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[Translator - Hestia]
[Proofreader - Starfall ]
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Chapter 02: The Underworld Arena (1)
“Hey, snap out of it.”
Tap, tap—!
Someone was patting my shoulder, trying to wake me up.
I forced my heavy eyelids open and glanced around.
As my spinning vision slowly stabilized, the scenery around me came into focus.
“….”
A filthy, damp underground prison.
Dozens of slaves sat hunched over in rows, utterly lifeless.
Their wretched appearance, like they hadn’t eaten in days, made it immediately clear how dire this place was.
“You’re finally awake. You weren’t moving at all—I thought you were dead.”
Rustle—
I turned my head toward the man who woke me.
A sturdily built man—
Unlike the other feeble-looking slaves, he had a surprisingly solid frame.
Sven.
That was his name.
He was the one who had been sneaking me food while we were locked up.
Thanks to his help, I’d managed to avoid starving over the past five days.
“Anyway, you’d better get ready. Looks like the match is about to begin.”
“…Match?”
“Yeah. Can’t you hear it? The cheering from the crowd?”
I focused my ears.
Just as he said, faint roars of excitement could be heard in the distance.
Right… it’s been five days since I woke up in this prison. Guess that event’s finally starting.
Tap, tap—
“Anyway, stay sharp, my friend. If you can survive this match, you just might make it out of this living hell.”
Sven gave me a lopsided grin, then busied himself waking the other slaves.
I watched his retreating figure, dazed, and let out a deep sigh.
“Haaah…”
The Underworld Arena.
A brutal place where games of blood and flesh are held.
And in those games, the slaves are the expendables—used up purely for the spectators’ enjoyment.
Deprived of all dignity, they’re treated worse than beasts until their final breath.
No wonder Sven calls this place a living hell.
In the face of such bleakness, I couldn’t help but sigh again.
Though honestly, I’d called this place something else not even three days ago.
“Tutorial Point.”
A zone I’d stepped into hundreds of times through the screen of a game.
“…”
Right.
It’s been five days already.
Time to face reality.
I’ve somehow ended up inside the very game I used to love playing.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Strength: 1
Agility: 1
Endurance: 1
Magic: 1
Perception: 1
…
【Hidden Mastery】
Weapon Arts
Sword: Lv. MAX
━━━━━━━━━━━━
…And of course, I’m stuck in the body of that garbage “joke character” I created just for laughs.
If there’s one silver lining, it’s that the story seems to be following the original game script.
In Loel, every time you started a new run with a sword-based character, you’d always wake up here: the Underworld Arena.
As someone who had played through 200 runs, I knew this place inside and out. Which is exactly why my heart sank even deeper.
…Because no matter what you do, this place is impossible to escape.
The absolute security.
The architecture, designed to ensure no one could ever run.
The relentless cruelty of the overseers, creating an environment so harsh that no slave would ever even dream of escaping.
In the game, the Underworld Arena was one of the most hopeless zones—escape was not an option.
That’s why I hadn’t even tried to do anything these past five days.
There was simply no point.
Especially not with this frail-ass body.
That was honestly the biggest issue.
I had no strength left in me.
My head felt like it was filled with bricks, my vision constantly blurred and spun.
Sure, it might’ve been from surviving off the meager scraps Sven had brought me…
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Lv. 1
━━━━━━━━━━━━
…but my level alone told me that wasn’t the only reason.
“…”
I slowly looked around.
Above the heads of the other slaves, I could now see the familiar faint overlays I’d only ever seen through a monitor.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Lv. 7
Lv. 6
Lv. 8
━━━━━━━━━━━━
In Loel, the average level for a healthy adult male was about 10.
Even these half-dead slaves were all above level 5.
And me?
Level 1.
Every stat in my status window—Strength, Magic, even the hidden ones—was just a wall of 1s.
1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1…
No wonder I can’t even stand properly.
Suddenly, a message I’d seen a few days ago flashed through my mind.
〔Warning: This character’s stats are not viable for normal gameplay.〕
Why the hell didn’t I listen to the system?
If I’d known it would come to this, I would’ve just balanced my stats.
Now it was too late for regrets.
The only thing I have left to rely on is… this.
I turned my eyes to the bottom of the status window—
To the 12-star mythic skill I’d earned by sacrificing every stat this body had.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
【Soul of the Swordmaster】
Grade: ★★★★★★★★★★★★ (12-star – Mythic Tier)
Type: Toggle Skill (On/Off)
Cost: 100 mana per second
━━━━━━━━━━━━
…Why the hell is this unusable?
