The Butcher Waits in the Ring

What would actually happen if he killed that woman right here and made a run for it?

Eusilif weighed the question in silence, standing where he was.

His cell door had opened after three days, and the gatekeeper had slipped off somewhere—whether to give them privacy or simply out of indifference, he couldn't say. If he dealt with the woman quickly and fled, nothing would stand in his way, at least for the immediate future.

He had already replayed the idea of escaping this place countless times in his head; dozens of scenarios sat ready in his mind. Shuttling between the arena and the Imperial Palace, he had quietly committed the capital's geography to memory as well.

But what came after?

He could never return to Awinka alone, leaving his sister Allin behind.

Yet storming the Magic Tower to rescue her outright was impossible. However much the power of magic had declined, Duke Amethica, master of the tower, was the strongest mage alive, and the tower itself stood guarded by potent ancient enchantments. Eusilif alone could never breach its barrier.

Besides, there was something he still had to do. A duty he could never, ever betray.

In the end, Eusilif quietly let the tension drain from his clenched fingers.

"You're saying… you'll save me?"

"That's right."

At her bold, unflinching answer, a hollow laugh slipped from his lips.

"You've got quite a fresh take on nonsense."

"Nonsense? What a hurtful thing to say…."

"You're the one who bought me as a slave and put me in this state, aren't you? And now you claim you'll save me. What exactly are you playing at?"

"Won't you at least hear me out to the end?"

"Get out. I don't have the strength to trade empty words with you."

Before she could even finish, he shoved her aside and made to close the door. At that moment she cried out in desperation and wedged her foot into the gap.

"Please, Eusilif. If you don't trust me right now, you might die here today!"

Pfft.

For an instant, a crooked smile curled across Eusilif's mouth.

It was absurd, almost exhilarating, to learn that even that prim little noblewoman had things she didn't know. She could never imagine it—that his body was one that would absolutely never die, at least not in a place like this.

And then, right at that moment—as if she could see straight through to the heart of him—the woman spoke again, carefully.

"Oh, right. You'll never die. At least, well… as long as your head doesn't get cut off, that is."

"…?!"

For a moment, Eusilif doubted his own ears. His eyes went wide, and he glared at Arabella with undisguised disbelief.

"How… do you know that?"

It couldn't be. The most important secret of his existence, known to no one but his father and his sister—and this woman knew it?

As he stood too stunned to speak, Arabella gave him a careful smile and added in a low, measured voice.

"Don't worry, Eusilif. I won't breathe a word of your secret to anyone. Really. I promise."

But at the casual familiarity with which she called his name, as though they were close acquaintances, Eusilif's face only twisted into a darker scowl.

"My lady, are you really all right? Why on earth did you go down into the arena's undercroft? A noble young lady, wandering into a place like that all on her own!"

Becky trailed after me like a nervous pup, pressing me in her timid little voice. Because I'd sent her on a separate errand, she hadn't been able to follow me into the undercroft earlier. With no good answer ready, I brushed her off.

"I just had something to take care of. By the way, did you bring what I asked you to fetch from the house?"

"Yes, here…."

I took what Becky held out, tucked it safely into the front of my dress, and let my expression ease with relief. Becky seized on the moment to start wheedling at me again.

"My lady, but couldn't we please go back to the estate now?"

"…"

"How are you supposed to watch a match looking like that? If the master finds out you've been parading around outside in this state, he won't let it slide, I promise you."

She looked ready to burst into tears.

Fair enough, I supposed. A count's daughter strolling about in such a state was bound to turn heads.

But so what. It's not as if I'm going to become the Crown Princess anyway.

Becoming the consort of Crown Prince Sota—the very thought was horrifying. After today, any chance of that was dead and buried, which was honestly a blessing in disguise.

Ignoring Becky's pleading, I strode boldly into the arena stands.

"Wait—isn't that Lady Mayona?"

"Why would she come here looking like that?"

"She's lost her mind, surely…."

Just as expected, the whispers rippled from every direction. But I paid the reactions no mind, found the seat reserved for House Mayona, and sat down with my chin held high. Of course, it happened to be dead center among the noble boxes—a spot that drew every eye in the building.

"Why on earth is Lady Mayona in such a state?"

"Well, you see, at the Crown Princess selection just now…."

The rumor spread with remarkable speed even among the nobles who hadn't attended the selection ceremony. Before long, the journalists stationed beneath the noble seats were abuzz as well.

"They say Lady Mayona nearly lost her life at the Crown Princess trials today?"

