Chapter 179 (1/29): Cost of an Iron Will

The response to the administrator’s question was nothing but silence. No one wanted to answer him, afraid of standing out and being punished for the brawl. A few fighters even covered their face, as if that would suddenly make their other bruises disappear.

The administrator looked around at all the figures sprawled out on the ground and his face reddened even more until he looked like a tomato. “Someone explain this to me or everyone goes without dinner tonight! And pay!”

“Sir…”

One of the fighters tried to say something, but Camilla had already learned her lesson. Given the chance, some of these scum will try to claim that black is white, and the other idiots will nod and smile without even attempting to speak the truth. “I’ll explain,” she said, climbing up from the orc’s body before kicking him aside.

“And who might you be?” the administrator demanded, squinting at her.

Camilla realized that the vampire couldn’t see her face thanks to the helmet she summoned when the fighters learned to go for her face. With a snap of her fingers, she recalled it along with the illusion hiding her face, revealing her red eyes and half-white hair. A gasp sounded from around them, followed by a multitude of gulping sounds as the fighters realized who she was.

Everyone knew of the vampire with hair that was half-white and half-gold. They knew of her ever since Victoria first took her into the city. At first the citizens that saw her thought she was Victoria’s lover, but after Victoria corrected them, news spread like wildfire through the city that Victoria had a daughter.

If even the prizefighters knew who she was, it was obvious that the administrator did too, and he quickly dropped to his knees. The fighters around Camilla did as well, their faces pale. No one dared make a sound.

“M-might you be Lady Camilla?” the administrator said. “You… I’m sorry for not recognizing you at first…” A drop of sweat ran down his forehead. “What are you doing here?”

“Just teaching a few misbehaving children a lesson,” Camilla replied, pulling her hair out from her armor. “Don’t worry about it.”

The administrator wasn’t stupid enough to really let things go like that. What if he did nothing and Camilla went to Victoria instead? Although he really wanted to pretend nothing happened, he gritted his teeth and asked the question anyway. “Misbehaving? What did they do to offend you?”

Camilla smiled. “You see, I have a friend. Her name is Elyss,” she said, nodding toward the lioness.

“Yes, yes, I know,” the administrator quickly said, bobbing his head. “We met early when you signed up, didn’t we?”

Elyss yawned. “We did.”

“Congratulations on your first victory!”

Elyss didn’t reply this time and the administrator began to sweat again, afraid that Elyss was angry. He could do nothing but to change the subject back to avoid acting like a clown performing by himself. “So…Lady Camilla, what is the problem today?”

He was quite aware that it was the second time he asked the question, and the only reason he had to ask it twice was because he interrupted Camilla the first time around.

Seeing how nervous he was, Camilla didn’t give him any more grief and went straight to the point. “Administrator…” she began, pausing as she realized that she hadn’t paid attention when the administrator introduced himself when Ismelda signed them up, so she didn’t know his name. “Um. Right. Do you consider beasts that are intelligent, and can think and speak, the equal of a person?”

Normally, the administrator opened his and quickly closed it again, choking back the instinctive “of course not” that had almost popped out automatically. After all, he had never seen a talking mana beast before in his entire tenure as the administrator of the coliseum. A beast was a beast. But Camilla specified the ability to “think and speak,” so it was obvious that she was looking for a specific answer.

He carefully glanced at Elyss and quickly nodded. “Of course talking beasts are the equal of people! They are people!”

“Then…what would you do if some of your people disagree?”

“Er… as long as they don’t do anything—”

Camilla cut him off. “If they are jeering at her and not allowing her to go where she wants? Calling her a mere beast? Threatening to kill her off in the arena on purpose?” she asked. The last one she didn’t really hear but it sounded like something they’d do, so she added it in.

Sure enough, the administrator swept the kneeling fighters with a death glare before doing his best to calm down. “I would punish them severely.”

“Good.” Camilla smiled, winking at Elyss, who showed her two rows of pointy teeth. “In that case, since Elyss is a person, then I expect her to be accommodated to the best of your ability, given that she’s quite large and lacks the hands of other people.”

“Of course, of course! You can count on that!” The administrator bowed repeatedly and quickly turned to the worker beside him. “Quickly, arrange someone to be Elyss’s assistant!”

“But—” the worker wanted to say that he didn’t have the power to arrange anything, but the administrator clamped a hand over his mouth.

“Go!”

The worker nodded and scampered up the stairs. The administrator coughed and cleared his throat. “I really apologize for the problem we’ve caused you, Lady Camilla. Please, can we speak further about this somewhere more suitable?” He stepped aside and the enforcers parted, creating a path to the staircases, inviting Camilla to go.

However, Camilla shook her head. “I don’t think that there’s a need for me to go there personally. Kagriss, can you and Elyss tell him what happened?”

Kagriss nodded while Elyss rumbled her agreement.

