There wasn't anywhere to go except forward, through the short stonework hallway and into the arena. Briefly, Alesha wondered about the logistics of such an event. How many people, how many matches, did Zorhellian have to organize? How did he manage all of it? Why was she one of the first ones?
[Pph,] Rogork laughed. [How arrogant. You're assuming that just because you're fighting right away that you're first? Who's to say he didn't bend time so that you'd arrive just before your first match? Wouldn't it be much more entertaining for the Patrons if you barely had time to get your feet under you before you fought your first opponent?]
"Well, maybe," Alesha admitted. "But you're assuming he can bend time in the first place. Isn't that just a bit more illogical than my guess?"
No response came, so she shook her head and walked into the arena. The System was always saying its piece then clamming up when it was inconvenient for it to respond. Rogork was so infuriating!
Blinking her eyes at the sunlight, Alesha glanced around in an attempt to get her bearings. Sand filled the otherwise empty circular arena, which was enclosed by a tall, tan stone wall. Touching it, she discovered that it was impossibly smooth, almost like glass. Directly across from where she'd exited, a person in primitive armor came out of an identical opening in the wall, carrying a pair of hand axes.
A large colosseum, Old Earth Roman style, surrounded them on all sides. A roaring crowd of alien creatures filled the stands -- among them, Alesha saw snake-headed woolly humanoids, classic red-skinned demons, minotaurs, ethereally beautiful elves, a couple Beast Succubi (like Udon from when she was summoned as a demon), smoky shadow people, and even a full-size yellow-green dragon. She did a bit of a double take when she noticed that one.
An unfamiliar voice came booming from stereo speakers installed around the arena. As it did so, a random question struck her: why hadn't Zorhellian used magic instead of technology? Didn't this kinda break the illusion of being immersed in a primitive time? Or was it that he simply didn't care?
"Ladies and Gentlemen, Patrons from across the Polyverse, weeeeeeelcome back to the Storytelling Games! Our contestants in this battle are first, a certain Alesha Williams, whose achievement in ending the Hero Summoning Story early has already landed her a position in the annals of Storytelling Games history!"
"And second, a random Joe Schmoe who was unlucky enough to be mistaken for a Participant during the previous Story and wound up here! He's not the first, and he certainly won't be the last! Introducing, Siiiiiiiimon Beeeeell! How long will he last against the seasoned Participant Alesha? We're about to find out!"
[Ohh?] Rogork asked, sounding intrigued. [So if the Patrons mistook normal people for Participants, then they still got taken to the next Story with all the actual participants? How clever!]
How cruel, Alesha thought. Having crossed nearly to the middle of the arena, she could see the nervousness of the man in front of her. He was glancing around in terror, gripping his axes so tight that his knuckles turned white, and muttering under his breath in denial of what had happened to him.
… I have to kill this guy? Can't I just defeat him?
[Ha! Weak!] Rogork scoffed. [You know very well that this Story will only spare one person. If you want that person to be you, and if you want to reclaim a body of flesh and blood, there's only one way to do that. You have to kill him, and every other opponent you face.]
… I know, she thought, feeling guilty. It was easy to imagine what Rogork would say next: she'd already killed many people before, so what were a few more here?
Kill or be killed, eat or be eaten. There's a reason natural evolution is described as 'survival of the fittest.'
Steeling herself, Alesha shifted her grip on the spear.
The man in front of her raised his axes tentatively, eyes on the tip of her weapon, before glancing at her expression and taking an involuntary step back.
Everything faded out of focus as Alesha readied herself to kill.
"Aaaaaaaand -- fight!" Came the announcer's voice.
With that, Alesha surged forward, plunging her spear towards the man with a thrust. He yelped and frantically attacked her spear from the side with both axes, knocking it aside to his right with a metal-on-metal clang.
However, he was unpracticed in battle, so this action unbalanced him and he was sent stumbling to his right in a series of rapid steps.
Alesha recovered quickly, spinning around counterclockwise and aiming for the man's exposed left armpit as he flailed. Since he was looking at his feet in an attempt to recover his balance, he didn't see her weapon coming and her strike landed cleanly. She quickly withdrew her weapon and blood spurted from his open wound.
