Chapter 6

An Ankairan underground fight club. Contrary to the negative connotations of its name, it was a completely legal entertainment establishment.

“So, it’s basically like a fistfight?” Urich shifted his body to loosen himself up.

“Urich, I’ve told you over and over. You cannot kill anyone. Murder is against the rules here,” Donau repeated himself. He drew a picture of a man getting beheaded and crossed his arms to make an X.

“But what if they die from a really light hit? Eh, whatever. You don’t understand me, anyway.” Urich chuckled at the thought. He had decided to join the fight club after learning that this was where he could get a lot of cils. Besides, he was quite confident in himself.

‘The men here are all weaker than me.’

To Urich, they were all nothing but fools with average bodies. This place was full of weaklings who had never killed a single person before. It was hard to see them as fellow men.

‘But the women, on the other hand, were amazing.’ Urich grinned as he reminisced about his glorious night in the red-light district.

“On this side of the mountains, money is everything.”

Urich stepped onto the sand. The lost teeth of countless fighters were visible through the grains. As he entered the arena, the crowd erupted in a mixture of cheers and whistles.

“Boooo!”

“Hey, isn’t that the arm wrestler from the other day?”

“My money’s on you!”

People screamed as they looked at Urich. Urich couldn’t care less about their stares. He was too busy thinking about what to do with his winnings.

‘What should I do with the money I make from this? Some fun with the women again, obviously, but what else?’

While Urich was busy daydreaming, his opponent entered the arena from the opposite side. The fighter was a gnarled man with knobby knuckles. He seemed like he had seen a fair share of action in the fight club.

‘Should I buy an axe with the rest of the money? Their weapons were sturdier than mine. They must have better smiths here,’ Urich thought to himself.

Ding!

The bell rang to signal the start of the fight. Urich’s opponent came flying forward.

“What an unlucky bastard, having me as the first opponent!” The fighter yelled. Urich dashed to the side.

‘One hit, right in the ribs.’

Urich dug into the fighter’s flank. Even a seasoned fight club fighter felt as slow as a snail compared to the wild animals and warriors back home. The men here didn’t fight for their lives. As far as Urich was concerned, there wasn’t a single proper warrior in this room.

‘Fordgal Arten, the man who crossed swords with me, was a warrior who was prepared to die in battle. Such men exist on this side as well,’ Urich thought of the Empire knight that he had fought in the Sky Mountains.

Thud!

Urich punched the fighter with just the right amount of power. There was an audible crack coming from the fighter’s ribcage.

“If you’re lucky, you’ll live. If not, well, that’s too bad.”

Urich turned and raised his hand in victory without looking back at his fallen opponent. The fighter on the ground was showing the whites of his eyes and foaming at his mouth. Some men rushed into the arena to carry him out on a stretcher.

“U-Urich is the winner!”

Urich looked around in boredom. This wasn’t fun at all for him. If it weren’t for the money, he wouldn’t even have entertained the idea.

“W-what just happened? He finished him with just one punch?”

“Hey, you bastard, what is this? This is rigged, isn’t it?”

“You saw the other guy laying there foaming at his mouth. It’s not rigged.”

The crowd was getting riled up and fights were breaking out. Many of them had bet on the fighter to beat Urich because this was his first-ever fight at the club.

“Hey, Urich won fair and square! Hand over the money, now!” Donau demanded the club manager. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

The manager pulled out his coin pouch as he clicked his tongue.

“Tell your guy to take his time in the next fight. If he ends it like this again, we’ll lose the crowd.”

“Alright, alright, I got it.” Donau nodded carelessly as he snatched the coin pouch.

‘That one punch landed us a hundred thousand cils.’

Donau couldn’t stop smiling.

“Let’s do it again, Urich!” Donau raised his finger as he looked at Urich. Urich then went on to win three straight fights. Their total winning for the day was half a million cils, which was way too much for a day’s earnings.

“Hahahaha, what a day! You killed it, Urich! We just have to keep this up!” Donau exclaimed as he downed his drinks. Urich, on the other hand, wasn’t lifting a finger and drank only what the women poured into his mouth.

