Depthless Hunger: A Progression LitRPG, page 25
In the end they reached a pit instead of a building. A varied audience sat on the upper levels, divided by fences from the lowest area. He could see several tunnels leading into the sides of the pit, as if it had once been some sort of mine. Most tunnels had been converted to pens and he could see monsters prowling within. More than anything else he had done, this was truly breaking the rules of Monskon City: monsters were to be exterminated, not used for entertainment.
Kai told himself that it was fine because he was coming to kill them. Truth be told, though, he was growing eager for the fight.
He'd given himself one day without physical training to make sure that his body was fully recovered. Was that enough? There was a strange density to his muscles and he honestly wasn't sure whether it was strain or weariness or injury. After so long being accustomed to pain and exhaustion, it was strange to feel so normal.
Then, as he was escorted toward the lowest level, the air began to tremble. He hadn't felt that sensation since he'd been at the Frontier and his eyes were inexorably drawn toward one of the largest tunnels.
The Isulfr lurked in the darkness, utterly still.
Chapter 43: The Monster Pit
"You came after all." The old man scratched at the scar across his scalp. "When you said a month, I figured you would run off."
"Why run off?" Kai pretended that he couldn't feel the monster warping the world from across the pit and just smiled. "All I've gotten from you is promises about how dangerous this creature is supposed to be."
"Oh, trust me, you'll get the challenge you want. But we can't start with that, and you agreed to participate in the entire event."
"Then can you explain the exact rules? I don't like how everyone seems to understand these underground events except me."
"What do you think this is, the Hunter Trials?" The old man snorted and then jerked his chin toward the audience surrounding the pit. "The only rules are that we draw things out, get the people to make a lot of bets. I'd prefer it if I didn't lose any hunters or monsters, since it really costs to replace them, but since the people like to see some blood..."
Other than showing him where to sit, the old man didn't give him any further information. It looked like he had a wide group of fighters, only some of them officially hunters. They all sat together on a lower ledge opposite the crowd, where it was only a short jump down to the bottom of the pit.
"Ladies and gentlemen!" The person calling out wasn't the old owner, but instead a handsome man in a golden tunic. "We have for you today another showcase of skill and savagery! Do you dare witness the wrath of the Frontier? Will you cheer for our brave hunters? Who will triumph, and who will fall in the pit?"
He went on, clearly intending to hype up the audience, but Kai stopped listening. The only relevant question for him was how the real monetary goal of the event would affect the challenges he faced. Judging from what the old man had said, he wanted to hook the audience and drain their money by giving them a show.
As the event finally started, a few of the weaker hunters were sent down into the pit. They had Power in the high single digits, but less training than he'd had when he entered the Hunter Trials. So, even though the twisted dogs they faced were among the weakest of monsters, they struggled to win. That might have been the point, given how the crowds cheered.
Kai had to suppress his instinct to jump in and finish things. These weren't fools, just citizens trying to make the best of what they had. He kept himself in place with the thought that this was at least a safer environment for them to gain combat experience than out in the wastelands.
Vendors were beginning to distribute food and alcohol. One walked through the hunters' section and Kai almost took some bread before realizing he'd need to pay exorbitant prices. So that was another way to drain the money of the audience. He didn't understand why people this poor were willing to pay extra for bread when they could bake better in the slums.
There didn't seem to be much rhyme or reason to the events, other than the handsome man always trying to make them sound more exciting than they actually were. Kai was inclined to ignore him, but ended up watching more closely. He noticed that the announcer occasionally looked to the scarred old man, who gave subtle hand signals, and then smoothly switched what he was saying.
Before he could watch too long, Kai was suddenly pushed toward the pit. The announcer wasn't talking about him, but apparently he had been signaled in some way. When Kai hopped down to the bottom, he realized that he had been sent alone.
Instead of focusing on the crazed crowds all around him, Kai just tested the ground with his boots and looked for any obstacles that weren't obvious from above. Nothing remarkable, just a few rough patches and a jagged outcropping that blocked off part of the pit from the rest. As the others began to winch open the gate that held the monstrous dogs, Kai flexed his gauntlets and then held his bow in position.
It looked like they were releasing half a dozen dogs against him alone. That suggested that the old man wanted something fundamentally different from this fight. The best strategy would be to shoot each monster as it came out of the gate, but Kai had a feeling no one else would be happy with that.
Instead, he let them emerge and begin moving as a pack around him. Kai waited until they were just about to charge, then loosed his first arrow directly into the leader, scattering them.
The rest of the fight was all show and no strategy. He spun with unnecessary flourishes to hit random dogs with arrows while letting the others get close to him. Given how much more powerful he was than at the beginning of the Hunter Trials, he wasn't even in any danger. When there were only two left, he shot one while letting the other ambush him from behind, then turned at the very last second and killed it with a punch to the chest that sent its body flying across the pit.
All around him, the crowds were cheering. The old man looked less sour than usual, which was probably good. But as he climbed back up the side to the hunter area, Kai noticed something strange.
