Emperor Has Returned

While walking along, Juan found himself looking at the cave where he usually worked.

As expected, the crazy woman nor the Faun were nowhere to be seen. Around this time, they would be working hard.

Juan remembered what Faun told him yesterday.

‘He said they’re working at the Colosseum.’

Juan tried recalling the Colosseum’s layout. A layout map he saw when he had to secretly enter to assassinate Taltere, god of madness. Most of the facilities were kept and used the same way.

Although it seemed like they didn’t know about the hidden devices that Taltere’s priests were using.

‘Going towards the Colosseum I see.’

There must’ve been a large task load, if they were making crazy woman help with the work.

But something about that felt weird to Juan. There weren’t many working people on the site.

An uneasy feeling welled up inside him.

And then, they arrived at the bottom of a long staircase.

“You know what this place is? Gladiators call it ‘The staircase of glory’. That’s because even lowly half humans and slaves have the opportunity to obtain glory on the sandy arena.”

Juan ignored the inspector’s laughable explanation and started to walk up the stairs.

Inspector twisted his face and immediately followed him up the stairs. Soon before arriving at the arena, they met someone unexpected at the end of the staircase.

“Daaron nim.”

A man staring at the arena on top of the stairs turned his head around at the inspector’s call.

An elderly man with long white hair tied in a ponytail. His emaciated face was hard as a radish and cracks had begun to form from old age.

“Did you come to check on how sand dyeing is going? It’s proceeding as planned.”

“Yeah. Seems like it.”

The director of Colosseum, Daaron grasped a handful of sand and opened his palm. The reddened sand trickled down like an hourglass.

“The colour must be as dark as possible so refrain from holding back on ingredient use.”

Daaron turned his body and brushed past the inspector. He didn’t give one look at Juan. The tense inspector let out a sigh and disheveled Juan’s hair.

“You’re in luck. If I received the instruction one day earlier….”

Juan was acting jittery as soon as he saw the reddened sand. He smelt a strong scent of blood from the sand that Daaron let slip from his hands.

It wasn’t blood spilt by the gladiators.

It was rich, fresh blood. Instead of anger and excitement, he could sense fear tainted inside the blood when it was spilt.

Juan left the inspector to his own and walked up the remaining staircase.

The sunlight was intense. A blazing heat shined on his head.

Everything was red in front of his eyes.

The enormous arena’s center was filled with reddened sand. At regular intervals, something was laid on the ground. Juan’s heart started to pound.

Dead bodies.

He spent most of his life on a battlefield. All it took was one look to see what had happened.

Juan could see the events that had inspired here as clear as if it had happened in front of his eyes.

(Moments before)

The morning air was cold. A tense atmosphere between the slaves was clearly evident. The soldiers start grinning viciously.

With a thrust of a sharp spear, the first victim emerges.

A man who had his ankles almost torn off, fell while screaming. From here and there, slaves who had been lightly hurt started running off aimlessly.

In quick fashion the slaves were ‘spread’ over the arena.

The soldiers allow them to run around, then aptly kill them at the right spot.

While trying to escape, the slaves find themselves stabbed repeatedly with swords and spears and those that are injured are once again stabbed by soldiers chasing behind.

On purpose no one is fatally wounded as humans spill more blood when the heart is racing. The fallen slaves groan, scream and cry out in pain.

They are given a slow painful death. The smell reeks of the blood split and people’s skin turn pale. It’s only flies that start dancing happily in the area.

The reddened sand rustle between Juan’s toes.

The sunlight dries the blood into the sand creating a clear red colour.

‘Sand dyeing huh.’

Is there a more apt word for what has happened, this picture.

Juan started walking through the sand. In front of him lay the body of a male and female that tried to escape.

The blood that had yet to completely dry, was covering his leg.

There was no need to walk far. He never got the chance to run away. Yes. That’s because his hands were full looking after someone else.

The Faun was sprawled over the crazy woman as if he was protecting her.

His legs were strong and great at climbing walls. If he wanted to escape, he would have died at the outskirts of the arena.

Likely speared to death while trying to climb the tall slippery walls.

But he didn’t do this. Instead he chose to die being stabbed on top of the crazy woman who was certain to die.

Also, it looked like the crazy woman was holding onto something tightly next to her chest. Juan knelt down and found what she had been holding onto.

The lump of hair that Juan gave to her. It was covered in blood.

When Juan was emperor, it was tradition for soldiers leaving for war to leave behind a lump of their hair tied in a knot back home.

The person who safe-kept the knotted hair were their mothers. The person that eternally waited at home safekeeping it until the soldier returned from battle. Someone to go back and meet again.

It signified the will to return home at any cost.