For some reason, the 12-star skill, which should be glowing with a prismatic shine, was dulled to a murky gray.
Unusable.
Since the moment I woke up in prison, 【Soul of the Swordmaster】 had stayed in that inactive state.
Don’t tell me it’s because my MP is only 1?
According to the tooltip, the skill required 100 mana per second.
But I only had… 1.
Basic math: I could use it for maybe 0.01 seconds—if it even activated at all.
If it’s really unusable because of my mana stat…
Then I’d wasted every last point on a skill I literally couldn’t even activate.
“Goddamn it.”
I cursed under my breath.
And with good reason—
Bang—!
The brutal tutorial that was about to unfold would be impossible to survive in this pathetic state.
“On your feet, you worthless maggots!”
The iron bars slammed open, and half a dozen guards stormed into the prison.
They cracked their whips viciously as they drove the slaves to their feet.
I thought to myself: It’s finally starting.
The Tutorial.
An event triggered five days after a player spawns in the Underworld Arena.
It meant the real story of Loel was finally beginning.
“What’re you waiting for? Move, dammit!”
CRACK—!
Suddenly, a flash of blinding pain struck my back.
One of the guards had whipped me across the spine.
“Ghhhk!”
That hurt.
That really fucking hurt.
With a body this frail, even the smallest hit felt like getting slammed by a truck.
My vision went fuzzy.
But I couldn’t just sit there.
Like the others, I scrambled to my feet and bolted away from the guards, dodging whips as I ran.
“Huff… haah…!”
Up ahead, a dim light marked the end of the corridor.
The closer we got, the louder the crowd’s roar became.
And then—
My vision opened up into a vast, open arena.
WOOOOOOAAAAHHHHHH—!
I froze in place and stared in awe.
“…Ah.”
A massive coliseum surrounded by tens of thousands of spectators.
The dirt floor, still wet with blood from the last match, was clouded with dust.
A few corpses still lay sprawled across the ground.
Then, a loud, cheerful voice boomed over the arena.
─And now, for today’s second match!
I turned toward the voice.
At the top of the stadium stood a one-eyed man holding a magical loudspeaker—clearly the announcer.
─Team One: Fifteen slaves from the Underworld Arena!
─Dragged into this hell for their unpaid debts, they now fight as gladiators for a chance at freedom!
─Survive this match, and they’ll not only be forgiven of their debts, but also receive a staggering reward of 100 million shillings from the Ruins Consortium!
Rusty weapons were scattered around the arena.
A few quick-thinking slaves scrambled to grab whatever they could.
Clang—!
At the same time, the gate on the opposite side of the arena slowly began to creak open.
The announcer bellowed the identity of our sole opponent.
─And now, standing alone against these 15 slaves… a living legend!
Gulp—
I swallowed dryly.
I already knew what he was going to say.
I’d seen this exact event hundreds of times in Loel.
─THE HUMAN BUTCHER—BARBAAA!!
The scene I’d only ever watched through a screen was now unfolding in real life.
THUD—!
The earth trembled.
A towering warrior—easily over three meters tall—stepped out of the dark corridor.
Clad in massive armor, wielding twin axes.
And above his head, the translucent window lit up:
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【Lv. 71】
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Level 71.
In Loel, level 90+ was considered the realm of the strongest in the world.
So a level 71 fighter like Barba the Human Butcher was more than enough to dominate this zone.
In the original game, Barba was known as the strongest gladiator of the Underworld Arena.
He wasn’t a slave like us.
He was a free man—an elite warrior hired by the arena.
ROOOAAAAARRRR—!
The crowd went wild at the sight of their star gladiator.
“Ah… ahhh…”
The slaves beside me went pale.
Some collapsed outright, their spirits crushed by the murderous pressure Barba exuded.
“Get it together, you bastards!”
A defiant voice rang out from among us.
It was the slave gripping a spear from the ground—
…Sven.
He bared his teeth and let out a defiant growl, locking eyes with the Human Butcher, Barba.
“We outnumber him! There’s just one of him and fifteen of us—if we take down that big bastard, we win our freedom!”
Freedom.
The moment that word was spoken, the atmosphere among the slaves shifted.
A flicker of hope returned to their eyes.
Their trembling hands tightened around the handles of their worn-out weapons, reigniting their will to live.
“….”
But watching them, all I could do was bite my lip.
Because I knew exactly how this tutorial was going to end.
…None of them are getting out alive.
Every slave who participates in this match dies.
No exceptions.
Even the player character is split clean in half by Barba’s twin axes.
WHISH—!
SPLURCH—!
