still both larger than Kano. To make matters worse, they were carrying shields, each of them, on their left arms. They wore no helmets like the previous man had, yet their leather armor was similar. One man was bald and clean-shaven, with a scar running down his left cheek to jaw. The other had bushy, unkempt brown hair with a beard covering half his wide neck.
The shields were small, beaten thin discs of steel. Kano saw they had rounded centers that jutted out in a blunt spike. These were shaped for punching an enemy and would cause more damage than a flat-faced shield.
Many people in the crowd were chanting, "Kano," once more as the two men started to separate. They each moved to a different side, opposite Kano, and he kne
w the two men would rush him once they were in position, forcing him to turn his back to baldy or the other man.
"Ya, I'm not doing that," Kano muttered to himself, knowing that if he allowed the two men to reposition him in the arena, his life was likely forfeit.
Instead of backing away toward the far wall, Kano turned toward baldy, rushing the man in a full sprint. The bald man grinned and swung his shield, intending to backhand him in the face. Kano, however, leapt into the air, grabbing the shield as he did a full flip over the man. His momentum carried him high and over, with the shield bringing the other man up and then to the side and down. Falling hard behind Kano, the man didn't have enough time to move, stunned as he was, before Kano swiftly kicked him in his bald head.