THUMP, THUMP, THUMP.

Listening to his heart pound like mad, Yuto looked up above the wall. Crimson sat alone in the empty stands, gazing down with an eerie smile.

The situation itself was no different from when Yuto had first stepped into the colosseum. Everyone inside had to struggle for the sake of a single spectator.

But unlike Evil, who had been their audience last time, Crimson had spoken with unspeakable cruelty.

She would let them live if they entertained her. In other words, if they failed to entertain Crimson, they would die. The lives of the more than one hundred gladiators in the colosseum rested entirely on her mood.

No, not just the gladiators. Crimson sat comfortably, swirling her glass, but her scarlet whip never stopped moving. Before the staff guarding the entrances to the stands could flee, the whip seized them and hurled them into the colosseum, just as it had Evil.

"L-Lady Crimson...?"

Evil trembled as she called her name, but Crimson did not answer. Those red eyes paid her no particular attention. Crimson was looking at the colosseum itself. Everything within it. Evil, the jailers, the gladiators from the different leagues, the Evomon—such distinctions did not exist for her.

A shudder ran through Evil's entire body. After her fear of Crimson came excitement at finding herself on a stage Crimson had created. Breathing hard, Evil swept a hand through the air.

"Aaaaargh!"

A blade of wind sliced through a gladiator who had yet to figure out what he should do. Blood and entrails spilled to the ground.

Everyone turned toward Evil, aghast at the sudden murder. Yet she was not looking at the corpse she had made. She was beaming up at Crimson.

"I-I will entertain you. Since that is what you desire...!"

If the performance Evil had intended to present did not meet Crimson's standards, then naturally, she would have to take the stage herself. Evil wanted to see Crimson, whom she so deeply admired, laughing with delight.

And she was confident she could make that happen. All the gladiators gathered here were mere commoners and paupers who had never even formed a contract with a constellation. Vermin found everywhere across the continent of Callisto—so common that no one cared if they disappeared. Worthless things without the protection of the constellations above, hardly deserving to be called fellow humans. They did not even have weapons.

And Evil? She had been born into a noble family and chosen by a constellation in a ceremony at the age of twelve. Not only that, she had studied magic since childhood.

The loss of the chokers was no problem at all. After all, she was the most exceptional person standing in the colosseum.

"Aaaaah!"

Evil's first murder transformed the atmosphere in the colosseum. Gladiators roared and lunged at whoever stood nearby. At last, they understood what they had to do. What they had to do to survive. If they did not kill someone else, the monster above would kill them.

Yuto stood motionless, glaring at Crimson. Even without his memories, he was certain. He knew that woman. That monster. At the same time, terrible disgust and hatred welled up inside him.

He wanted to kill her. He had to kill her.

'No. No, I...'

His head hurt as though it would split apart. In the middle of the colosseum, where howls mingled with screams and death blossomed all around him, Yuto saw a scene that was not the present.

'I... killed that... monster.'

In the heart of the hell that monster had desired and created, where beings prolonged their lives by killing one another, he had cut off her head. And with that, he had brought that hell crashing down.

'I did...?'

A past he could not place. No—was it the future? The scene that came to him was fragmentary, broken into disconnected pieces. It only left Yuto more confused. How could someone as utterly weak as him have killed that monster?

"Aaaaaah!"

A roar came from close by. Someone was trying to kill Yuto while he was lost in thought. Before he could react, Rugil hurried over from nearby and blocked the attacker.

It was a lower-league gladiator Yuto had seen several times before. His face twisted with fear and desperation, he grabbed Rugil's shoulders.

"Get out of the way, you one-eyed bastard!"

His reason for attacking was simple. Yuto was the most promising newcomer in the lower league to which he belonged. The last person he wanted to face in a match was standing there in a daze, for reasons he could not fathom.

So he had attacked. Going after a higher-league gladiator would only get him killed for nothing.

"Hey, snap out of it!"

Gaon shouted shrilly. He limped over and grabbed Yuto's shoulder, worry in his voice. Far from attacking Yuto, both he and Rugil were looking out for him.

"Why didn't you attack me?"

Yuto asked, looking into Gaon's face. Gaon gave him an incredulous look and let go of his shoulder.

"What do you mean, why? You're the strongest of us! Why would we attack you when we know that perfectly well?"

Gaon's answer was simple and perfectly reasonable. His leg had yet to heal completely, and the same went for Rugil's eye. Even when uninjured, both had more losses than wins to their names. The only opponents in the colosseum they stood a chance against were the prospective gladiators—the slaves who had yet to become fighters.

Or those with worse injuries. Gaon swallowed hard and looked their way.

People tended to think alike. There were many others besides Gaon who had attacked opponents they could be certain of beating.

"Ghhrr..."

Gedrick, whose ankle Yuto had severed, already lay dying with his neck broken. Beside him, the gladiator who had killed him was being strangled by another gladiator.

"W-weapons..." Gaon stammered.

"We need weapons. Wh-where's your sword?"

"In the waiting-room cabinet."

Yuto answered as he calmed his pounding heart. He glanced at the waiting room. Its barred gate was closed. Seeing the same thing, Gaon's face filled with despair.

"Fuck, why didn't you bring it?!"

"They didn't open it for me."

Yuto answered flatly and strode forward. Even as they spoke, Rugil was still locked in a contest of strength with the gladiator he had blocked.

"Thanks."

With that, Yuto stepped between them. Once. His fist moved.

THWACK!

Struck squarely on the jaw, the gladiator's eyes lost focus, and he crumpled to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.

"I'll get us weapons. Stay alive until I get back."

"W-weapons? Where? The gate's already closed..."