One of the women sitting in the better section of the audience struck him as familiar. He didn't know her name, but he was certain that he'd seen her either at the Hunters Guild or the upper city, possibly both. She had a full Class and a Power of over 60, so she was likely a member of one of the clans. Perhaps these fights weren't so illegal after all, or perhaps something else was going on. Maybe if he had a fancy clan's social etiquette training, he'd know the answer.
After his fight, things actually got more interesting. Apparently the early stages had been to rile up the crowd and establish that monsters could be a threat before revealing the more dangerous, and likely more costly, beasts. The beasts and fighters received individual introductions now and Kai watched raptly.
Some of the monsters were ones he'd only read about, never seen in person. There was a creature that looked like an oblong blob, silly-looking until its mouth opened and extended half-way along its body. He knew from reading that they were ambush predators who usually lived in the water, so it was at a serious disadvantage in the pit. It still nearly bit one fighter in half and had to be pushed back by the others.
Most of these fights had about even odds, or so Kai judged. That made sense, if their goal was to earn money from bets. He did his best to both analyze the monsters and work on his spiritual sense for their strength. Mostly alpha ranks, with a few betas. Meanwhile, he noticed that every time the human side lost, the monsters were driven back into their tunnels instead of killed. No doubt the owner protecting his investment in the creatures. He might even feed the beasts or otherwise help them heal, which seemed perverse.
A few people were seriously injured and Kai again had to restrain his impulses. It all seemed to be under control... at least until they brought out the plant.
He was actually a bit puzzled when several workers pulled out a clay pot, the sort of thing a wealthy clan member might use to grow flowers. But instead of anything beautiful, only a twisted lump of thorns grew within. As they set it down in the center of the pit, he realized that metal wire pinned a number of vines into the irregular shape.
Remembering the dryad, Kai did his best to examine the plant with his senses. Judging monsters was still difficult, but at least he was starting to get a coherent impression of symbols instead of abstract mana. So it couldn't be a mana-bearing plant, it really was a monster of some kind.
From a distance the workers undid a twist in the wire. As it fell away, the thorny vines began to writhe, tearing free of the binding wires and twisting in all directions. Some plunged into the ground around the pot while others rose into the air, poking in all directions as if expecting an attack.
That was when things started to go wrong. Several hunters were called down to hack at the plant, trying to sever the vines that stretched toward them. They judged the maximum distance the monstrous plant could threaten, leaving them free to slowly cut it apart. The audience seemed to find that more amusing than Kai did, but even that cautious strategy left several hunters bleeding from thorny strikes. The match began to stretch on, since every time someone tried to push in further, they received multiple superficial injuries.
Then the plant tipped itself over. Its vines burst out further than they had before, lashing into one side of the circle. One woman was caught across the face and thrown back, while a man was caught by a vine and pulled in. He screamed in agony as the vines began punching into his body over and over.
For once the crowds went silent, experiencing monsters as horror rather than entertainment. Even the announcer failed to continue speaking. Kai decided that it was time to take a hand.
He first shot an arrow into the heart of the plant, which seemed to have no effect. Instead, Kai drew the sword at his side. It might be ordinary Goralian steel, but it would have a lot of force behind it.
Leaping from the upper level, Kai came down on the plant with the broadest swing he could. His blow cleaved straight through multiple vines, cutting them off from the hunters they were threatening. The severed ends flailed as if in pain while other vines plunged toward them. Even before his feet hit the ground, Kai was forced to fight a desperate defense on multiple fronts.
Kai only managed to sever a few vines before others wrapped around his sword and tugged it from his hands. Well, two could play that game. He reached out and grasped the vines with his gauntlets, then tugged with his full strength.
The pot flew through the air and smashed against the side of the pit with a loud crash. The vines went slack, but Kai treated the creature as a monster, not a plant. After gripping the vine at two points, he again exerted himself and jerked the entire formation into the air over his head.
When the central bulb of the monstrous plant hit the stone, it broke apart with a loud squelch. This time, it really did go slack. As the crowds around the pit cheered, Kai examined his gauntlets and wondered if he could have managed without them. The Irunian steel was unscratched, but he had felt the points press against his hands.
As far as he could judge, the threat from the monster was less that it was immensely powerful in terms of mana and more that it had so many limbs. Perhaps his F-rank Physique would have been able to resist the thorns, but he was still glad he had used his gauntlets.
Workers took away the fallen vines and Kai wondered if they would be planted to be regrown. If only he had been a Flamecaster, he would have incinerated the entire thing. That monster had killed a man, but as the workers took away his body, the crowd seemed to forget. All they let him do was retrieve his weapons.
Kai started to return to the hunter area, only for the old man to catch his eye and then shake his head.
"You've seen a terrible beast, ladies and gentlemen, but worse still lurks within!" The announcer boomed over the crowd so loudly that Kai wondered if he had a Class for it. "This young man has more than proved himself, but even his strength will be challenged. For we have a special treat for you... an Isulfr, a monster born in the midst of an incursion. The speed of a serpent, the jaws of a wolf, the monster that is said to swallow the light... the Isulfr rises!"
