The Emperor Has Returned

Chapter 7 – The Awl in the Pocket (3)

‘How long has it been?’?Juan wondered as he slowly opened his eyes. He felt a slight pain as he twisted his left arm out of the wolf's mouth. His left arm looked a little red, but he wasn’t sure whether it was because of the blood, or because it had just regenerated. Or maybe it was because he had used the demonic beast’s blood to regenerate.

“In any case, I'm sorry," Juan murmured as he looked down at the dead beast as it bled from the mouth and neck. The wolf was now way skinnier than before its death. As the demonic beast's mouth was approaching Juan, he could have just accepted his imminent death, but his body had moved too quickly.

When he had extended his left arm toward the wolf, Juan had been half-certain and half-doubtful of what would happen. His body could restore itself using mana. Thus, Juan speculated that he could also use the bodies of demonic beasts—which were richer in mana than other animals—to restore his body.

The moment the demonic wolf bit his left arm, it was almost fully amputated. However, Juan thrust his hand deeper into the wolf’s mouth, because canine beasts didn’t have sharp fangs deeper in the mouth that could tear off limbs. Therefore, they would vomit meat that was too large to swallow. Juan was prepared to sacrifice his arm as he reached in and grabbed the beast's tongue. The only reason he could try something like that was because it was a wolf-type demonic beast.

The wolf was taken aback when it couldn’t bite off Juan's arm. Juan held on desperately with his arm tucked deep into its mouth. He then dug into a wound near the wolf’s neck and tore off a big chunk of its flesh with his own teeth.

The demonic beast eventually died, though it was unclear whether it had suffocated to death because of Juan's arm and blood in its throat, or whether it had died from blood loss because Juan tore away its tongue. Juan had also lost a lot of blood in the process, and his left arm had been barely hanging onto his body from a few strands of flesh. In addition, he had been completely exhausted from using several times more energy than when he had been pickaxing in the cave, so he had passed out.

When he woke up, his arm was restored as if nothing had happened, and Juan thought to himself, 'If I had been chewed up completely, I might have revived inside the wolf’s gut.’

He didn't know if that would be a good thing or not. Juan gradually lost the confidence in his ability to die.

"Hmm," Juan tilted his head as he moved his arm around. He thought he would be in a bad condition because of the blood loss, but his body felt lighter than before. It seemed like he had become much stronger too. His mana capacity had increased ridiculously as well.

‘It must be because of the demonic beast.’

Directly drinking the demonic wolf’s fresh blood and absorbing more blood while regenerating his arm seemed to have helped restore his strength. It wasn't something he’d want to do again, but this was a notable development. While he didn’t know how much stronger he had become, it seemed possible for him to strengthen his physical ability by using mana now.

His stomach rumbled. Although he drank a lot of fresh blood, he suddenly felt a strong wave of hunger. Juan knew that he wouldn't die of starvation because he had mana, but he still couldn’t do anything about his sense of hunger. Juan thought about just enduring the hunger, but his gaze landed on the beast's corpse.

“…”

He was having conflicting thoughts until he heard someone calling out, "Kid."

"Huh? What? Why are you here?” Juan asked. It was none other than the goat-horned man. The goat-horned man looked around with a frightened look on his face and mumbled, "I heard you got locked up. The end of this dungeon is connected to where I'm working, so I came to check up on you. What did you do to get on the supervisor’s nerves... Ugh, what is that? What is this smell? A stench of blood? Are you hurt?”

"Not anymore," Juan replied.

"Not anymore? Wait, what's that in the back? Is that a demonic beast? Are you okay?”

The goat-horned man was shocked when he saw the scene behind Juan.

"I'm fine now, " Juan replied.

“…”

The goat-horned man looked at Juan, perplexed. His eyes alternated between Juan and the fallen demonic wolf. However, he assumed that the beast had fallen asleep because the dungeon was so dark. The goat-horned man held out an object in his hand to Juan and said, "Take this."

He gave Juan a hard piece of bread and told him, "The supervisor gave us some bread instead of porridge as a ‘special meal,’ so I brought you some. I thought you’d be starving since you got locked up."

Juan thought it would be good to postpone eating the demonic beast's corpse until later. He tore off a piece of bread and put it in his mouth. The hard bread became soft from his saliva, and he swallowed it slowly. As he chewed on the bread, he looked at the goat-horned man.

The goat-horned man nodded and smiled. "Yeah. She’s desperately looking for you in tears. That's why I came here to check on you."

"…I didn't ask," Juan said curtly. They were talking about the crazy woman. The goat-horned man simply smiled at Juan’s reply.

Juan felt lost and wondered about what he should do. He couldn’t just constantly stay by her side, not when they were slaves. He also wondered if being apart from him would help her regain her sanity. Juan then told the goat-horned man, "I can't go out today. They said they'd let me out tomorrow."

The goat-horned man sighed, "I know… I heard we're working at the colosseum tomorrow, so I guess we won't be able to see you during mealtime either."

"The colosseum?" Juan asked as he raised his eyebrows. The goat-horned man waved his hand and replied, "The work at the colosseum is not dangerous. I heard it's just sand dyeing or something. It won’t be just me; she's also going with me. And I'm a highly-skilled worker who can work even while hanging from a cliff, so there's no reason for them to kill me.”

Juan nodded. He thought it wasn’t going to be a dangerous task if both the goat-horned man and the crazy woman were being sent. While it was just a harmless task of dyeing sand, somehow, Juan still felt uneasy and asked the goat-horned man, "Can't you just request to work where you normally work?"

"We’re slaves, we can’t do as we please," the goat-horned man responded.