“This truly is heaven.” Urich looked up at the ceiling with his flushed red face. Throw a few punches, make money, and spend that money on food and drinks—not to mention the women.

‘I can’t believe I was running around the plains hunting for animals. What a fool I was.’

The courtesan poured some more liquor into Urich’s mouth. His uvula twitched as he swallowed the drink.

“Don’t overdo it, ladies. We don’t have nearly as much money to waste today.” Donau sternly warned the courtesans who were roaming around the room in their translucent gowns.

“Oh, then, how’s this?”

One of the courtesans brought a hookah. They then dropped some weed in and lit it.

Bllgh, bllgh.

The woman took the hookah to her mouth first. The scented smoke flowed out of her mouth and nostrils.

“Isn’t that southern tobacco? Weed?” Donau’s eyes widened with curiosity.

“There’s no extra charge this time, Mr. Donau.”

“Hah, I see what you’re doing, but I’ll allow it.”

Donau put the pipe in his mouth without hesitation and drew in the thick smoke. He felt like he was levitating.

“Give this a try, Urich.”

Urich took the pipe and took a big drag.

‘This is...’

His eyes widened. He recognized the scent.

‘This is the thing that that old shaman always smoked.’

Though the delivery mechanism was different, the scent was similar to the herbs that the shamans always smoked. He had smelled the same smell whenever he was with them. Warriors avoided weed. They thought it was something that only the old, soon-to-die warriors smoked. It was forbidden for young warriors in their prime, although no one knew why. It was just frowned upon for warriors.

‘This isn’t so bad. The oldies and shamans were keeping this to themselves this whole time?’

Urich felt drowsy. His bright and sharp eyes sank low, and his focus was becoming dull. Liquor was passing like water and food kept going in even though he was already full. The whispers of the courtesans sounded sweeter than ever.

“How does this feel, Mr. Champion of the Arena?” One of the women rhetorically asked Urich as she buried her face in between his muscular legs.

“Not bad, no, rather pretty good,” Urich murmured as he gave in to the wave of pleasure. When he woke up, a new morning had dawned.

* * *

Urich and Donau made their money from the fights in the late evenings and spent the nights drinking with the women of the Ankairan red-light district. The party would go on for the whole night. By the time they woke up the next day, it was already late afternoon.

“Get up, Urich! Time to make some money,” Donau woke Urich up from his sweet sleep. At this point, he was treating Urich like his servant.

“Shut up, my head is ringing. You know I don’t understand what you’re saying,” Urich muttered annoyingly as he got up with his hands wrapped around his aching head. He had been carrying on with his dissolute life with the help of Donau.

‘It’s the afternoon already, huh.’

The sun was already on its way down. Urich’s body felt heavier than usual.

“Phew,” Urich took a quick deep breath. He munched away on the leftover fruit from the night before and called it breakfast.

“You’re awake, my champion. Here’s one for good luck.”

Smooch.

A courtesan kissed Urich’s cheek with her red-tinted lips. At this point, Urich and Donau were practically living in the red-light district.

‘How long has it been?’

Urich couldn’t remember exactly how many days it had been since he made it over the Sky Mountains. Was it thirty days? No, maybe closer to fifty. He hadn’t really kept track of the days; he had only repeated the same day and night over and over.

“Donau,” Urich called on his partner.

“What do you want, Urich? We got places to be and money to make. We got ourselves into a lot of debt so we can’t afford to waste another second.” Donau snarked as he frowned. The lack of discipline and control in his life only made him spend more recklessly. He had debts everywhere, and even a loan from an Ankairan loan shark.

“My axe,” Urich muttered as he squatted down on the ground to scratch a drawing of a pair of battle axes.

“You want me to buy you some axes? What for? You want to chop some firewood or something?

“Axe.”

Urich emphasized his demand once more by firmly pointing at his drawing. Donau was reluctant to spend his money on Urich, but he nodded in agreement.

“Find, we’ll swing by the smiths after the fights. But first, we’ve got work to do.”

