Chương 7: Veligrod Major

"Today's lineup will surely bring an incredible start to this year's tournament! Not only are the three knights who joined last year from Polonia's greatest noble houses now at tier 5, ready to compete with each other, but also, for the fifth time since the demons were allowed to participate ten years ago, last year, one of their tier 5 contestants somehow managed to reach #1 rank, ensuring that he will be one of the greatest highlights today!"

"He moved through the five stages with the narrowest chances. Is it even possible for him to become the fourth demon ever to win their citizenship?"

"Who knows? The demon's six hands might just be what he needs to get to the top. After all, asuras are well-known to be great warriors, rivaling demonic dracos, wendigos, and, some say, even vampires. So I say, it wouldn't be a bad idea to bet on his victory."

"Haha, surely, you're hyping this demon too much. He still has a major roadblock ahead of him before he finally wins citizenship. Who knows, he might just flop at the final step."

"We shall see. For now, welcome to the 87th Veligrod Major! Get to your seats; prepare your snacks and drinks, and soon, the preliminaries will begin! Long live Polonia, long live the king, and may our champions bring this great nation glory once more!" As the two announcers from the tower watching over the coliseum finished speaking, thousands of attendants in the Veligrod Major immediately went into applause. The coliseum itself was sectioned and partitioned based on the classes of the spectators.

One was reserved for the nobles and wealthy merchants, which was closer to the ground and gave a better view, while the other one, which was much more packed, was where commoners from Veligrod and many other cities sat in. With around sixty to seventy thousand spectators, the venue of the Veligrod Major was a grand and massive structure.

The shouts of thousands of commoners who paid at least a week's worth of the average wage just to get in were truly deafening, enough that Alicia's date, Kornel Sikorski, shook his head a bit as they both calmly walked to their reserved seat.

"I hope the loud noise isn't too much for you." Kornel turned to Alicia, a slightly apologetic smile on his face.

"Commoners. They get way too excited about little things."

"It's fine. I don't mind it." Alicia looked up around her. She could already see thousands of people rising from their seats, waving various flags enthusiastically. According to Kornel earlier, those flags, based on their colors, denoted the major participating 'clubs' within the Veligrod Major tournament. Said clubs were usually made up of multiple contestants, participating at every tier of the tournament, and were largely backed by noble and merchant houses. Notably, there were no clubs for Vaelrin.

In fact, there were hardly any Vaelrin present at all. Just a few groups in the nosebleeds making no noise and trying to draw as little attention to themselves as possible. Alicia noted with a frown that they were universally more poorly dressed than the humans and other Virtuous Races, and most looked quite nervous. If Alicia were to compare this event to anything she'd seen in her past life, it was as if it were some kind of a racing tournament, except the riders were people who might actually kill each other.

To illustrate this, there were flying magical golems that seemed to resemble spheres, each one of them connected to massive divination artifacts that projected what they saw for the viewers. It was as if they had drones with cameras, their videos projected to widescreens around the coliseum for the audience. Not to mention the announcers, their booming voices reaching every corner of the coliseum, and the orchestral music that amplified hype.

Then, out of nowhere, the massive banners of Polonia were unfurled vertically against the wall throughout the coliseum. It was a forked flag with red-white-red stripes, featuring a symbol of a knight armed with a lance on horseback at the center. The crowd, upon seeing them, erupted further in cheers. It seemed that the people of Polonia were a rather proud bunch, and seeing their flags ignited intense zeal within their hearts. Soon, Alicia and Kornel both found their respective seats.

It was quite spacious where they were, and the nobles surrounding them were much more soft-spoken and quiet compared to the rest of the rowdy, commoner crowd. Still, Alicia saw a few young noblemen taking shots of wine and shouting with the crowd, alongside old men laughing and discussing amongst each other. Their wives, dates, and the other ladies in the first-class quarters also mingled with each other, laughing and giggling as they bragged about the contestants their families brought to the ring today.

Even Kornel was now speaking to one of his friends, who was seated on their right. He was another young man who seemed to be from a business family.

"I can't believe it." The young man leaned forward a bit as he glanced at Alicia with a grin on his face.

"Where did you find her? Is she Polonian?"

"She's from the West," answered Kornel, repeating the lie that she had told him on the way in.

"She immigrated here. Apparently, she wanted to escape family drama in her homeland."

"Ah, a common tale. Even I almost thought about escaping my overbearing family too, until they arranged for me to meet my dearest Marie here." The two men laughed at each other, and Alicia, who had nothing to contribute to the conversation, simply gave them a smile. She didn't really give a toss about them, so, when the announcers spoke again, her attention was immediately taken. Finally, the tournament began. Even Kornel himself locked in on what was happening.