"Collapsed after eating cookies that came out with the tea? Could this be a poisoning incident?"

"No way. If it were, the imperial family couldn't possibly sit still. A Crown Princess candidate, nearly poisoned?"

Heh heh. Yes, keep talking. Don't ever stop.

I let the corners of my mouth curl upward as I glanced at a few visibly uneasy faces in the crowd.

You'd all love for this incident to be quietly buried and forgotten. But that is never going to happen.

Now that today's affairs had spread all the way to the journalists, the people gunning for me couldn't afford to move rashly. I intended to use that window to recover my strength and plot my path to survival.

Even as I savored their puzzled murmuring, my eyes never left the arena floor. What mattered now wasn't them—it was whether Eusilif had accepted my help.

I recalled the vicious glare he'd fixed on me just a short while ago.

'So you're telling me to walk into that match drinking some mystery pill and liquid of yours?'

The hostility in those eyes had been so sharp it was like being stabbed all over with dozens of needles.

'You haven't eaten in three days, you know. Go into a gladiatorial match like this and the outcome is a foregone—a disaster.'

'Of course it will be. But that should make fine entertainment for all of you, shouldn't it?'

'It's not just about losing the match. Do you know who your opponent is today? "Butcher Jack."'

'…!'

At that name, even Eusilif had gone rigid. He had every reason to.

Butcher Jack was infamous even among gladiators for his cruelty. Even after an opponent conceded defeat, he would whip himself into a frenzy and hack their limbs to pieces—the arena's resident problem child. It was hardly rare for spectators at his matches to vomit or faint outright.

Under normal circumstances, Eusilif could have subdued a Butcher Jack with ease.

But his condition right now was at its absolute worst. If he faced Butcher Jack in the state he was in, the outcome was obvious—a gruesome, humiliating wreck. Exactly as I'd read in the original story.

Today, he would lose an arm. And today would be the trigger for his descent into darkness—a life of hellish torment, every single day after.

'Just kill me instead, you bastards!! Don't toy with a person like this—kill me and be done with it, XX!!'

On this day in the original story, Eusilif was reduced to a horrific wreck by Butcher Jack's axe, rolling across the arena floor.

'It's a monster!'

'A demon beast! Kill it—kill it now!'

The crowd stared in horror at the sight of him: an arm all but severed, and yet not only still alive, his wounds closing at a speed no human being could possess.

Butcher Jack snarled and hunted the unkillable man around the ring, swinging his axe with relentless obsession, until at last he severed Eusilif's left arm from his torso entirely. Even then, Eusilif did not die.

Spit and filth and stones flew without pause, and he—crawling across the dirt like an insect—had to take every last bit of it.

Princess Regita looked down upon the scene alongside the other nobles, laughing herself into hysterics.

'Oh, look at that sight! Ahaha, how utterly low!'

'Good heavens, could that slave truly be a demon beast?'

'No, not a demon beast.'

Regita's eyes gleamed as she preened.

'He's a quarter-elf.'

'A quarter-elf? My goodness. I'd heard the elven bloodlines had all but withered away… so there were survivors after all! But do elves possess an ability like that?'

'Not a full elf, I said—a quarter-elf. Some other nonhuman blood must have mixed in and produced a mutation like him. A starfish, no less—regeneration. Isn't it simply revolting?'

Recalling Regita cackling away in triumph, I felt a fresh surge of heat rise in my chest.

In the original story, Regita tormented Eusilif with a truly relentless cruelty.

Once she learned of his ability, she revealed it in the most brutal way possible, and from then on she exploited him with even greater viciousness.

She dragged him, bound like a beast, to every party and social gathering in the capital, deliberately cutting wounds into his body and offering his healing flesh up as entertainment for the guests.

And when toying with the increasingly broken Eusilif grew stale, she eventually handed him over to her own brother—Sota.

Then Sota sent Eusilif into the Closed Labyrinth as part of a vanguard unit, to suffer every horror it held.

Because his body regenerated, he was assigned to absorb the monsters' attacks with his own flesh—mapping their behavior and their weaknesses for the others.

He spent a private hell inside that labyrinth. Had it been anyone other than him, they would have died a hundred deaths over, and then a hundred more.

It was little wonder that Eusilif turned dark after enduring all of that. In fact, shortly before he met Dorothea, he was seized by madness and driven to the brink of slaughtering humans wholesale—a crisis that nearly consumed him.

'If you want to avoid that future, you have to win today's match. And for that, you have to believe me.'

I bit my lip against the rising tide of dread.