Emperor Has Returned

“Grab it!”

The one gladiator who quickly analyzed the situation cried out.

The closest gladiator desperately grabbed the metal chain but all he could do was hold on for dear life as the creature dragged him around left and right.

Gladiators hurriedly rushed out of the cave before the creatures turned it into chaos.

Only one was left behind. Baldy was sprawled on the floor and had pissed himself.

“Fuu, Fuck….”

He tried numerous times to forcefully get up but the strength had left his legs. He gave up and sat back down on the wet ground.

Out of options, he hopelessly started to crawl towards the cave exit.

Then, his gaze shifted to Juan. Juan was a few steps away from the same place as before.

He wasn’t moving towards the crazy woman.

Very slowly,Juan walked towards the back end of the cave.

Beside his foot lay a broken pickaxe that slaves tossed it away before escaping.

Juan picked up the pickaxe.

It felt strange that Juan’s tree branch-alike arms could even lift it up.

Juan lifted the pickaxe and brought it down against the wall.

For baldy, this situation seemed like a prank.

He was about to enjoy his moment when Juan suddenly woke up, the creatures started causing havoc and upon standing up Juan started to pry at the wall with his pickaxe.

But above all this, the most laughable point was his uncertainty at whether he pissed his pants when he thought creatures were rushing at him, or whether it was when he had made direct eye contact with Juan.

**********

A fist sized stone was pulled out from the wall the moment the pickaxe slammed against it.

One could feel a small pleasure at the pile of dirt pouring down from the wall.

Juan again gripped the pickaxe and lifted it up. Before, Juan was finding it difficult to even lift a broken pickaxe, but now was expertly axing against the wall.

It had been a while since he’d done any pure physical labor work.

During when he was emperor, a few magical chants could achieve tasks beyond imagination.

But even without chants, he had thousands, tens of thousands of subordinates willing to do his bidding.

Now, all he had was just one pickaxe in his possession.

Clang!

As the pickaxe struck down at a rock buried under the dirt, his arms shook. Looking at it on a positive note, it meant his swings had plenty of power behind it.

This physical labor was unintentionally providing an effective workout for Juan’s body.

Naturally, cave widening construction work was something that a 9 year old couldn’t handle.

Even for an adult, pickaxe was heavy to lift and proper meals were not distributed as well.

Normally, overused muscles repair with time and come back more healthy than before, but doing such tiring cave work didn’t help strengthen the muscles but only ruptured it making it worse.

Luckily, Juan’s body was constructed on mana.

Mana composed his body and kept it going.

The fact that Juan’s body was weak could be interpreted positively; it would take only a bit of mana to restore it.

Swiftly, the mana inside his body healed Juan’s overworked muscles. Following immediately, mana in the surrounding area was absorbed into his body.

‘From this, my physical level has substantially improved.’

If Juan had already a strong body or insufficient mana capacity, then this rapid development wouldn’t have occurred.

People nearby had yet to realize that Juan’s body had significantly strengthened compared to before.

Juan reconsidered his thoughts about dying.

‘Looks like my body will continuously heal until mana runs out. If I waited for death, I’m unsure how long it would have taken.’

The nearby mana concentration was strangely dense. No, most parts of the Colosseum dungeon was dense.

Times arose where mana could condense naturally, however this case was different.

It was impure, a hint of blood and madness lingered in the mana. This place previously was home to Tantil’s temple so it wasn’t all that strange.

But the point stood that compared to then, the concentration didn’t get any lighter.

‘Not necessary a bad thing’

Juan thought to himself. And stopped.

Not a bad thing? Clearly, it went against his thoughts.

Thoughts of still wanting to die.

But now, he was moving, eating and working.

Definitely not a thought process of someone wanting to die.

He erased such complicated thoughts and moved subconsciously.

‘Emperor is dead. Emperor is dead. Emperor is dead.’

Juan endlessly repeated and reminded himself. The emperor died. Replaced here is just a 9 year old male slave.

Anyways, it’s going to be hard for a child to survive in this environment.

Either eaten by creatures, beaten to death or thrown into the Colosseum arena.

Either or, he was prepared to give an arm for his incoming doom.

**********

Ten days skipped past.

Juan’s limbs were still thin but hints of muscle started to appear here and there.

His growing transformation from looking close to death to signs of life made the other slave wary.

A 9 year old boy began to unexpectedly contribute to their labor work. He was even better than some adults who were being lazy or had poor prying skills.

Initially everyone was thinking why on earth someone would buy a child corpse, but by now those thoughts had changed.

This was the case for the inspector who decided to buy Juan. The glance he sent at Juan was full of interest.

But the biggest reaction came from the crazy woman.

She really liked seeing Juan’s appearance change with each day.

She pinched the bits of fat that started to show on his body, and throughout the night she never let go cuddling him.

Juan rejected the concept of being ‘cared for’ as it was foreign to him. But deep down he didn’t hate it.

Juan didn’t have any memories of his mother. Since when he could remember, he had great power, served as a pupil under great magicians and killed a god before he was 10 years old.

