"A single blow is enough no matter who confronts me; what a grand statement. Less wouldn't be expected from the arena's first and only victorious orc anyway."
While Marcos muttered quietly, the spectators, just recovering their senses, were looking at the back of Alyon, who was leaving the arena through the gate he came in. The orc had not only achieved the first victory but had done so by hitting his opponent only once.
"Let the next fight begin!"
Quintus, leaping from his seat with fury, was shouting at his employees, while the two childhood friends were looking at each other and laughing.
"Did you enjoy that very much? Whichever school that dead incompetent belonged to, I guarantee his warriors won't fight in this arena again. You were just lucky, Niko; don't get carried away immediately!"
"Okay, okay, calm down. You said luck, right? What if the orc wins again, what happens then?"
Although Niko seemed like he wanted to calm his angry friend down, he didn't refrain from rubbing salt into his open wound.
"Now that makes me laugh, old friend. That orc will face a real gladiator and emerge victorious? That is impossible!"
"I will bet fifty thousand gold that it will happen!"
Marcos made his offer by interrupting while the elders were speaking, but his action would thoroughly enrage Quintus.
"Fernandez, your kid is a complete blabbermouth just like you. He has no idea where and how to speak!"
The leader of the Cervantes family didn't approve of his child's action, but he didn't intend to let this fatso, whose childhood he knew, walk all over him either.
"They say fathers resemble their sons, Quintus. From what I heard, yours lost a bet he got into at the slave market the other day. I guess Niko is the luckiest among us in this regard; thanks to his world-beautiful daughter, he always knows how to come out profitable!"
While the atmosphere slowly tensed up, the ranks of the noble families were casting spiteful glances at each other. Meanwhile, the City Lord, who always acted as if indifferent to what was happening, would say without turning his back, "That orc caught my interest too; why don't you make him fight again?"
Although Quintus always adopted an attitude seeing himself as superior, when the subject was the City Lord, he turned into a docile watchdog.
"Very well said, sir. I am giving instructions immediately for him to fight with an experienced gladiator!"
The chubby man, moving with quick steps towards where the warriors were located to solve the matter personally, stopped at the head of the stairs upon hearing his name.
"Dear Uncle Quintus, the bet I placed on the orc is still valid. Wouldn't it be a pity if no one sensible appeared against a blabbermouth like me?"
Marcos was young in age, but he wasn't about to let anyone bully him. As a result of the City Lord indirectly supporting the bet, he decided to go after Quintus who insulted him a moment ago.
"It would be good if I taught you a small lesson, but your father might not be very pleased with this business. I'm making the bet one hundred thousand gold; will your power suffice for this much?"
"His little nephew is always in need of learning something from this uncle of his, but I don't need my father to cover the bet; my own money is more than enough for this."
The young man wasn't taking even a single step back, even if the person facing him was the owner of the arena.
"I didn't expect to find a very valuable ore here contrary to my guess!"
Nafız murmured while looking at Marcos, who cornered someone older than him with his diplomatic style and agile answers.
The ordinary people sitting far from the area where the city's notables were located continued to have fun watching the ongoing fights. The leader of the Agustus family, on the other hand, was in search of an opponent for the giant orc since he couldn't bring out a gladiator from his own school.
A short while later, Quintus, coming to the side of his wife possessing enchanting beauty, turned to his friends with a huge smile on his face and spoke.
"In a moment, I will watch your luck abandon you!"
"Nafız, will your friend be able to escape death this time too?"
"Do not worry, little lady. No matter who his opponent is, he won't die that easily!"
Nafız gave a confident answer to the question asked with a timid voice by the young girl watching the matches in her palanquin covered with tulles.
As per the plan the two comrades made before coming to Parthenia, unless it was a life-or-death situation, everyone would look after themselves. Nafız had already understood that her friend wasn't in any danger against the warriors present in the arena.
"Antuan! Antuan! Antuan!"
When the crowded people shouted his name in unison, a handsome gladiator with two swords in his hands stepped onto the blood-soaked sands. With his skin darkened by the sun and bare upper body, he was blowing the minds of the female spectators.
The striking gladiator riled up the people with a few small sword tricks and flamboyantly saluted the place where the noble families and the city lord were. On the other hand, Alyon was coming to the middle of the arena dragging the wood in his hand on the ground.
"Quintus, you should have put your school's champion against the orc. Wouldn't Antuan be a bit weak?"
Fernandez didn't miss the opportunity to make fun of his friend who put a gladiator who made a name for himself in the arena against the orc.
"No crying; you should have thought about the end of this business while father and son were puffing up!"
While Quintus was answering back to his friends, his son Epiphanes looked tense. Others might attribute this to his father's bet, but he had also made a bet from the family budget without telling anyone.
"Fatted ox escaped from the slaughterhouse! Don't fear at all; you won't even understand how you died!"
Antuan aimed to provoke the orc watching the surroundings with blank eyes into attacking, but his opponent didn't resemble any of the orcs he fought before.
When the flamboyant gladiator finished his words, Alyon opened his huge mouth, pushed his two giant front teeth forward, and yawned for a long time. When the orc closed his mouth after throwing the stick from his hand as he did in the first fight, he turned to the gladiator calling out to him and answered.
"Are you talking to me?"
Antuan, the beloved boy of the arena, lost it when he heard the laughter coming from the stands. His opponent was just a retarded orc, but he had shown the audacity to humiliate him in front of the people.
Antuan, starting to swing both his swords with the desire to kill, didn't let his guard down against the move his opponent would make either. Slash! Stab! Slash! Stab! When lethal blows rained down on him, Alyon had fallen into a difficult situation.
While retreating with slow and small steps, sweat droplets were appearing on the side of his face. Antuan got really into it as he continued the fight at a point where his opponent couldn't retaliate, and he got more and more excited with the magic of the cheers coming from the arena.
In the moments he decided there was no need to defend, he planned a combined attack to finish the job.
While making a stabbing motion from waist level with the sword he held in his right hand, he took a position to strike from top to bottom with the sword in his left hand.
Alyon was waiting for this move. Going onto the sword about to plunge into his torso, he trapped his adversary's right arm between his left arm and torso.
While everyone thought Antuan would prune the orc with the sword in his left hand, Alyon joined the fingers of his right hand and delivered a strike to his enemy's torso practically like a spear.
After the exchange of blows happening in the blink of an eye, a sword slowly fell to the ground. Antuan was saluting the arena by turning around as he always did, but this time there was a small difference.
An arm as thick as a tree branch had pierced his torso, and the shadow of the finger pointing to the sky had fallen on his face. Alyon was nonchalantly celebrating his victory while his opponent, whose body touched his shoulder, was agonizing on top of him.