Chapter 45

“Wh-what?” Number Thirteen asked as he looked up to Thelicia with a dumbfounded look on his face. “Wait-GHLREGH—”

Number Thirteen’s eyeballs popped out violently with streams of blood while more blood poured out of his mouth along with broken pieces of his teeth from getting his head smashed in by a giant fist of the “walking double refrigerator”, Number Seven.

“BWAHAHA!!” the crowd laughed and cheered as the first volunteer fell sideways with his skull partially crushed in as if it had been struck by a sledgehammer, leaving The Cleaver stuck in the rocks with its handle pointing at ten o’clock.

“That one counts as not ‘standing’ anymore, right?” Number Seven asked rhetorically without displaying any emotion about killing a human being. He simply cracked his bloody knuckles and turned to the remaining four volunteers.

“Y-you’ve got to be kidding me!” the sole female among the volunteers, Number Sixteen, gasped in utter horror. A beastkin covered in black, brown, and white fur, with a short tail, black button nose, and long, brown, furry floppy ears. Despite the fur that covered her face and body, she was now paler than death as she slowly recoiled from the giant man who just eliminated the first participant like whack-a-mole.

“That’s my line if that is all that it takes for you to start pissing in your pants,” Number Seven said and walked toward the female, walking straight past The Cleaver as if he did not even consider it worth his time to pick up. The giant strongman wore nothing but briefs and heavy boots, and that made him all the more intimidating as he towered over the poor beastkin girl.

“Stay back!!” Number Sixteen screamed and turned tail to run but stumbled before she even took two steps.

Huh? Beatrice thought she noticed something strange for a split second as it was strange for the girl to stumble on an even surface, even if she was scared shitless.

One of the other volunteers used the distraction to dash at Number Seven low from behind, aiming a dagger in his back, but the giant swiped his attempt away like a fly by using nothing but his forearm.

“Bwfuh!” Number Thirty-five tumbled away from the sheer force of a single effortless swipe. By the time he slowed and slid a couple of feet more on the rocks, it was apparent that the would-be assassin’s arm was broken as it was bent at the elbow in the opposite direction.

“W-WHUAAAAA!!” Number Thirty-five screamed in agony and held his broken arm as the pain finally caught up to him. Those of the participants that stood the closest, saw that the man’s ankle was also twisted.

“This is bullshit!” Number Fifty-Two screamed and complained to the announcer. “We were supposed to get weapons and fight one on one! Not ambushed like this!”

Thelicia looked down at the participants without an answer or even acknowledgment of their cries and pleas. Even with her mask on, the aura of merciless indifference radiated from her as she held her arms behind her back and awaited the result of her little impromptu battle of the “brave souls”.

“What are you complaining about?” Number Seven asked and cracked his neck, treating the whole thing like nothing but a warm-up. “I’m unarmed, just like you. Why did you even enter? Has this city run out of real warriors already?”

“We have to work together and take him down first!” the second biggest among the volunteers, Number Thirty-six—a furry goatkin with thick, curved horns—called out to the others. “Get it together! It’s still four against one!”

“Are you insane!?” Number Fifty-two screamed. “He took out two people without even trying! One of us is a crying girl, and the other has a broken arm!! We’re dead!!”

“Pathetic,” Number Seven said coldly as he steadily approached the desperate, screaming man.

“Wait! No! I give up!” Number Fifty-two screamed and fell to the ground. “You don’t have to kill us! The rules said we have to be standing! Thirty-six, get on the ground, you imbecile! It will be over if he’s the only one who remains standing!”

Despite his earlier attempts at encouragement, the goatkin was quick to grasp at an opportunity to stay alive and leaped to the ground before the giant man could slay anyone else.

“BOOO!!” the spectators booed and cursed at the cowardly attitude of the other volunteers. The spectators came here for fights, blood, and death. Such pitiful attempts a weaseling out of combat were unacceptable to the riled-up citizens of Klapsus.

Beatrice looked up to the crowds and wondered if these were the people she was so determined to save. Were everyone’s morals so irreversibly corrupted in this city? Or was this just a particularly deplorable minority of people that had spiraled down over the years into deeper and deeper depths of contemptible thrill-seeking.

Number Seven stopped next to Number Fifty-two and stood over him ominously and silently. Every volunteer held their breath, waiting for the announcement that it was finally over.

“She did say ‘two minutes’,” Number seven said, raised his foot, and slammed it down hard on Number Fifty-two’s chest just as the terrified man realized what was coming.

Despite the distance from the fighting, Beatrice clearly heard the cracking of a dozen ribs and could imagine all too vividly how the poor man’s inner organs were turned to mush as liquids spurted out of Number Fifty-two in all directions.

The crowd rejoiced once again in near unison. With their fears of a bloodless resolution having been erased, they now gleefully enjoyed the bloodbath in its gory detail that was displayed in high definition in the giant magical sphere above the arena.

