## Chapter 137 – The Barbarian of the Arena
“This barbarian bastard. You’re doing too well these days, aren’t you?”
ㅡClang!
I clinked my beer glass against Copson’s. Foam overflowed the rim. Copson downed his beer in one go, his face turning red, and then let out a loud, “Kieeeeeeek!” Instantly, all eyes in the tavern were on us.
“Hey, don’t shout so loud, you idiot!”
“Hehehe, how is it? Just like him, right? Kieeeeeeek!”
There was no point in trying to reason with Copson, who was already drunk. I lowered my head, feeling embarrassed. Sometimes people recognized me. Maybe they were whispering about me behind my back right now.
“Kieeeeeeek!”
“You son of a bitch… and it’s not ‘eek,’ it’s ‘ek,’ you bastard.”
“Eek?”
“Ek.”
I also downed my beer. The cold carbonation felt like it was frying my throat. Fantasy was indeed fantasy. The beer tasted just as good as anything modern. The stress went down my throat.
Don’t imagine the miserable beer of medieval Europe.
This was the real deal, worth every penny.
“Khuh! Anyway, thanks. Never thought I’d be getting drinks from a barbarian.”
“Technically, you have a stake in it too. You introduced me to the job in the first place.”
“That’s true.”
I had asked Claudia for permission to buy Copson a drink since we’d met by chance. She had already returned to the inn alone. I had the earnings from the arena today, and I didn’t have any work tomorrow anyway, so I decided to drink without worry.
“By the way, I’m a little sad we can’t work together these days. Did you abandon our long friendship just because you became a D-rank? Abandoning friendship is a barbarian thing to do. Civilized people never abandon their friends.”
“If you want to work together, hurry up and get promoted.”
“Well, it’s about time for me to get promoted anyway. I think it’ll happen soon.”
Looking at his slender frame, I doubted he could get promoted to D-rank in a short period. After all, rank was about combat power, and you couldn’t ignore physical size.
Basically, D-rank was the highest rank a normal human could reach through effort.
In fact, from C-rank onwards, it was the realm of ‘superhumans’ who could manipulate mana.
Superhumans… actually, around that level, people didn’t really do adventuring anymore. There were always people who wanted the power of mana.
But this world was still a world where people lived, so there were those who pursued a stable life, and there were those who wanted to work as freelancers whenever they felt like it. Most adventurers with a C-rank or higher were in that category. Free-spirited psychos.
I guess Winia was like that too.
I didn’t know anything about her past, but there had to be a reason why a mage like Winia was doing adventuring work, unless it was a personality issue.
“What nonsense are you talking about? Don’t you have to go back to Krassheim to get promoted?”
“Hmm? What are you talking about?”
“I mean, the cities are different. How would the guild here know what you’ve been up to? Your career is reset the moment you come to Isban, reset.”
Most of Copson’s career was built up in Krassheim.
If you changed cities, you might have the rank, but your career was pretty much reset. It wasn’t like we lived in a world with the internet, and it wasn’t like guilds shared and updated the personal information of every E-rank guild member.
“Oh, oh? Wait a minute, Barbarian. Then how did you get promoted?”
This bastard hadn’t thought of something that simple?
“Don’t you remember the reward you got for catching the ogre? I heard that’s pretty much why you got promoted?”
The ogre was huge. In other words, it was like bursting all the experience needed to go from E-rank to D-rank in one go. It wasn’t something an E-rank could do. Claudia’s help was a big part of it.
Actually, when I was in Krassheim, I was on the verge of being demoted because I kept screwing up requests.
It was because every teammate I met was a retard.
Anyway, that was my career in Krassheim, and it had nothing to do with Isban. Even just changing cities washed away half of your past in this world. The adventurer’s guild had a lot of loose ends.
It was a bit like that in many ways.
Everything was looser than in modern times.
ㅡThe door burst open.
Copson downed his beer again. I called the server over and ordered two more beers and a simple meat dish. Back then, I would have trembled even at the thought of a single beer, but now I just ordered it outright.
This was growth.
“I see. But it doesn’t matter. I already have enough skill. What’s important isn’t the rank, but the real skill.”
“That’s so true.”
So true it hurts.
It’ll take a few years, probably.
Usually, you had to build up 2-3 years of experience after becoming an E-rank to get promoted to D-rank. I was a bit of a special case. Considering what Copson had done since coming to Isban, he still had a long way to go.
“But by the time you become a D-rank, I’ll probably be a C-rank.”
“Barbarian bastard, a C-rank? That’s impossible. You should just be satisfied with the environment you’re given. Don’t you think? Too much greed can be a bad thing.”
I didn’t know if I could get promoted to C-rank.
As I said, possessing the supernatural energy called mana was an essential element to becoming a C-rank. Honestly, I didn’t know much about mana, and there wasn’t anyone who could really tell me about it.
Some said it was largely a congenital factor, while Claudia once told me that she naturally awakened it while swinging her sword.
So, it was possible to acquire it postnatally…
Should I ask our guild leader?
She was also a mana user.
Well, it wouldn’t be as easy as paying a few silver coins to learn mana, but it would be good to get some kind of clue. I might end up living and dying in this world forever, so it would be good to know about mana.
“Barbarian, can I order another one?”
“You son of a bitch.”
Copson, who had emptied his beer in an instant, said with a wink.