"Then I'll take them from someone who's armed."

Yuto's voice was icy.

The assembled gladiators had not been given weapons, but there were armed people among them.

The jailers who oversaw them. Flung down here by Crimson, they were wielding their weapons without hesitation against the gladiators normally in their charge. They, too, were struggling to survive.

'I can't die here.'

He did not want to die before he could even remember who he was. He must not die.

'There's something I have to do.'

Though he did not know what that was, either. Biting his lower lip, Yuto moved forward. As he went, he glanced toward something that was troubling him.

The Mad Fox.

The other Evomon were attacking it. The Mad Fox, which rampaged mindlessly and killed every opponent, was their common enemy. None dared face it alone, but together, they could kill it. Having reached that conclusion, the Evomon had decided to eliminate the most dangerous among them first.

But it did not look easy. True to its name, the Mad Fox resisted, spewing flames like mad. Even with a dozen or so Evomon attacking together, they could do little more than contain it.

The mad thought came to him that he had to help the Mad Fox. But for an unarmed human to intervene in a battle between Evomon would be suicide.

'Those Evomon can't kill it.'

Strangely, he felt certain of that, too. Barely holding it back was the best they could do. Before long, the Mad Fox would break free of them.

That was what Yuto believed.

'First, I need a weapon.'

Turning away from the Mad Fox, Yuto headed toward a jailer he knew, one with whom he had a score to settle.

The jailer from the prison where he had first awakened. The one who had kicked him in the stomach for being ill-mannered while he was still confused about everything.

The jailer, whose name he did not even know, was busy killing the slaves in his charge. He, too, was struggling to stay alive.

"Uhh, uhhh..."

Jackie was still alive. He lay beneath the corpse of a slave boy who had been cut down earlier, trembling with a hand clamped over his mouth.

He caught sight of Yuto approaching. Yuto saw Jackie, too. The corpse sprawled over him belonged to the boy who had said he had been imprisoned the longest—the boy who had fought Yuto to the very end.

"..."

Looking at Jackie's terrified eyes and the dead slave boy's unfocused ones, Yuto's gaze grew dull and dark.

Just as the jailer's sword was about to fall on a bloodied slave, Yuto intervened. The jailer's swordsmanship was incomparably better than that of the gladiators Yuto had fought in the colosseum, but to Yuto himself, the difference did not feel significant.

By his instinctive standards, swordsmanship of this caliber was inadequate. A hand darted into the path of the descending slash and seized the jailer's wrist.

"Huh...?"

The jailer had not even noticed Yuto approaching. That was how quietly Yuto had moved, and how boldly he acted once he intervened. Yuto yanked the captured wrist toward him and twisted the joint.

"Ghhh?!"

The jailer's thick wrist twisted with pitiful ease. Yuto snatched the sword as it fell from his suddenly weakened hand.

THUD!

The hilt slammed into the jailer's solar plexus.

"Gah!"

The jailer's mouth gaped open. Yuto drew back the hilt. Doubled over, the jailer staggered backward.

"Y-you...!"

His bulging eyes fixed on Yuto. Without a word, Yuto swung the sword.

SLASH!

A clean cut, but not a deep one. It did not need to be. Yuto's blade sliced precisely one-third of the way through the jailer's neck.

"Ghh... ah...!"

Bloody froth welled up in the jailer's mouth. Unable to stand any longer, he dropped to his knees. He clutched his slashed throat, but it was useless. Yuto had made a shallow cut through the artery. Now he would bleed profusely until he died.

"Jackie."

Yuto turned away from the jailer.

"Stay still."

They were the same words Jackie had heard before. Keeping his hand over his mouth, he nodded rapidly.

"You—you crazy bastard!"

For the first time, a jailer had been killed. It enraged the others. Not because they felt any loyalty to him. Gladiators or not, these men were still slaves. A slave killing a jailer was something that must never happen.

Especially here, on a stage created by Crimson Ringmistress. If a slave who should have been helplessly slaughtered dared kill a jailer, Crimson would naturally take notice of him.

That was even more unacceptable. Three jailers joined forces and charged at Yuto.

First, they would kill that slave trying to distinguish himself, then dispose of the others. After that, they would kill Evil, the one responsible for this whole fucking mess. There was no reason to obey her orders anymore.

That crazy bitch was rampaging around, attacking not just the other slaves but the Evomon as well. She might have a constellation's protection and the ability to use magic, but that power was not limitless. Running wild like that, she would wear herself out eventually.

Then they would kill Evil, and after that—

'After that?'

The thought suddenly occurred to a jailer as he charged Yuto and swung his sword. To think about what came afterward, he first had to survive that long.

If he did not survive, there was no need to think about afterward.

'Ah.'

The reason that thought had occurred to him was that thinking about what came next had become futile. The light faded from the jailer's eyes as his throat was cut. Yuto passed his body as it toppled forward, guiding his sword onward.

He severed another jailer's wrist. He had not cut his throat because there had been no opening. So he had cut off the hand to create one. There was no need to rush into that wide-open gap. With his hand gone, the man could no longer attack.

Instead, Yuto dealt with the sword coming from his left. A slight step carried him clear of the slash, and he spun, swinging his blade.

SLASH!

The jailer screamed as the sword cut into his side.

In an instant, one man was dead and two had suffered mortal wounds. Just as Yuto was about to finish them off, a chill ran through him.

His body flinched and stiffened under an intense gaze.

"Hmm."

It was Crimson's gaze. Lowering the glass she had been about to bring to her lips, she rested her chin on her hand and stared intently at Yuto.

"There's an odd one in the mix."

Crimson murmured with a chuckle.