A foul stench assaulted his nose.

Rotting straw, excrement, and bodies that had gone unwashed for far too long. The smell clawed through his nostrils and churned his stomach, making the boy hold his breath without thinking.

"Ah...?"

His head throbbed. Lying on the floor, the boy clutched his head and groaned. The floor against his back was cold and damp, and his entire body ached as though he had been beaten.

"Ugh...!"

After a long bout of groaning, his headache slowly subsided. He squeezed his eyes shut and gasped for air. The stench seeped into his lungs with every breath, but he could hardly stop breathing.

When even his labored breathing had settled, his senses gradually returned. Young voices were sobbing and sniffling. With difficulty, the boy opened his eyes and looked around.

The first thing he saw was a set of rusty iron bars. He was inside a windowless cell. The only light came from torches beyond the bars.

Boys in rags sat slumped inside the cell. Huddled and trembling, their bodies painfully thin, most had eyes clouded with despair and terror. Others, whose eyes held not even those emotions, stared blankly at the ceiling or out through the bars.

'Where... am I...? '

The newly awakened boy wondered dazedly. He had no memories from before he had opened his eyes. Why was he locked in a cell like this? He did not even know that.

'Why?'

The question lingered. Clutching his head, he groped through the blank space where his memories should have been. A stab of pain. As he tried to force his way through the memories that would not come, his head began to hurt again, as though it would split apart. At the same time, an emotion began bubbling up from deep within his chest.

He could not remember why he was imprisoned here. But he knew what the feelings boiling in his chest were.

Rage and hatred. He did not know whom they were directed at. What he did know was that deep within his chest lay rage and hatred far too vast for a boy to bear. Gritting his teeth, he sat up.

THUD, THUD.

Footsteps sounded outside the bars. The boys' sobbing cut off abruptly. Trembling violently, they shrank into themselves, their terrified eyes darting toward the outside of the cell.

Torchlight cast shadows around a figure descending the stairs. A huge, muscular man with a shaggy beard swaggered down. Swigging straight from a bottle, his red nose flaring, he approached the cell. His eyes lit up when he saw the boy awake.

"What's this? You're awake? Came down to see if you'd croaked. Guess I won't have to haul out a corpse."

The brute grinned, exposing yellow teeth. The boy stared blankly at him, then parted his parched lips.

"Where... is this...?"

His voice was so cracked that it barely sounded like his own. The brute snickered at his bewilderment.

"Where do you think, you little shit? Got eyes, don't you? It's a cell. A cell."

"Why... am I... here?"

"Still half asleep? Or is your fucking head broken?"

Tilting his head, the brute pulled a bunch of keys from inside his clothes, unlocked the barred door, and stepped inside. The terrified boys hurriedly scooted backward until their backs were pressed against the wall.

Only the boy kept his head raised, looking up at him. Meeting that gaze, the brute grinned again, baring his yellow teeth.

"Looks like the new kid hasn't been taught his place."

THWACK!

The brute's kick slammed into the boy's solar plexus. He flew backward and tumbled across the floor, choking and retching up bile. Striding over, the brute seized him by the hair.

"Listen here, you little shit. This is a cell, and everyone in it is a slave. Why are you here? Because we fucking picked you up and tossed you in here. That's why."

The brute gulped liquor from his bottle and let out a long belch.

"You ought to be grateful, you little shit. Your parents dumped you anyway. You'd have frozen to death naked in that forest or gotten eaten if we hadn't picked you up. Even those fucking rags you're wearing—we gave you those."

He tapped the boy's cheek twice with his bottle and whispered.

"So show some fucking gratitude. Who do you think you are, holding your head up and staring at your betters? Know your place. Cower like those other little shits without being told."

THWACK!

The bottle that had been tapping his cheek struck him across the face. The brute spat onto the boy's back as he lay sprawled on the floor, then glared at the other slaves.

"You little fucks! When the new kid wakes up, you're supposed to teach him his place! Do I have to spell out something that fucking obvious?"

"S-s-sorry, we're sorry...!"

The slaves pressed their foreheads to the floor, stammering their apologies. After glaring at them with murderous eyes, the brute whirled around and left the cell.

"If that little shit's still staring me down next time, I'll gouge out one of your eyes. Fucking brats. I feed you and give you a place to sleep, and you can't even be grateful..."

With that, the jailer climbed the stairs. Only when his footsteps could no longer be heard did the slaves raise their heads. A few hurried over to the boy.

"Hey...! Y-you heard him, right? Next time... keep your eyes down when the jailer comes. Don't speak unless he asks you something...!"

"Ugh..."

Clutching his kicked stomach, the boy struggled upright. Blood streamed from his split lip, and the bile he had vomited left a foul taste in his mouth.

"A... slave? Me?"

"Shit, you still don't get it? Don't you know what a slave is?"

"You're lucky, though. For someone dragged in here, you don't look like you've got any lasting injuries... And you look like you ate well, too... That's why he didn't punish you too badly."

Unlike the other slaves, who were skeletal and covered in bruises, the boy was in good physical condition. That made him valuable merchandise.

"Anyway... if you want even one extra piece of bread in here, you have to do what the jailer says... G-got it?"

"What's your name, anyway?"

His name.

Clutching his aching stomach, the boy thought about his name.

"... Yuto."

That name alone surfaced in his empty mind.

There were no other memories.

* * *

Over the three days since awakening in the cell, he had learned a few things.

The only thing he could remember about himself was his name: Yuto. Nothing else came back to him. Why was he in this cell? Where had he been, and what had he been doing before coming here? No matter how hard he thought, no answers came.

