Chương 143: Hall Of Fame

A familiar hunter, swordswoman, and ranger sat around a small round table in the guild hall of Lengue; they shared a tired look and half-empty drinks. Their table was covered in a variety of exotic meats, down to baked goods, since a celebration was in order. The small cohort had not only played a major role within the simulated games, but even managed to pass into the tournament bracket as Aspirants! A rare occurrence even considering the long history of Lengue's colosseum, an unthinkable achievement indeed!

It didn't matter if the participating Dreamers were handicapped; a win for the little guy was a win for the many… at least that's what Eren felt while choking down the rest of his ale.

'Real alcohol is just better!' The Dreamer division was set to start in the coming days, then a week after, the lesser spectacle, Aspirant division would begin. Eren wasn't sure if he envied the qualifying Dreamers; even if their bodies were incomparably more resilient than an Aspirant's, they only had a two-week rehabilitation period, whereas Aspirants had three weeks.

While a person lay within a pod, their body would be held tightly in place for long periods at a time; a tube was fed down their throat into their stomach, where a mucus-like slurry was pumped in to satiate the gladiators' thirst and hunger. It was highly efficient, fairly cheap, and no bother to the participating gladiators… that was until they left their pods. The pod overrode a gladiator's senses in place for a hallucinated realm, the simulation.

When a gladiator left their pod, their newly attuned senses would clash with realities; for a Dreamer, this could sometimes be a boon, but there were past cases of Dreamers accidentally killing themselves with their own Will. Aspirants, on the other hand, had it easier in some regards; they would need additional time to re-stabilize their bodies, since they would not recover as fast as a Dreamer would.

Aspirants were more prone to medical complications than Dreamers were; however, even if they attuned to the unrealistic logic and caveats of the simulation, they didn't have enough control over their Will to avoid causing devastating complications. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Eren drummed his fingers on the roundtable; he looked over to Ann, whose skin had paled and whose muscles had atrophied the most out of the group, then he looked over to Silvester, who had recovered the most out of the group, yet still suffered with his dexterity. For Eren himself, he gained light sensitivity, a stomach ulcer, and a few pressure sores had formed along his back. Silvester looked at Eren, drumming his fingers on the table, and poorly mimicked his hand movements with growing frustration.

Adjacent to Eren and Silvester, Ann plopped her head onto the roundtable with a solid thud and a winded sigh. Ann opened her mouth with a sentence in mind, but simply exhaled a string of incoherent babble. A doctor could remedy this with time, but they didn't have time. Within the simulation they would be fine, but in reality they just sat and suffered. Alternatively, a healer could fix them up by the end of the day; however, healers were rare enough to charge exorbitant prices.

Qualifying came with a plethora of bonuses and boons, even a cash reward that would fully cover a healer's fee for all three of them! Yet, all three Aspirants silently agreed to suffer together in the name of savings. Idle chatter filled the guild hall; normally, a qualifying cohort of Aspirants would have an entourage of people waiting for autographs, but not this time since two new rumours had fallen out of the woods to grace the ears and hearts of the people.

One rumour about the monstrous bone knight who single-handedly both fought off a qi-deviated madman and saved captured adults, pets, and children alike who were fated to be consumed in the madman's sewer lair. And a second rumour that had been in circulation for several months, but was still surprisingly relevant, was about an albino dragonborn from undiscovered distant lands with an unusual power scheme; rumours say that he made his way all the way to Lengue in search of someone that his patron sent him after.

Eren raised his tankard, swishing it around to estimate its contents. After a few swishes, he looked down at what little ale was left and sighed.

'They say his patron bestows power on him! Does that mean his patron is a deity? Wait… does that make him a saint since he gets his powers from a higher power like priests do!? I should be nice to him if I ever meet him… Gods, I wish it were happy hour!' Unfortunately for Eren, happy hour only happened on weekends; he couldn't raise his tankard to the sky and scream for a refill while guzzling down copious amounts of liquor at a discounted price.

Doubly so, because in his inebriated state, he hadn't realized that the stars of both rumours stood across from one another, not fighting, not talking, but sizing each other up.