Screaming, he dropped his weapons and clutched at his armpit, trying in vain to staunch the blood flow and falling to his knees. His eyes popped wide as he looked up at her, utter terror written all over his face.
"No, no, no," he stammered repeatedly, his mind clearly at odds with reality. The sand beneath him noticeably darkened as he wet himself.
"... I'm sorry. I'll kill you quickly," Alesha told him in a soft, melancholic tone.
Something in her gaze (or perhaps her words) seemed to spook him enough to overcome the pain temporarily. Yelling, he let go of his wound and turned around, trying to scramble to his feet so that he could run away.
However, Alesha didn't want to chase after him, so she stepped forward quickly and kicked him down, pinning him to the ground beneath her leather boot. She then rolled him over with her foot and finished him off with a quick jab under his chin.
Memories of her brief time as a half-vampire caused her to briefly remember the taste of blood. As she watched his dying convulsions, crimson liquid leaking from his wounds, a brief urge to drink came over her -- but she spun on her heel, turning away from his corpse and wiping the bloodstained tip of her spear off on the sand. She put those memories firmly out of her mind.
She was not a vampire anymore.
Nor would she ever be again.
Shortly after that, a purple window appeared like she'd hoped it would. There was only one, however, contrary to her hopes; but the issue of a missing second window could be dealt with later.
For now, complicated emotions mingled within her as she stared at the hoped-for message:
[Regular Human Killed! +10 XP]
"Didn't even give him the dignity of using his name?" Alesha whispered, feeling a twinge of regret. When she'd killed someone last time, it had used his name. Then again, the System was so similar to a video game that perhaps a regular person like this man was considered a "mob" while the King had been a Named Character, possibly an important NPC or a Boss.
Either way, it was disturbing.
Further, she didn't like the feeling of killing him. She was somewhat used to how it felt to intentionally wound and kill a living humanoid, due to the Killing Training she'd undergone during the Hero Summoning Story, but that didn't change her emotional distaste for it.
[Don't worry,] Rogork comforted her, [It'll get much easier once your predatory instincts come back.]
… Was that even something to be happy about?
For the first time in a while, Alesha confronted the negative side to pursuing evolution. She loathed being unable to do or go anywhere of her own volition, so she was highly motivated to do whatever it took to stop being a sword; but she didn't like how Rogork had changed her before, either. She'd hated watching her human form gradually be replaced by something inhuman. Dragon or no, it had been terrifying to have her physical body undergo major, irreversible changes just because someone else, someone she could neither see nor refuse, decided that her natural state of "being human" was undesirable.
She had been intentionally ignoring that side of things until now because she didn't want to think about it.
It was like trying to choose the lesser of two evils: to remain powerless as a sword, or become powerless in the hands of the System?
Neither was a truly desirable outcome.
Yet, was a body of flesh and blood really something she could voluntarily give up on? Even if it wouldn't necessarily be human? Flexing her fingers into a fist and rolling her neck, she dimly processed the sounds of the arena and realized she couldn't.
Memories came to the forefront of her mind as she reflected. Memories of her time being mistaken for a demon on Avalon, as a werewolf during the first Story, as a nobleman during the second, as a half-vampire during the third, and as a parasite during the fourth.
Of all her experiences, she'd hated the ones that took away her free will the most. She didn't particularly hate being a nobleman, ironically, because it had felt more like a dream than anything else. The worst experiences by far had been when she was stuck as a sword and as a parasite. Unable to move, unable to influence her surroundings in any meaningful way -- she hated how helpless she had felt.
Freedom of thought was itself a prison without the ability to carry out those thoughts.
Compared to the powerlessness she felt while trying to fight the System, the powerlessness of being a sword was much worse.
Thus, she was determined to break through to her next evolution before this final Story's end.
She could choose to blame her circumstances for her choice. After all, she currently had a body that could be killed by normal means, and only one person would survive this final Story.
Kill or be killed, survival of the fittest.
She could easily blame her decision on that.
However, she knew that even if she had the freedom to do so, she wouldn't choose to stay a sword. When given the choice between life as an inanimate object and life as something living and breathing, even if it wasn't human, she'd choose the latter without hesitation. Her experiences so far had given her enough information for her to know beyond a doubt which she preferred.
Kill or be killed, survival of the fittest.
For once, the situation she was given aligned well with her goals, and she intended to make good use of it.