Chapter 6

Barbarian Quest

Chapter 6 – My Name is Urich (3)

Ankara’s Fight Arena. Despite it being a place for gambling, it was a legal establishment.

“It’s just throwing fists, right?”

Urich warmed up his body to relax his muscles.

“I’m going to say this one more time, man. You’re not allowed to kill them. Killing them is against the rules.”

Donau said those words again and again. He would pull out a drawing of a person’s neck being cut off then cross his arms to form an ‘X’.

“What do I do if they die from just a light tap? Well, you don’t understand me anyway.”

Urich giggled. He agreed to participate in the underground fighting arena after hearing that he can make a lot of money.

He had confidence.

‘The men here are weaker than me.’

They were all just idiots with decent bodies. This place was filled with weaklings who had never killed before. In his eyes, none of them were real men.

‘On the other hand, the women are amazing.’

Urich smiled while thinking about that wonderful night.

“Everything here starts with money and ends with money.”

Urich stepped onto the sand. He noticed that it was mixed with teeth from the previous gladiators. As he entered, he was greeted with both cheers and jeers.

“BOOOOO!”

“Isn’t he… that arm wrestler from yesterday?”

“I bet money on you!”

People yelled at Urich, but he ignored all of their gazes.

‘How should I spend the money this time? Well, first, I have to play a lot with the girls.’

As Urich thought about other things, the other combatant entered on the opposite side.

The gladiator was a man with mountain-like fists. He was a regular at the fight arena.

‘Should I buy an axe with the remaining money? The weapons made here are much stronger. They must have better metalworking skills.’

Urich thought hard.

Ding!

The bell signifying the start of the match rang. The opposing gladiator furiously ran at him.

“You’re facing me for your first match?! You unlucky bastard!” the gladiator screamed. Urich kicked the dirt and moved to the side.

‘A blow to the side.’

Urich flanked the warrior’s side. Even though the opponent was a gladiator in a fighting arena, he was unbelievably slow compared to wild beasts or the tribe’s warriors. This wasn’t a place where lives were on the line. In Urich’s eyes, there were no real warriors.

Urich thought of the knight he met at the Sky Mountain Range.

‘Pordgal Arten was a warrior who was prepared to die. It means that there must be people like that here.’

WHAAAM!

Urich properly held back his strength and hit the gladiator. People heard the sound of ribs being broken from the blow.

“If you’re lucky, you’ll live. If not, you’ll die.”

Urich raised his fist without even turning back. The gladiator’s eyes rolled over with his mouth frothing. People brought out a stretcher, laid the gladiator on it, and quickly ran out.

“W-Winner! Urich!”

Urich looked around with a bored expression. This wasn’t fun. If it weren’t for the money, he wouldn’t do this.

“What happened just now? It’s over in one hit?”

“Hey! You bastards! Give me back my money! This was staged, wasn’t it? It was staged, right?!”

“We just saw him frothing from the mouth. Staged, my ass.”

Members of the audience were yelling and fighting each other. Obviously, there were a lot of people who believed Urich would lose his first match.

“My man Urich won! Give me my money! Money!”

Donau was yelling at the fight arena manager, who then clicked their tongue and pulled out a coin purse.

“Tell him to drag out the match a bit next time. If a fight finishes quickly like that, we lose audience members.”

“I got it, I got it.”

Donau passingly nodded and snatched the coin purse.

‘100,000 cil from throwing a single punch.’

Urich couldn’t stop smiling.

“Let’s do it one more time!”

Donau raised his finger while looking at Urich.

Urich won three consecutive matches at the fight arena that day. All in all, they made 500,000 cil. They made an unbelievable amount for a single day’s work.

“KWAHAHAHA! You were amazing today! Urich, my man! Let’s keep going like this from now on!” Donau yelled while drinking alcohol.

Urich didn’t move a single finger and let the girls pour alcohol into his mouth.

“It really is heaven.”

Urich stared at the ceiling with his reddened face. By swinging his fists a few times, he made money. And with that money, he was able to eat food and drink alcohol. He was even able to embrace as many women as he wanted.

‘I was an idiot for running around and hunting in the fields.’

One of the girls poured more alcohol into Urich’s mouth. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he drank.

“We don’t have a lot of money to waste today, so don’t give him too much alcohol, ladies,” Donau warned them.

The prostitutes sauntered around the room with semitransparent clothing.

“Oh my, what about this, then?”

One of them brought out a hookah. Another put marijuana into it and lit it up.

Blub, blurb.

A prostitute put the pipe into her mouth, and smoke poured out of her nose and lips.

“Isn’t that the South’s cigarette? Marijuana?”

Donau’s eyes lit up.

“I’ll let you try it out for free this time, Mr. Donau.”

“Fufu. Your tricks are obvious, but I’ll fall for it this time.”

Donau ecstatically bit the pipe with his mouth. He inhaled the dense smoke, and his body felt like it was levitating.

“Hyungssi, you should try this too.”

Urich grabbed the end of the pipe and inhaled a lot of smoke.

‘This is…’

Urich’s eyes got wide. He knew this scent.

‘This was the thing that the hag was smoking.’

It was a different method of smoking, but the scents were similar. It was the herb that the shamans would smoke. All of them often smelled like that.

Warriors did not smoke it. At best, it was something that old warriors who were close to death would smoke. He didn’t know the reason, but marijuana was banned for the young warriors who were at their peak. It was regarded as something that was unwarrior-like.

‘It’s not half bad. The elders and shamans were smoking this by themselves?’

He felt relaxed. His bright eyes started to dull, unable to focus.