Almost immediately, instead of speaking to his friends and bragging to them about Alicia, he now began to talk to Alicia instead, further explaining what was happening down below. Apparently, the tournament was divided in five tiers, which was the various stages that participants competed in. Tier 1 was for the newcomers and was always full of fresh faces. Those who did well in Tier 1 competitions moved on to Tier 2, and doing well there meant going to Tier 3, and so on.

Of course, the higher one went, the more fans they would gather, especially if they reached those tiers in spectacular fashion, and the ones in Tier 5 were minor celebrities. And once they reached Tier 5, if they managed to win ten matches in a row, they would be immortalized and showered with fame and fortune. The Virtuous Races who fought in these games were generally there for some combination of glory, money, or levels. The Vaelrin, on the other hand, fought for the right to earn glory, money, and levels.

While not all Vaelrin were enslaved, vanishingly few were citizens. But in order to draw more of them to the games, Polonia had offered citizenship to any Vaelrin who managed to win the championship. The way Kornel explained it, it was to give the crowd villains to root against, though there had been a few who won and earned their citizenship rights. Vikar, the asura that Kornel had told her about, had won nine matches in a row now and was looking for his tenth.

As the first demon in nearly a year to reach this far, he had drawn quite the crowd, most to root against him. And according to Kornel, the organizers had arranged a very special opponent for him, though he refused to say who so as not to "spoil the surprise." The Tier 1 games soon began, with most of the matches involving the warriors fighting off captive monsters.

This was clearly the warmup round, and many people around the arena weren't paying much attention, but Alicia had her gaze fixated on one ragged imp fighting off a direwolf. He was thin, dressed in rags, and armed with what looked like a wooden bat with rusty nails hammered into it. Around him, the Virtuous contestants were clad in proper armor and wielded proper weapons, but this man looked like he had been homeless. He struggled with the direwolf, but he fought valiantly.

Alicia found herself leaning forward and flinching when its claws raked his side, and she clenched her hands on the railing so hard the wood began to splinter when he got cornered. The direwolf lunged, and miraculously, he managed to twist out of the way and deliver a strong blow to its head. While it was disoriented, he leapt at the opportunity, pummeling it to death with his makeshift club. The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Alicia was silently grateful that he had survived but began to get worried as she saw him limping around.

"Has one of them caught your eye?" asked Kornel beside her.

"Just that imp down there."

"Ah, yes, I had my eye on him too," said Kornel.

"Not bad. Not Tier 5 material, but he might make Tier 3 if he manages to survive and find a decent sponsor."

"Are there healers on staff?"

"For him? No. The other contestants from the official clubs have sponsors, though, and those sponsors provide healing to all their warriors." Alicia maintained a straight face as she turned back to the chaotic melee below. Kornel continued to add his commentary, pointing out various promising fighters and talking about strategy and stat distribution and things like that. Alicia barely heard a word of it, deep in her own head as she watched the bloody carnage below.

A servant soon arrived in front of the two, handing Kornel a glass bottle.

"Thank you. Took you a good while, huh?"

"Sorry, sir. I have no excuses. Do you need anything else?"

"Here," Kornel handed the servant a strip of paper.

"Bring this to us in ten minutes."

"As you wish." The servant bowed, then walked away. Alicia stared at the bottle that Kornel held as he smiled at her.

"Vodka. Do you want some?"

"... I'd like to try, yes."

"Here." Kornel offered her a shot glass, which she accepted, and then he popped the bottle open and gently poured some of the liquid into her glass. Alicia took a tentative sniff of the alcohol before gulping it in one go. Kornel did the same, and then he cheered at a contestant below, a human in proper steel armor, who raised his fist to the sky after defeating a dozen monsters released against him in one go.

Alicia, for her part, simply lowered her head as her lips formed a thin line, the contest continuing under her watch unabated. Each minute that passed showed more and more brutality, cruelty, and blatant double standards. The Tier 2 and Tier 3 fights passed, showing more of the same. The Vaelrin arrived with low-quality arms and armor and were forced to compete against humans and other Virtuous folk who were properly equipped. Some matches were against monsters, while in others, the contestants fought each other.

But no matter what, the Vaelrin were always disadvantaged. When the Tier 4 fights began, there were no more monster battles, and every fight was between two people. There was also a new twist as they brought out some Vaelrin in chains, only unshackling them when they reached the slaves.

"Criminals and former members of the demon army," Kornel explained.

"They can win years off their sentences, or even freedom if they perform well, but…" Far below, a draco was brutally gutted by a woman with a barbed spear. The crowd roared as the draco fell to his knees, his entrails spilling out.