“Great!” Camilla clapped her hands together. “In that case, Administrator, treat their words as you would mine. I’d go, but I’m busy since I have a battle coming up. I wonder who my opponent is?”

Someone among those kneeling shuddered at her words and Camilla grinned, although the expression remained for only a split second. Oh, how scared he was. It seems that she found the person who would face her in her guest match.

The administrator looked conflicted, half relieved that she wouldn't be going up with him, and half disappointed that he couldn’t make a better impression on him. In the end, he bowed to Camilla and led Kagriss directly up the stairs while having someone else take Elyss through a different route since she wouldn’t fit in the stairs.

Before Elyss left, she turned and loosed a roar at the silent complex. The roar reverberated through the air and ground. Camilla felt her still organs tremble at the magnificent sound. It was a roar of defiance, a challenge. Although Elyss rarely pursued personal grudges thanks to her laziness and sleepiness, Camilla knew from experience how persistent she could get once she did decide to remember a slight.

Once the door slammed shut, peace and quiet returned to the underground complex, not that it was loud since the administrator got here. But now it was quiet enough that Camilla could hear the rapid heartbeats of those closest to her.

It made sense that they’d be nervous. These were the people who were the last ones brawling with her. With the administrator’s departure, she was now free to deal with those who slighted her. Looking at the floor full of kneeling fighters of all races and sizes, she smiled in amusement.

“What’s wrong? Why aren’t any of you talking?” she asked. “Some of you, I believe, have really nice mouths that speak nothing but lies. Are you not going to talk?”

She walked past the six kneeling fighters that had been brawling with her last. According to her memory, none of them actually said anything. Five of them nodded in agreement to the lie, and the last one remained silent and still.

Instead, she stopped by another, an elf, and grabbed his hair, pulling him up. The elf had a black eye and a dark bruise on his cheek but looked otherwise unhurt. But even with the little makeover she gave him, Camilla still recognized him as one of those that actively voiced his agreement to the lie. She knelt down in front of him. “Who started it?”

“…we did,” he choked out, tears gathering in his eyes.

Camilla was struck speechless by his tears. Should he really be crying, as if she were bullying him, as if he were the victim? She dropped his head, not wanting to spend another moment with him. She moved on to another one of her memorized faces, trying to find them based on their hairstyle.

This one had a bump on the back of his head from being struck by a friendly-fire stone missile. Camilla forced him to lift his head by grabbing a fistful of his hair again. Another elf, this one with a broken nose.

So many elves. Camilla belatedly realized that more than just being fellow prize fighters, the elves also had the bond of being from the same race. The first two she thrashed were elves too. That made sense.

“Who started the fight?”

“…we did.” The voice of the elf was nasally thanks to his bleeding, crushed nose. Camilla let his head down, satisfied.

The third one was also an elf. He had no marks on his face and he was glaring at her. Camilla narrowed her eyes. “Who started the fight?” she asked in a low voice, almost growling.

The elf didn’t shy away. “You did.”

Crack. A gauntleted fist smashed into his face and a few people around them winced. Blood dripped onto the floor, but the elf just shook his head and stared back. “Even if you hit me, you can’t change my mind,” he said with a bloody grin. “The city lord was an elf before she’s a vampire. If all of us voice our complaints to her, do you really think you can get off scot free? Think again!”

The more he spoke, the more excited he got. All the while, Camilla listened, expressionless.

When he finally stopped, she simply repeated her question. “Who started the fight?”

“Are you deaf? You did!”

Camilla admired his courage and iron will, she really did. But the degree to which he insisted on denying reality was abnormal. She decided to switch gears and give him one last chance. “In that case, would you consider Elyss your equal?”

The whole room waited with bated breath for his response. Without hesitation. the elf spat at her, the mixture of spittle and blood landing on her cheek. “No.”

“I see,” Camilla said simply, and slammed the elf’s head down on the ground. There was a loud crack and the elf stopped moving. With a face devoid of emotion, Camilla moved on.

She continued through the ranks of kneeling fighters, picking up the pace as the time for her battle neared. As she was matching faces with hairstyle and other features, her accuracy rate wasn’t a hundred percent, but those she wronged, she healed. None of the others acted up.

When she finished, Camilla still had a few minutes left to spare, so she sat down to wait in silence, the excitement she had just half an hour ago drained. She didn’t bother telling the kneeling fighters to get up and none of them did. As the hour drew near, she left the complex and entered the tunnel that led to the arena.

After she left, the fighters took a collective sigh of relief and got up one by one, with Camilla’s opponent hurrying off to take his place in the tunnel opposite Camilla’s on the other side of the arena. His legs shook as he ran.

Those that could still move tended to those that couldn’t, united in their hardship. However, when one of them checked the elf that Camilla got to third in her quest for apologies, he looked up in alarm.

“He’s…dead.”

Silence greeted his words. No one dared openingly condemn the daughter of the city lord with a bloody reputation on the battlefield—the daughter who was fearsome in her own right.