Alcohol was poured into his body like it was water, and even if he was full, food kept going in his mouth. The prostitutes’ whispers felt even sweeter.

“How is it, Champion of the Fight Arena?”

As the prostitute said that, she buried her face into Urich’s lower body.

“Not bad. Rather, it’s quite good,” Urich murmured to himself. After that, he left his body to the flow of pleasure. When he came to his senses, it was already morning.

* * *

* * *

The arena opened late at night. Urich would go there when it opened and fought to earn money. Afterwards, he would drink with the prostitutes all night. Whenever he woke up after playing all night long, it would already be the afternoon.

“Wake up, my man! It’s time to go make money.”

Donau woke Urich up. He treated Urich like he was his underling.

“Quiet. My head hurts. You don’t even understand what I’m saying anyway.”

Urich slowly lumbered up while grabbing his head. He was able to continue his life in Ankara thanks to Donau’s help. It was fun every day.

‘Is it the afternoon?’

The sun had already set quite a bit. His body felt heavy.

“Fuuu.”

Urich took a deep breath. He had a light meal with the leftover fruit.

“Are you up, Champion? This is a good luck charm.”

Smooch.

The prostitute’s red lipstick was on Urich’s cheek. Urich and Donau practically lived at the brothel at that point.

‘How long has it been?’

Urich thought to himself while leaving the red light district. About thirty days had passed. Maybe fifty? He never properly counted the days. He just repeated the motions day by day.

“Donau,” Urich called.

“What? Let’s go quickly. We have to make money today as well. We have a lot of tabs to pay back, so we can’t rest.”

Donau furrowed his brows. Because he didn’t think about spending in moderation, their daily spending slowly increased. They had tabs to pay back here and there and even borrowed money from Ankara’s loan sharks.

“Axe.”

Urich sat on the dirt floor and drew two handaxes.

“What? Do you want me to buy that for you? Where are you going to use them? Are you going to chop wood?”

“Axe.”

Urich pointed at the drawing again and emphasized it. Donau didn’t like it but nodded anyway.

“I’ll take you to the forge after we finish our work, so let’s go fight first.”

Urich and Donau arrived at the arena. The arena’s manager was waiting for Urich ahead of time.

“You guys finally arrived! Urich! Donau! I was waiting for you guys.”

The manager welcomed Urich, the star of the arena, The Undefeated Urich. He never lost, and people would go crazy whether he wins or loses.

“Let’s wrap this up fast and go!”

Donau spoke to Urich while massaging his shoulders.

‘You can’t lose. You’re my cash cow.’

Urich closed his eyes while receiving the massage. Even though he slept as much as he wanted to, his sluggishness didn’t go away.

“Ah, it’s starting,” Urich said while standing on the sand.

The opposing gladiator finally came into his vision.

‘He doesn’t look that strong. Should I just punch his jaw and end it?’

Urich kept thinking to himself as he stepped forward. His opponent charged into him.

BAM.

Urich looked at the opposing gladiator’s fist which had struck his torso.

‘I thought I dodged it.’

WHAM!

The opponent’s combo overwhelmed Urich.

“WHOAAAAAA!”

Urich raised his arms as a shield. He didn’t understand what was going on.

‘Did I get weaker?’

Alcohol, women, and marijuana. He had never lived such a hedonistic lifestyle. This was the first time he experienced having a dull body.

Urich was sixteen years old, was always strong, previously ran across the plains and forests to hunt, and often went to battle.

“This… Fuck.”

Urich was always calm in the arena knowing that he was overwhelmingly stronger than the other gladiators—as if he were a lion playing with mice.

However, today was different. Urich, right now, had no room to relax. He spat out curses and raged. His muscles stiffened up again. He did not hold back his strength.

CRUSH!

His fists landed square on the gladiator’s face, completely crushing its bones. An eyeball popped out from the impact.

“U-UWAAAH!”

“KYAAAK!”

And the audience exploded with screams.

Thud.

Everyone could tell that the fallen gladiator was dead. His face was gruesomely crushed. His optic nerves were severed and an eye rolled on the floor. It would have been equally horrifying if he were alive in that state.

Ankara’s arena was not a place where people fought to the death. It was an entertainment area where miners who were confident in their strength or thugs who enjoyed gambling would gather.

“Fuck, I killed him because I got mad.”

Urich wiped the blood off his hands like it was nothing.

“I told you, you can’t kill!”

Donau was jumping around. The problem became complicated. Someone died inside the city. Since there were a lot of witnesses, it could be confirmed that it was without malicious intent, but…

‘We won’t be able to go into the arena anymore. Fuck!’

That was the main reason why Donau was upset. The arena was his method of earning money. He only thought about the money that he would earn in the future and spent it needlessly. Because of that, he had a lot of tabs and debt to repay.

“Donau, Urich. Don’t come back for a while,” the arena manager said with a stern voice. They said it was only for a while, but this was permanent.

“What? You’re chasing us out? Because one person died? Oi, people sometimes die when you fight!”

Urich was yelling and running around. No one understood what he was saying, but they quickly understood that he was furious. Armed guards slowly came to the scene.

“Urich! Stop it! Let’s go!”

Donau hastily tried to stop him. If a fight ensued and Urich ended up killing one of those guards… they would really be in trouble.

‘That man is practically a living weapon.’

Donau knew of Urich’s true colors.

He thought of when he first met Urich. He was someone that treated human lives like they were flies.

Chills ran down his spine. Suddenly, he was terrified of Urich. The fear he had forgotten was slowly creeping back to him.

‘Is it time for me to end it with that man?’

Donau, a man who was a swindler by profession.

—————

—————