"In these matches, there is no rule restricting killing blows," Kornel finished. He probably deserved it, Alicia tried to tell herself. The draco had been a murderer, according to the announcers. He allegedly killed two guards for no reason, driven by the evil bloodlust inherent to his race. When he died, they called his death a boon to Polonian society and thanked the other warrior for preventing him from winning his freedom. No, this is wrong.

As she saw the draco dying on the ground, she finally found some resolve. She had been trying to ignore it and look the other way. In her travels, she stuck to the cleaner parts of town, and when slaves passed by in the streets, she avoided eye contact. She tried to tell herself that they were demons and that their enslavement was just a natural part of the world, but she now knew she was just in denial. This is wrong. But what could she do? She was just one person.

The treatment of the demons was a global phenomenon. She couldn't very well just go to war to free them… She glanced at her status window. She was level 999. The highest-level person she had even seen since coming to this world was less than 500. She was more than twice the level of the strongest people around. She could go to war to free them. And she even had the King of Vael trait to lead the Vaelrin if she wanted. But she didn't want to. She didn't want to go to war.

Even if the treatment of the Vaelrin was wrong, starting a war and slaughtering the Virtuous Races wasn't right either. And it would only make things worse in the long run. But what else could she do? Far below, the dead Draco was carted away, while the spearwoman did a victory lap, enjoying the roar of the crowd. Kornel continued talking to her, but Alicia didn't hear a word, lost in her own thoughts until she was brought back to reality as the noise in the arena reached new highs.

"And now, the moment you've all been waiting for!"

"The headliner match of the night!"

"Welcome to the arena—"Vikaaaaaar!!" From the tunnel on the far end of the arena, an enormous demon emerged. He was at least eight feet tall with dark violet skin and six huge arms as thick as tree trunks. Unlike many of the other Vaelrin, he looked well-fed and well-equipped. With armor covering his chest and legs and an axe in each hand, he cut a fearsome figure, especially compared to the rest of the contestants that Alicia had seen.

The crowd booed as he walked out, but he spread his arms and smiled, gesturing toward them as if he wanted them to do it more. It was clear he wasn't well-liked, but it was also clear that he was in high spirits. It made sense. He was about to earn his citizenship, after all. But Alicia couldn't muster up any excitement on his behalf.

"His opponent tonight is a very special one."

"We searched far and wide for a worthy opponent for the great Vikar, and just last month, we managed to find one. Everyone, please give a warm welcome to the challenger, Helen!" The arena went silent for a few seconds, and the audience shared a collective gasp. Then, they started to go even wilder than before as the other challenger was brought out. Alicia shared their gasp when she saw the image on the screen above.

It was a succubus, with horns, light blue skin and hair, and a body that made even her rags look good, but she was not in good shape. Her eyes were empty sockets, her wrists ended in stumps, her horns had been filed down, and her wings were crushed and misshapen. She was in chains, but one look at her expression and Alicia knew that they were unnecessary. The demoness had lost the will to live. She was only moving because her captors were pushing her.

"That's right, folks. That is Demon General Helen herself, the very same one who laid waste to northern Polonia just a decade ago." The arena was filled with boos before the second announcer continued.

"She was believed to be dead, but her former owner passed away recently, and she was put up for auction, where we purchased her. She may be in bad shape, but she's still a level 437 mage, so it will be a tough match for Vikar."

"And not only did we buy her, but we also bought her sister Lyra!" At that, the succubus started, then looked up with an expression of horror. At the same time, there was a puff of smoke high in the air, and a cage appeared, this one housing another succubus. She was the spitting image of her sister below, but her body was much more intact. Her wings were still crushed, but she had her eyes and her hands.

"Should Helen win here tonight, her sister will be freed!"

"But should she lose, Lyra will be sold at the Veligrod Auction next week."

"Bidding starts at 3000 zloty!" On the screen, the succubus opened her mouth to shout, but whatever she tried to say was lost in the noise of the crowd. If she had been saying anything at all. Alicia noticed with a grimace that the succubus' tongue was gone, reduced to an amorphous stub far behind her teeth. This is too much, she thought. I can't take this anymore. I need to do something.

"See?" said Kornel beside her.

"I told you that–" She never heard the rest of his sentence, because at that moment, she teleported away. She floated above the arena for a few seconds, listening to the announcer say something as she took a deep breath. She cast her strongest CC skill, [Mana Wave Pulse], disrupting every bit of magic in a two-kilometer radius, killing the lights and plunging the arena into darkness. Then, she magically amplified her voice, speaking loudly enough to be heard over the panicked screams below.

"The Veligrod Major is now over."