The rowdy arena fell deathly silent in an instant.
A sound like a watermelon bursting rang out, followed by a splatter of thick, dark blood.
I turned my head.
A massive axe had cleaved Sven’s face clean down the middle.
THUD—
His body crumpled to the ground, lifeless.
Only then did the crowd erupt in a deafening roar.
WOOOOAAAAAHHHHH──!!
What followed was a one-sided massacre.
Barba lived up to his title, Human Butcher, as he swung his twin axes in a grisly spectacle for the audience.
Blood and guts sprayed across the arena.
The terrified slaves scattered, fleeing in every direction, only to fall one by one beneath his flying axes.
I could only stand and watch, my eyes trembling with dread.
My body won’t move…!
It wasn’t fear freezing me.
No matter how hard I tried to move, some unseen force—beyond the laws of physics—held me fast.
The Tutorial Cutscene.
To faithfully recreate the scene I’d only ever viewed from beyond the monitor, some unknown power was suppressing my actions.
…Right.
This is how the tutorial plays out.
The player—and the slaves—cannot defeat the Human Butcher, Barba.
It’s not just a level gap.
The game itself was hard-coded this way.
Veteran players had tried everything.
But no matter what you did, the moment Barba’s HP dropped below a certain threshold, the game would force a cutscene in which the player is executed.
It was a system-enforced death.
Inevitable.
Afterward, the player’s corpse is dumped into a pit—and by chance, a passing Necromancer finds it and revives the character as an undead.
That sequence served as narrative justification for the Retry mechanic, and the moment when the real story of Loel began.
“….”
But just because I knew the original story didn’t mean I was going to quietly accept death.
A game is one thing—this is reality.
And even if the narrative allows me to resurrect via the necromancer…
…I refuse to die here.
Because I have a very important reason why I must not die.
“Huff… huff…”
Of course, I wasn’t delusional.
Under normal circumstances, there’s no way someone like me—a mere level 1—could survive against that monster at level 71.
And the crowd knew it, too.
Out of the tens of thousands watching, not one person had even a flicker of hope for me.
But still… it’s not totally impossible.
Because—
Ding—!
〔Usable〕
The moment my hand gripped the handle of a rusted sword lying on the ground,
the long-dormant 12-star skill flared to life with a radiant, prismatic glow.
…So the activation condition was just holding a sword?
It wasn’t because my MP was too low.
It wasn’t because my strength or stamina were garbage.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
【Hidden Mastery】
Weapon Arts
Sword: Lv. MAX
━━━━━━━━━━━━
It was just that—
Having poured every last point into swordsmanship, the skill only activates when a sword is in hand.
“Haaah…”
Fffffwhoooosh—
At that moment, a soft chime echoed, and I felt control of my body return.
The cutscene was over.
I exhaled deeply and looked at the floating MP window in front of me.
〔MP: 1 / 1〕
0.01 seconds.
At a cost of 100 MP per second, that’s all the time I could maintain 【Soul of the Swordmaster】.
…Is that enough?
Could I really kill that monster with a 12-star skill in the blink of an eye?
I didn’t know.
There was only one way to find out: Use the skill directly on the Human Butcher, Barba.
“Grrgh…!”
I clenched the hilt tight and yanked the one-handed sword out of the dirt.
With my Strength stat at 1, just lifting the thing made my arms tremble uncontrollably.
Some spectators started laughing at the sight of me.
Even Barba, who was slaughtering the others off in the distance, glanced at me—
—and immediately looked away, as if I wasn’t even worth his time.
“…”
Yeah. Of course they’d laugh.
A starving slave draped in rags, struggling just to hold a sword—that’s the very definition of pathetic.
Still…
Please, let this be more than just a futile struggle.
Praying as though grasping at my last lifeline, I activated 【Soul of the Swordmaster】—
〔MP: 1 / 1〕
Tick—
〔MP: 0 / 1〕
KAAAAAAAAAA-BOOOOOOOM────!!
A thunderous roar tore through the sky and earth.
The sheer force of the wind that erupted made my eyes clamp shut.
My ragged clothes flapped violently, my hair whipped around in the storm.
Then, as quickly as it had come, silence returned to the arena.
I slowly opened my eyes—
“……!”
—And my heart nearly stopped.
Barba, who’d been across the arena just moments ago, was now standing right in front of me.
But that wasn’t the strange part.
My arms, both hands gripping the one-handed sword, were stretched straight forward.
And the tip of the rusted blade…
Drip… drop…
…had passed clean through Barba’s neck, now headless.
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[Translator - Hestia]
[Proofreader - Starfall ]
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