“Order it quickly!”
“Good!”
Pour it, drink it.
Anyway, I drank like crazy and went back to Claudia.
***
It had already been ten times since I started clocking in at the arena. About two months in terms of time. It was a long and short time in its own way. During that time, I had become more than familiar, I had become an expert. I had become Gladiator Kim Katte, who had acquired the gladiator sub-class.
Today, I was on my way out after finishing work amidst enthusiastic cheers, when,
“Katte.”
Durvan spoke to me with a serious face.
“Hmm? Is there something you want to say?”
“Katte, I have a good offer for you…”
“Tell me.”
Durvan continued to explain.
What he said wasn’t anything special. Just that he was wondering if I wasn’t getting bored with just the openings. Didn’t I want to gain more fame? Of course, I could also earn more money. So he was going to give me a chance.
To put it simply, he was asking if I would like to ditch the openings and go to the main matches.
Seeing him trying to persuade me as if he had made up his mind, I wondered if he had received orders from the arena owner.
So, these kinds of offers were starting to come.
Honey was finite, so you couldn’t suck on it forever.
“No. I refuse.”
“If you do that, the benefits… huh? What?”
“I will never do anything other than openings.”
I decided to refuse the offer.
Two months was enough. Seeing this kind of offer coming, I felt like I couldn’t work any longer. It was a fun job in its own way, but I had to quit while I could.
“Re, refuse? Katte, this is an opportunity. Didn’t you hear my explanation? It’s a great opportunity! You can become a star! Then making money will be a matter of time!”
“I will never do a match other than the opening.”
I said firmly to him, who was giving a passionate speech.
The arena was no joke.
It was a little funny that I, who had been playing around until now, was saying this, but the arena was not something you could do as a child’s play. It wasn’t easy enough to approach with a light heart.
My crazy, insane appearances were all acting.
It wasn’t the real me.
The public might think of me that way when I was in a match, but my essence was nothing more than a weak petty citizen who was kind, sincere, smart, had a good personality, was well-liked, and even very kind.
The ‘real arena,’ where blood and flesh flew, was absolutely impossible for me.
The main matches were too ‘dangerous.’ Right now, I could play around in the openings, slaughtering low-level monsters that were nothing more than pushovers, but if I went to the main matches, I would really have to ‘risk my life.’
Bones and flesh flew out. True warriors risked their lives to kill each other for money and honor.
There was no morality or ethics there.
They just killed and killed and killed until they died.
You couldn’t buy a life with money, but you could take it.
I didn’t want that.
I had no desire to fight gladiators who were used to killing, or powerful monsters chained underground.
Of course, there were also matches that didn’t harm each other’s lives, but it wasn’t hard to predict that they would soon turn into murder fights.
Judging by the way Durvan was talking, he seemed to believe that I was a strong barbarian, but that was the influence of the media, and it was different from the truth. My crazy appearances were nothing more than a fabrication. The truth was, even though I was pretty strong, I was just a minnow when it came to the national level.
Hearing my refusal, he said again.
“That can’t be… Katte. But you’ve already signed a contract. You have to do this. No, you have no choice. This is a contract! Above all, this is a chance to soar! Katte, you can become a star!”
Durvan suddenly brought up the contract.
Ha, what a joke. For me, who had lived in the modern world where all kinds of texts were rampant, trying to lie with a contract was as reckless as showing off in front of a silkworm.
How dare a medieval fantasy otherworlder try to scam Kim Katte, a Korean man from Hell Joseon, with a contract?
“What nonsense are you talking about? The contract clearly states that I only do ‘openings,’ right? Durvan. Are you mistaken because I’m playing a barbarian? I’m confident that I can do better than you on a writing test. Don’t even think about scamming me with a contract.”
“…”
I had read the contract very carefully to prepare for any possible scams.
There wasn’t a single clause in it that would put my body in danger.
What I was doing was safely slaughtering low-level monsters in the opening.
As I spoke, my murderous intent began to rise.
But I was a man who knew how to restrain himself.
Even though he tried to scam me, he was a friend of a friend, and a friend of mine.
“I’m letting you off the hook this time because you’re still a friend. If you do that again, you’re dead, you son of a bitch.”
When I scowled and spat out the words, Durvan flinched.
He hesitated, then opened his mouth again.
“…Katte. This is an opportunity. Huh? A chance to go to a bigger stage!”
What, was this bastard going to get an incentive or something?
“It’s a chance to die. A barbarian only fights battles they can win. That’s the way of our Mirkesha. We don’t even fight battles that we think we’ll lose.”
I was a man who never fought battles that I thought I would lose. The friends in the arena were all higher level than me, for the most part. I would die even if I wore all my equipment and fought, and he wanted me to fight with the equipment designated by the arena?
Ask Masochist Kim Katte about that.
There was no such person in this world, though.
“The deal is over. There will be no more contract extensions. The exploits of Barbarian Warrior Kim Katte end here. My mom told me to come back home for dinner.”
“Wa, wait!”
Ignoring Durvan’s shout, I came out of the arena.
It just so happened that there was one last match left.
I had to make it a big retirement match and leave.
Well, it was fun while it lasted. I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to relieve stress like that otherwise. But the fact that I had already received such an offer was irreversible.
I couldn’t keep hanging around the arena after refusing the offer.
The next match was the last.