Urich and Donau arrived at the fight club. The arena manager was already waiting for them.

“There you are, Urich and Donau! Everyone here is dying to see your fights.”

The manager greeted Urich. Urich had become the main attraction of the fight club. The undefeated Urich. Since his debut, he hasn’t lost a single fight. People didn’t care whether he won or not. They just went crazy for him every fight regardless of the outcome.

“Let’s make this quick, Urich!” Donau said to Urich as he massaged his tight back and shoulders.

‘You’re my money, You cannot lose.’

Urich sat there with his eyes closed, receiving Donau’s massage. He was having a hard time shaking off his drowsiness even though he’d had a good night’s sleep.

“Oh, I guess we’re starting now,” Urich said as he stepped into the sandy arena. It took him a second, but he was finally seeing his opponent now.

‘He doesn’t look very strong. Maybe I’ll just punch him in the jaw and get it over with.’ Urich thought to himself as he walked toward his opponent. The fighter lunged forward.

Thud.

Urich looked down at the fist that buried itself in his stomach.

‘I thought I dodged this one?’

Thump!

A series of punches slammed Urich out of his position.

“Wooaaah!” The crowd roared at the unexpected sight.

Urich raised his arms to guard himself against the punches. He couldn’t believe what was happening.

‘Am I rusty?’

Liquor, women, weed. Urich had never led such an unhinged life before. For the first time in his life, he realized that his fighting senses had become dull. Urich was only sixteen. He thought he was only getting stronger and that the opposite wasn’t possible. He roamed the plains and forests hunting for animals and he battled against men on the battlefields.

“Fucking hell.”

Urich was always calm in his fights at the club because he knew he was overwhelmingly stronger than his opponents. He felt like he was a lion playing around with his prey, but today was different. Urich didn’t have the advantage. He cursed and raged in embarrassment and anger. He contracted every muscle in his body, not holding back a single ounce of strength.

Crush!

Urich’s fist slammed into the fighter’s face. The bones in his face shattered like they were brittle chalks, and his eyeballs protruded from their sockets from the pressure inside his skull.

“A-ah!”

“N-noo!”

The crowd screamed in terror.

Thud.

The fallen fighter was obviously dead. His face was ruthlessly mangled, and the eyeballs that were severed from the optic nerves were rolling on the sand. It would have been worse if he had somehow survived in this state.

The fight club in Ankaira was not a place where people fought to the death. It was just a place of entertainment for miners and gangsters to enjoy and gamble on exciting brawls.

“Ah, I got carried away. I killed him by accident,” Urich said casually as if it was no big deal and wiped the dead fighter’s blood off his fist.

“Urich! I told you not to kill him, that it isn’t allowed!” Donau snapped at Urich. Things quickly became extremely difficult. A man had been beaten to death inside the city. There were plenty of witnesses, so they wouldn’t get charged for intentional murder. However, they still broke the rules of the fight club.

‘They’ll never let us in here again, damnit!’

This was the real reason why Donau was so angry. The fight club was his source of income. He had been spending a fortune as if he’d already made all his money from Urich’s fights, which meant that he was about to be buried under a mountain of debts with no way of paying them back.

“Donau, Urich, don’t come back here for a while,” the arena manager asserted. He said a while, but really, this meant a permanent ban.

“What just happened? Did he kick us out just because I killed one person? What, people don’t die in fights here?” Urich jumped around, screaming in anger. The other men couldn’t make out what he was saying, but they quickly realized that he was outraged. The armed guards slowly approached them.

“Stop it, Urich! We’ve got to get out of here.” Donau urgently talked Urich down. If Urich got into a fight with the guards and accidentally killed one of them, that would really mean big trouble.

‘This guy is a killing machine.’

Donau knew the real Urich. He had seen it himself. He jogged his memory back to their first meeting when Urich treated the lives of three men like nothing. A chill ran down his spine. The fear he had for Urich a while ago slowly came back. Urich was a terrifying man.

‘Maybe it’s time for me to move on from this guy.’

After all, Donau was a con man who thrived on betrayal and scams.