Juan agreed, "That's true.” His disobedience resulted in him being thrown into jail. Juan thought for a bit and decided to stop worrying. The goat-horned man said, "Well, now that I've seen you alive and kicking, I'm going back. If I stay here for too long, I might upset the gladiator whom I bribed.”

Juan nodded. However, as soon as the goat-horned man stood up, Juan hurriedly grabbed onto him. "Wait a minute." Juan grabbed his own hair and ripped off a handful of it. Then, he skillfully tied his hair into a knot, which caused the goat-horned man to look at him wide-eyed. Juan seemed to have done this many times before.

Juan handed the knot to the goat-horned man. "Take it to her.”

“Isn’t this—"

The goat-horned man seemed to know what the boy’s actions signified. Juan felt a little flustered since it was more of a military tradition than a common custom.

Juan warned the goat-horned man, "Don't say anything unnecessary and just give it to her. It doesn't mean anything."

The goat-horn man grinned widely and left with the bundle of hair. After Juan sent the goat-horned man off, he sat down against the bars. He hadn’t thought much when he gave it to the goat-horned man, but now he felt like he had done something unnecessary.

It wasn't something he should have done, nor was it the best moment. Furthermore, Juan hadn’t expected the goat-horned man to know what his actions meant, since the latter was a demihuman, but it was possible that he had served in the imperial army. Juan clicked his tongue with regret, but there was nothing he could do about it now. He thought he should ask the name of the goat-horned man when they met again.

***

Rumble.?A group of heavily armed knights arrived near the colosseum on their horses. The person at the forefront had a flag with a blue rose on a white background in her hand. The flag-bearer slowly stopped her horse as she arrived at the colosseum, while dust clouds followed behind her. A soldier quickly ran to her, because he had recognized the flag and knew who had arrived. He greeted the lead rider, "Dame Sina Solvane! What brings the Order of the Blue Rose here...?”

"I've received reports of heresy here," a voice replied from behind a helmet’s visor.

The owner of the voice was an unexpectedly beautiful woman. When she raised her visor, her clean white skin and blue eyes were revealed. The eyes of the soldiers were fixed upon her charming countenance.

Sina Solvane was the Elite Knight of the Order of the Blue Rose. She moved toward the soldiers with a frown and commanded, "Tell your master that the Order of the Blue Rose is here."

The soldiers retreated in horror as she approached them.

"Are you accusing us of heresy again?" one of the soldiers protested.

Sina stated, "One can never fully prove their faith in life."

The soldier retorted, "But Sir Daeron is in the middle of his work...”

Sina cut him off, "I guess your master will have to meet me without any preparation, then. I hope he doesn’t mind."

Upon hearing that, the soldiers frantically ran to the entrance. The other knights hurried behind Sina, who tied up her horse and walked ahead. One of the knights asked her cautiously, "Dame Sina, it’s this place again?"

Sina inquired without turning back, "Yes, are there any problems?"

"Didn't you tell the captain that we were headed to a different place?” the knight asked.

"Then he wouldn’t have given us permission. Do you know how much money that swine makes from the Tantil Colosseum?” Sina exclaimed.

Startled by Sina’s response, the knight cautiously looked back at the other knights. All of them pretended not to have heard anything. The knight then said, "We all know that the captain is a swine, but won't this become a problem? This feels like an unauthorized usage of a warrant."

Sina replied, "There'll be no problems if we find evidence of heresy here."

The knight then asked Sina, "Wouldn’t the fact we've searched this place seven times already be a problem in itself? People might say that we’re carrying out targeted investigations. Dame Sina, none of us hate you, but if you keep acting like this, you might get kicked out of the knight order.”

"Ossrey." Sina stopped as she called the name of the knight she had been talking to. She suddenly hit him in the pit of the stomach with her sword hilt, causing him to drop down to the floor and throw up.

Sina then burst out, "I was born and raised in Tantil! I know what to do to change Tantil for the better. I will do anything to bring down this disgusting slave colosseum that is ruining my hometown."

***

The next morning, Juan heard the dull footsteps of boots outside his cell.

"Did you sleep well last ni— What's this?" The supervisor, who came in with a loud voice, was taken aback because of the disgusting stench of blood. He wondered if the demonic beast had eaten Juan.

Juan rose from the pool of blood and said, "I thought it would be comfortable to sleep on because of its fur, but it wasn’t."

Juan couldn't sleep for a reason completely different from what the supervisor was expecting, but the boy’s reply was as calm as usual. The supervisor's anger soared because their precious demonic beast was dead, but his desire to obtain Juan suppressed his anger.

‘He killed a demonic beast with his bare hands at the?age of nine?’

On top of that, while Juan was covered in blood, he didn’t seem to have any major injuries. Juan’s age or physique no longer mattered.

'This guy's a precious commodity.'

Greed stirred within his heart. It didn't matter if it was something beyond what he could handle. He asked Juan, "So, have you changed your mind?"

"I've already told you my terms,” Juan replied, annoyed.

Unexpectedly, the supervisor agreed, "Sure, but you may change your mind if you take your time to think about this."

The supervisor beckoned the soldiers to handcuff Juan's wrist and dragged him out. Juan did not resist at all. The supervisor then commanded them, "Let's go."

Juan was led by the soldiers as they followed the supervisor. The long hallway under the colosseum was crowded with gladiators that were training or fooling around as they prepared for the event, and they looked at Juan curiously. In the colosseum, violent gladiators walked around freely even though they were armed. But a weak boy was being taken away in handcuffs? Just what kind of crime had he committed?