Perhaps his head really was broken, as the jailer had said. Hadn't they said they found him lying naked in the middle of some unknown forest?

"They say people forget things when something too awful happens to them."

Jackie, a skinny slave boy, spoke with his lips working uncertainly.

"Maybe that's what happened to you. You said you can't remember anything except the name Yuto, right? Maybe being abandoned by your parents... was so awful that you forgot."

Jackie was the only person in the cell who had told Yuto his name. It was not because Jackie was especially kind.

It was because he was the smallest and youngest of the slave boys. If the jailer was dissatisfied with the newcomer's training on his next visit, Jackie would be singled out from among the slaves to have his eye gouged out.

"I've been here a week. The boy who's been here longest has been here a month," Jackie whispered.

"They just keep us locked up. They don't make us do anything else. The jailer beats us depending on his mood, but you get hit less if you stay quiet and keep your eyes down. Know what I mean? Don't draw attention to yourself."

Meals came twice a day: musty bread so tough it made their jaws ache, and a pale soup made from unidentifiable ingredients.

The cell housed fifteen people, but there was only one toilet, and even that was nothing more than a hole. Once a day, the jailer brought a bucket and filthy rags, which the slaves used to clean both themselves and the toilet.

Naturally, cleaning the toilet fell to Yuto, the newest arrival. Even for a cell meant to hold slaves, the conditions were appalling.

'They're conditioning us.'

Though his name was all he could remember, Yuto sensed that these conditions were meant to break the boys' spirits. Being locked in a place like this wore away at their minds until the jailer's footsteps alone could make them wet themselves.

'The longest anyone's been here is a month. They keep us locked up without making us do anything, just breaking our spirits. So we'll obey whatever orders they give us later.'

But what exactly would those orders be? The question occurred to him, but every slave in the cell was as ignorant as Yuto. And he could hardly ask the jailer.

"Get out."

On the third night, at the time their meal would normally have arrived, the jailer opened the cell door. He was not drunk as usual, nor was he carrying a bottle.

"Follow me. Try anything, and you're dead."

His face was twisted into an expression even more vicious than when he was drunk, and his voice was full of murderous intent. As if to prove this was no empty threat, he held a menacing blade.

Worn down in body and mind by their confinement in the squalid cell, the slaves did not dare disobey. No shackles bound their hands or feet, but the conditions and violence they had endured had become invisible shackles on their minds. Trembling, they walked after the jailer.

Yuto followed them, glancing back as he walked. The stairs led upward. Even if he sprinted at full speed, he doubted he could escape. He did not know what lay at the top, or whether the stairs actually led outside.

'I'll follow for now.'

He could not attempt an escape just yet.

They arrived at a large iron door. When the jailer opened it, a broad open space spread out before them. Tension showed in his breathing. Following his long strides, the slaves stole glances around them.

'A colosseum...?'

The circular space was enclosed on all sides by high walls. Spectator seats lined the tops of the walls, and a blonde woman in lavish clothes stood leaning against a railing.

"Fifteen in total."

The jailer spoke cautiously, looking up at the woman.

"Is that the one? The boy you found lying naked in the forest?"

The woman grinned, pointing a ringed finger at Yuto.

"Quite a pretty face. Some noblewoman's plaything she got tired of and threw away?"

"Seems his mind's broken. Doesn't know anything except his own name."

"Really? Well, it doesn't matter. A slave's past isn't important."

The woman surveyed the slaves and waved.

"Hello. You're all hungry, aren't you?"

The meals in the cell consisted of a piece of bread and watery soup, twice a day. Today, they had only been fed once. Everyone's stomach growled with hunger, but the slaves did not dare answer. They merely trembled with anxiety.

"I bet you'd like a proper bath, too. Ugh, I can smell you all the way up here. You're worse than a sewer."

The woman snickered, pinching her nose.

"You'd like a good night's sleep in a bed instead of on the floor, wouldn't you? With a pillow under your head and blankets over you. Just imagine it. Eating your fill, taking a bath, falling asleep in a bed, and waking up there. That'd be fucking wonderful, wouldn't it? Hmm?"

As she continued, the slaves began raising their eyes toward her one by one. Even an idiot could see it.

That woman could grant them everything she had just described.

"One."

She raised her index finger and wagged it from side to side.

"I'll give it all to just one of you. The last one standing."

The slaves gaped at her words. Their dulled minds left them incapable of thinking creatively. The woman laughed loudly at their hesitation.

"What are you waiting for? I said only the last one standing gets it."

"Aaaah!"

The first to understand and act was the slave who had spent the longest in the cell, deprived of everything until he could bear no more.

THWACK!

His fist slammed into another slave's jaw.

"Ah, aaaah!"

"Yaaah!"

That was the beginning. The fifteen slaves lunged at one another for proper food, baths, beds, and sunlight.

"Waaah!"

Jackie was no different. Eyes wide, he swung a fist at Yuto, who stood nearby.

WHOOSH.

The punch he had thrown with all his strength cut uselessly through empty air. It was a reckless attack, with no thought for what came after the swing. His own fist's momentum pulled him off balance, and he stumbled before falling flat on his face.

His chin hurt where it had struck the ground. With tears welling in his eyes, Jackie looked up at Yuto. Having dodged the attack with the slightest twist of his body, Yuto was staring into empty air in bewilderment.

[Starting Quest.]

[Escape from this place.]

[Reward: ???]

A pitch-black screen floated in the air.