The walking refrigerator then turned to Number Sixteen who broke down and bawled.

Before another life was extinguished, one more sneak attack was attempted as Number Thirty-six swung The Cleaver from behind Number Seven, attempting to slay the unstoppable killer. The giant man grabbed the hilt of The Cleaver with such force that it not only stopped the swing dead in its tracks but also stopped the attacker who ended up running into the hilt of his own weapon.

“Guh!” Number Thirty-six gasped as the air got knocked out of him when he flew chest-first into the dead-stopped steel handle.

“You’re too weak for such a weapon,” Number Seven said and snatched The Cleaver out of his opponent’s hands.

“Guh!” the goatkin instantly leaped back to increase the distance between himself and Number Seven but was cleaved clean in half from head to groin with a single, proper swing of the mighty weapon.

The crowds cheered once more as the two lifeless, bleeding halves of a goatkin collapsed to the ground and their contents poured out onto the rocks, forming a gory pile of meat and liquids. Unlike the spectators, Number Seven did not seem to care about the bloody show he put on, and simply walked forward to dispose of his next target, the wounded Number Thirty-five.

“Somebody, help!!” the wounded begged as he crawled backward, away from Number Seven. “Don’t you see that he will kill everyone at this rate!? You’re happy as long as it’s not you!? COWARDS!! Watching others die!! He will pick you off! One by one, you will die while others stand there, cheering on your deaths!!!”

But none of the other participants moved to help. Some seemed indeed horrified at the methodical slaughter. Some even looked away, covering their faces. Many others calmly watched as the weaklings were disposed of.

Beatrice clenched her fists as she realized how bloodthirsty so many of the citizens of Klapsus really were. While it did not surprise her at all that desperate people would seek any diversion to forget their own suffering, the level of joy they seemed to gain out of specifically the brutal deaths of these hopeless people was repulsive.

“No!! Stop! Time’s up! The time is up!” Number Thirty-five screamed and cried as he crawled backward. He screamed at the top of his lungs pleading to the giant man, to Thelicia, to the masked staff. “The two minutes have surely passed already! It’s over! You win! Please!! HELP!! He’ll kill you all if you don’t stop him now!! SOMEBODY-GHRUAAAHHH!!”

Number Seven did not hack and slash his victims like a maniac. His movements were brutal, devoid of hesitation or compassion, but efficient. A single swing into the chest and through the heart of Number Thirty-five ended the man’s life instantly.

“NOOOOOO!” Number Sixteen cried as she got up and ran toward the nearest bridge off the arena after witnessing such brutal and one-sided slaughter. “I give up! I don’t-GHA—”

The beastkin girl’s wide-eyed, lifeless body flew forward and slid face-down two dozen yards, all the way to the masked men at the bridge with the cleaver lodged deep in her back. Number Seven ended the girl’s life with a single, powerful throw.

“Congratulations, Number Seven!” Thelicia congratulated the giant man only barely surpassing the volume of the excited, cheering crowd thanks to her voice enhancements. “Your bravery and unwavering spirit have earned you the right to carry The Cleaver into the first round! Use it well!”

“Seven! Seven! Seven!” The crowd cheered the number of their new favorite contestant that walked over to the dead beastkin girl to pulled The Cleaver out of her back.

The weapon was lodged so deep into the girl that Number Seven ended up lifting up her whole body, hanging limply off the blade. So, he had to put her back down on the ground and then step on her to hold her body in place as he pulled out the stuck weapon, tearing out more blood and guts.

Seeing this gore, one participant fell to his knees and hurled, which was displayed in close-up on the giant sphere above them, causing the crowds to break into laughter at the retching, tearful participant.

“What’s wrong with them?” Beatrice asked, astonished by the callousness of the crowds.

“Weren’t you eager to participate in this violence?” Olivia asked, though her disgust at the unfolding events was also blatantly apparent.

“This is way past simple indifference or celebration of violent entertainment,” Beatrice said. “They’re getting off on the gory brutality.”

“Or they’re just glad to be rid of disgraceful cowards who were spitting on the spirit of these Games and had no business being here in the first place,” the ‘bubblegum’ girl—with number forty on her armband—said as she casually walked past Beatrice and Olivia.

“There’s nothing about this to be glad about,” Beatrice said, though Number Forty had already walked further ahead, toward Number Seven, and did not seem interested in a response.

“And that’s just another reason why I’m getting my sister and getting out of this accursed city,” Olivia said.

“Where would you go in this demon-infested world?” Beatrice.

“I’ll figure that out when it comes to it,” Olivia said.

Beatrice’s own dilemma was harder. She wanted to save this city. But can the people this far gone be saved? Do they even deserve it? Beatrice looked up to the many different crowds of Klapsus citizens and saw some spectators curse and spit as they tore up and/or threw some kind of papers or tickets to the ground.