My face was littered with blood.
I no longer felt thirsty, nor I felt hungry.
I felt disgusted with myself.
I felt nauseous, I felt like I wanted to puke. But I could not bring myself to puke. If I did I was going to have an empty stomach again.
I did not want that.
I glanced back at the corpse. The skin on some parts of it was not there anymore. You could see the bones. It was not a sight for the weak. Blood littered the ground beneath him.
I shook my head and turned away from it.
I had done it to survive. But.. why did I want to survive so much?
It was a both easy and a complicated answer. I wanted to survive because I wanted to see my mother awake again. But was that all? Was I just doing all this for my mother? Surely I had a reason for myself? For my own sake?
I did not know. I did now have the answer within me yet.
I was currently checking the runes of the new memory I had gotten with a detached look on my face.
Memory: [Leather Armor]
Memory Rank: Awakened.
Memory Tier: I
Memory Type: Armor
Memory Description: [I am hungry
I have been hungry
I was born hungry
What do I need?]
Memory Enchantments: [Survival]
Hot tears streamed down my face. I could not hold it in anymore. I tried my best not to make any sounds, and I did not. The spell.. it was toying with me.
After my tears dried, I finally checked the enchantment.
[Survival]
Enchantment Description: [You put on this act of survival — now wear it.]
I felt my blood boil. Without pondering anything I threw a punch into the runes, but my hand simply phased through it, making me fell on my knees. A scream erupted from deep within me.
"Arrgghh!!! FUCK YOU!"
I slammed my fist into the ground repeatedly shouting curses to the spell. My breathing was heavy, sweat was trickling down my forehead.
Finally I had lost my voice, my chest went up and down as I inhaled deeply.
Drip...
Sweat trickled down to the ground beneath me. After I had lost my voice, I was able to calm myself. But the anger within me had not subsided in the slightest. I was simply burying it in.
As I settled myself on the ground with my back against the wall, finally after what felt like a long time, I heard footsteps outside.
***
Two men stood in front of the entrance, one of them immediately excused himself outside. He did not bother to hide the sounds of himself puking. The other man, Auro stared at me then at the body in shock.
"What.. what have you done..?"
I looked at Auro in the eyes, not saying anything. I wanted nothing more than to kill him even if he had not done anything to me.
"No one brought food."
Auro swallowed his own saliva. It was clear that he was nauseous, poor young man looked like he was going to puke at any time given. I could see pity lingering behind his eyes, but I did not pay attention to it.
"..Follow me."
I got up, swaying slightly. Auro walked ahead without looking back. I did not know if it was arrogance or confidence to turn your back against someone who was openly displaying killing intent towards you.
I silently followed him without making any noises. He led me to what looked like downstairs. He then opened a room and gestured for me to get in.
"I am sorry, if I could ever help you, I would have. But all the proof is pointing at you. Additionally the thing you did in your cell makes you even more suspicious.. I am truly sorry."
"Fuck off."
I said as I entered the room. The moment I did, I was stepping on the sand and there was a prison bar in front of me. I could see the outside from there, I was at the bottom of the arena. Once I walked forward to the bars, I could hear the chanting..
"Glory! Glory! Glory!"
"Ah.."
I had seen this part when I was entering the nightmare. So this was the part that they will be hanging corpses onto the tall planks? As I looked around the arena, there were no planks around. So what was going to happen now?
Suddenly a voice sounded across the arena. It was the voice of a woman.
"Welcome dear brothers and sisters! Today we are going to make our prisoners fight against each other! These people has caused so much mayhem and pain to the people around them that they do not deserve to go down in a peaceful way! Am I right??"
The audience started chanting even more loudly, all of them looked like mindless beasts.
"Now, now. No need to get so hyped beforehand! We have not even started the competition yet!"
From what it looked like, these people punished criminals in a different way. And.. they seemed to enjoy it.
Suddenly my cell shook. The bars in front of me were descending, opening my way into the arena.
"Step out!"
I did as I was told, albeit reluctantly.
"Dear brothers and sisters! As you all have voted for her nickname, this is the Witch! She has killed over a five hundred of our dear comrades! Such a vile person should not even exist!"
'Eh?? I have what now??'
What kind of nonsense was this? I was not even an awakened, yet they believed I have killed that many people?
Suddenly another bar rose up. From it a man stepped out. He seemed to be an awakened.
Sigh..
The woman went on to explain his crimes and insulted him a little.
"Let the fight commence!"
Without waiting the awakened lunged at me. He seemed to be straightforward and just thought he could win with overwhelming strength.
He was already in front of me when I ducked under his punch. My palm thrusted forward to strike his forearm which made his body sway to the left slightly.
Taking advantage of his misbalance, I kicked my leg off the ground to strike behind his knee. But.. nothing happened.
The man did not even wince slightly, it seemed that the awakened were not weak on that spot. Before I could retreat, the man sent a punch right to my face. I had successfully blocked it, but the force of the punch had sent me to the ground, sliding on the sand.
Before he could lunge at me, I got up to my feet. He was already upon me as he threw a punch with devastating amount of force. I had sidestepped it, then I made it seem like I was reaching out to my pocket, there yellow sparks appeared and made itself into a kodachi. I had made sure no one saw it, and simply thought I had taken it out of my pocket.
The kodachi sprung into action immediately as I stabbed his left side which was left bare open.
The man screamed in pain as blood gushed out of the wound. I immediately pulled out the the kodachi and blood sprayed from his wound, littering the golden sand in red.
The man looked at me in resentment. Then fell to the sand face-first.
[You have slain an awakened beast, name unknown.]
"The vile Witch won the match! It seemed she had hidden a weapon with her!"
The crowd.. cheered for me? Just what kind of humans were these people? A cold shiver ran down my spine just by looking into their crazy faces.
I walked back to my cell as the woman ordered me. The bars rose to close it.
After that several matches went on. Each was gruesome, and with each fight the audience seemed even more frenzied.
Then came the planks. Several knights were bringing them to the arena and setting them up.
A cold shiver ran down my spine as I thought about it. Was I going to be hung from these too? There was no way for me to run away, the arena was filled with awakened. There was no way I could fight all of them. I needed to think!
At that moment.. the door which I had entered the cell opened. I clutched the kodachi in my hand, my palms had become overly sweaty.
A familiar looking auburn haired man entered. Auro.
"Follow me. I will try to get you out."