From the other side of the pit, metal screeched as the bars slowly rose and the world began to shiver.
Chapter 44: The Isulfr
All of the other monsters had rushed from their gates as soon as the bars retreated enough, but when the Isulfr's cage opened completely, nothing emerged. Kai could feel it within, even aside from its aura distorting reality. He tried to remain calm by inventorying his weapons: he would begin with his bow and his gauntlets would be useful if it got close, but he had to assume his sword would be destroyed if he ever needed to use it.
Finally the Isulfr crept into the light. It looked like a short serpent with four squat legs, but moved more smoothly than such a thing had any right to. An elongated head extended from its shoulders, rising up to the level of his shoulders. Instead of anything resembling a normal face, it had four red eyes set at the front of its head. No mouth at all, which contradicted what he'd read.
Kai carefully took two arrows and nocked the first. Most likely he would only get one chance before the monster realized that he knew what it could do, so the first strike had to count. When the Isulfr took another step forward, he loosed.
The shaft sped toward the creature's center of mass and it immediately distorted. Instead of spiraling out of the way, its flesh retracted and then expanded, somehow knocking the shaft out of the air. Kai was taken off guard, but his instincts had already released the second shaft.
Fortunately, this one sank deep. The Isulfr twisted its head in a circle to examine the arrow, no more than mildly curious... and then it scrambled in the other direction and began scaling the side of the pit.
Several guards began to thrust at it with pikes, but none of them were rated higher than 20 and they didn't have a chance. Kai immediately loosed another arrow, but this time his aim was off: the Isulfr twisted again and it knocked the arrow from its back.
He sprinted toward it, releasing arrow after arrow as he got closer. Some of these did manage to sink in, not that they slowed it down much. By the time he arrived, he had to jump up to grab the monster's tail. Kai braced his feet against the wall and then tugged the Isulfr backwards. Even his full strength was barely enough to dislodge it, pulling it back to slam into the stone upside-down.
Though Kai sprang back to his feet, the Isulfr was faster. That elongated neck was twisting toward him in serpentine movements, all four eyes fixed on him... and then the head split open.
Despite all his experience, Kai was still frozen for a moment. The monster didn't have jaws like an ordinary beast, its entire head split open into four pieces with one eye at the end of each jaw. Each quarter had a long line of razor sharp teeth and the entire jaw undulated as they fell on him.
The jaws clamped down around his bow and his arm. Kai let out a scream as he felt the teeth cut deep into his flesh and grind against bone. One of the eyes was almost at his face, since the long jaw was chewing his shoulder. It stared at him with lethal indifference as it continued biting down.
Since he still had the arrow he'd been meaning to shoot in his other hand, Kai slammed it directly into the Isulfr's eye. It didn't roar, but it did flail backward and finally release his arm. There was no time to think about the pain or his position: Kai pulled another arrow and slammed it into the monster's chest. A moment later he slapped his gauntlet against it, driving the arrow as deep as it could go.
Before it could recover, Kai tackled the Isulfr's central body and knocked it over onto its back. The head immediately twisted upward to bite him again, but he slammed another arrow into its throat. This managed to pin two segments of its bizarre throat together, so Kai straddled the neck and began thrusting more arrows into its neck.
His vision was growing dim. Had he lost so much blood already? He could see blood flying from his arm with every movement, but he pushed himself onward. The best chance of victory was to kill it then, suffocate it if he had to, cut off its-
The Isulfr twisted with immense strength and Kai was flung across the bottom of the pit. It seemed to take so much longer to fall to the ground than it had taken him to fly there. With the raw fury of battle broken, his gnawed arm became a mass of agony. Kai reached for another arrow and realized that his quiver was empty. He'd used every one of them on the monster and it wasn't enough.
Somehow the crowds were cheering. As if this was part of the show and some of them hadn't nearly been killed. Above, the old man cast him a gesture that Kai entirely ignored. This wasn't about entertainment. He needed to kill this thing.
Across the pit, the Isulfr twisted itself into a spiral and the arrows fell from its flesh. Black blood oozed from the holes, but it wasn't anywhere near as close to death as he'd hoped. At least there was the chance that he could get to the arrows on the ground and use them as weapons again.
The four part mouth arced open toward him and Kai was surprised by a high-pitched whine. He rubbed his head, trying to brace himself against it, and then realized that the world was growing dark again. Shadows clouded his vision as if he was losing his sight. Kai stared up in horror as he realized that the Isulfr was responsible, and the last thing he saw was it charging silently.
He had only heartbeats left, and despair filled them. Kai realized that it was hopeless to try to resist the strange darkness, so he had only one chance: relying purely on what he'd seen of the monster and trusting his instincts.
Even though the Isulfr emitted no noises, he could hear its footsteps against the stone. Its head could stretch far in front of it and he guessed that it would open its jaws to bite him at full extension. So as soon as he heard the footsteps get within range, Kai threw himself into a roll.