For all his life he was revered being the emperor. In his memory, not once he pulled a tantrum nor moaned. He always had a role in his life to pioneer, teach and protect those around him .

Yet this woman had melted Juan’s stiff frozen heart.

He still wasn’t used to being hugged, but allowed her to hold his hands.

“What’s your name?”

“Yes, sweetie.”

“Name. Your name.”

“I won’t let you go ever again, sweetie. You should not be wandering alone…..”

One night Juan asked the crazy woman for her name but the conversation didn’t go anywhere.

Juan ended up laughing. He softly accepted her cuddle.

Her heartbeat could be heard. Listening to her vigorously beating heart made him think it’s alright for him to live on.

His shoulders no longer felt heavy. He no longer had to protect the human race, and lead everyone to a brighter future.

He was just ‘Juan’.

Juan felt that was most bizarre.

Before he always risked and lived his life for humanity well being, humanity’s happiness, humanity’s future.

That was the expected life.

However, now he could no longer feel all those responsibilities.

At first he thought it was because the slaves in front of his eyes were half-humans. But even after looking at the human slaves that were brought from outside the empire, he didn’t have such feelings.

To the point where he started questioning if his time as an emperor did actually exist.

As if everyone was part of a dream and he was mistakenly thinking of an old past story.

Of course, that wasn’t the truth. Even now, his aching heart could feel the sensation of the black knife that pierced him.

But cozied inside her warm cuddle, Juan slowly started to forget the feeling of the black blade. The day gradually dulled until it disappeared.

*********

“Hey, kid!”

During work, he turned his head responding to him being called.

Person who bothered him the most after the crazy woman was the Faun.

The mistake laid in talking to him once. Being a Faun, his ability to climb walls were excellent, so he was working in areas that were more dangerous.

“You seem much better than before when you were acting like a corpse?”

“……. could you bugger off. Ahlil [1].”

“Ahlil? Using antique words are we. Nowadays everyone calls us half breeds. Well, though we still like being called ahlil more.”

Juan felt an odd sensation from Faun’s words.

During his emperor days ‘half breed was a term used only by a group who was an advocate of humanity.

More used to the period in which humanity was a minority, the term ‘ahlil’ was more familiar.

“No, I’m serious in saying you look good. I heard you are moving around without any problems and eating well…. How can someone change this much so quickly?”

Now that Juan was working, Faun had asked him to bring his meal.

Juan made a weary expression. One of the bad things he faced after almost dying was that no one simply stayed quiet when he asked them to shut their mouths.

Juan put down his pickaxe.

The fact Faun had come meant it was time for a meal. The other slaves had already put down their equipment.

Unlike the Faun, no one else was actively starting a conversation or throwing jokes around.

On one hand, it was expected.

Slaves didn’t ask nor told each other their names.

Involved in accidents, pulled into arenas to fight. Time and time again, slaves came and went just as fast. There was no point in getting to know each other.

Crazy woman who was looking after the food, brought out their meals. Juan didn’t know where and what work she was doing, but her mind only went ‘crazy’ when Juan was facing danger. She had no problems in completing everyday chores.

When Juan picked up a plate, the crazy woman slapped his hand.

“Sweetie, praying comes first!”

Juan ignored her and brought the plate to his mouth. A foul stench arose from the lukewarm porridge which was full of god knows what.

‘Honesty…. I could probably guess.’

Most likely dead bodies of beasts or creatures from the colosseum.

The expensive parts would have been sold and parts like intestines and lean meat would have been tossed in.

Boiled until the bottom of the bot started to burn, this eradicated most toxin’s inside creatures.

A few people still did get stomach aches, but ironically, those parts contained vast amounts of mana, so it wasn’t all too bad.

A normal person did not have the ability to accept the mana and had to release most of it out, but Juan was absorbing every bit of mana as he ate.

He made a bitter smile.

The sensation of moving around, breathing in and out, sleeping, eating and drinking, all these actions were telling Juan to live on, to become stronger. It was building up strength within him.

Even the sound of the prayers close by.

While chewing on the unknown identity of meat inside the porridge, Juan looked about.

A considerable number of people were eating just like Juan, but there were quite a lot that were praying like the crazy woman. Looking at them, Juan felt confused.

Gods were mostly dead.

He was confident of this as he killed them with his own hands.. The ones that were alive fled to places that they could never return from.

Listening closely, their prayers were not raised to gods.

“Without a doubt, eventually the emperor will rise and help us from this suffering…..”

It was a prayer none other than to Juan, the emperor.

Juan felt strange.

He was enthroned as a saviour of humanity.

But most of these slaves were half-humans and the few humans there, were mostly people captured from outside the empire.

For these folks to be praying to the emperor, it was difficult to say if they were foolish or truly unfortunate.

Not only slaves, but gladiators, soldiers, even the inspector prayed to the emperor.

In the past, Juan did see people giving him praise but would have never thought this to be the case for people in the lowest social ladder. Even the Faun had his hands tightly grasped together.

[1] Ahlil – What half breeds were called back when Juan was emperor.