‘Sweetie.’

Juan let out a laugh at the voice lightly drifting away in his ears.

“Inspector nim, what is this guy doing?”

“Leave him be. Looks like he’s met someone he knows.”

The inspector grinned nefariously as he looked down at Juan’s back. Stupid idiot. If you listened to me, she might have survived.

The inspector came up close to Juan and put his hand on his shoulder.

“Alright, Juan. Can’t do anything about the past. Director Daaron ordered me to dye the sand, so I had no choice in the matter.”

Inspector whispered an excuse into Juan’s ear.

“Forget about this and look at it from a logical point. All deaths are a tragedy…. But as a slave, having no one important in your life can actually be a strength. Furthermore, the soil was turned red for the Emperor’s 94th anniversary birthday event. It would’ve been an honor for them.”

His majesty the emperor?

“Instead of turning into creature food or dying alone in a cave, isn’t it much better to meet a noble death like this? In a way, I provided them with that opportunity.”

What on earth is he spouting…

“Normally a healthy male’s blood is used to soak the sand. You see, the emperor doesn’t like a weak sacrificial offering. Yet an opportunity presented itself for a half human elf who isn’t even in a right state of mind to offer her blood to the emperor. It’s an honor for her and her whole race, is it not?”

Sacrifice what to the emperor?

“But the best present, more than anything else is you! There’s never been a talent like you. When you turn 15 years old, I have no doubt that on the emperor’s 100th anniversary birthday year, you will be crowned champion! The emperor yearns for the strong! And I will have brought him the greatest present to him!”

Juan slowly turned to look at the inspector. The inspector looked as if he was intoxicated in vanity.

His neck seemed to be creaking. The inspector widened his arms and tried to cuddle as if he was consolidating Juan.

Then, something hard hit the inspector’s chest.

Uhh duduk! A horrifying sound echoed inside the inspector’s head. After rolling on the ground in pain, blood gushed out from his mouth.

“Inspector nim!”

The soldiers came rushing towards him. With flickering eyes the inspector looked up at Juan.

A crooked left arm belonging to Juan came into his view.

With that arm? Really? Maybe he’d swung so hard that his arm broke?

The inspector quickly searched for his sword from his waist. But the only thing that his hands could grasp at was sand.

“What are you doing… Why don’t you try fighting back.”

His sword was in Juan’s hand. He was looking down at him with pitch black eyes.

His eyes contained blackness that couldn’t be found on even the darkest nights.

“Didn’t you say the emperor dislikes weak sacrificial offerings?”

Juan softly whispered as he pierced the inspector’s throat.

*****

Sina turned her head at the loud stir coming from the Colosseum. It appeared to be a large commotion as the sound had reached the guest’s reception room.

Today wasn’t the day of the event. There was no reason for a commotion.

Director of Colosseum, Daaron also looked towards the Colosseum wondering what had caused the ruckus.

“Sounds like they’re holding a practice bout.”

Sina gave a brief comment to bring out Daaron’s thoughts.

“Unlikely. They are dyeing the sand in preparation for tomorrow’s event.”

“Don’t you need to head on over?”

“It’s only a small disturbance. I can’t inconvenience the top knight nim to walk more than she has to.”

Daaron’s dry face offered a reassuring smile. On the contrary, Sina’s mind became more uncomfortable at seeing his smile.

Daaron was a thorough man. It was difficult to find evidence of a cult related to him.

“So, what in particular did top knight nim expect to find here? I heard you found evidence of a cult, but I just wanted to say, you couldn’t find a more faithful servant of the emperor elsewhere. The fact is one tenth of the profit I make from the Colosseum is given to the church. Isn’t this a clear sign of the devotion I have towards his majesty emperor?”

“Faith is something that can’t be bought. Find one act of heresy and all that effort to build up trust turns to dust.”

Daaron smiled and thought deep in his mind ‘what an irrational bitch’.

Sina also smiled back and thought to herself ‘bloody murderer who thinks everything can be solved with money’.

“According to reports, fights in the arena follow a similar scheme to the one back in the day before the emperor slew Taltere the god of madness. His loyal fanatics were employing the same methods. Do you have any comments on this matter?”

“It’s all but coincidence. I’m just wanting to reenact our majestic emperor’s past. His past when he disguised himself as a slave, snuck in and killed Taltere. So to an extent, some unavoidable similarities are going to exist.”

“I know most slaves meet their death here. Are you implying the emperor was also humiliated and killed at the time?”

“That is to articulate what reality was like for the humans before the emperor arrived. They were helplessly being beaten by the gods. But ever so often, one slave stands out prominently, giving something to cheer about for the crowd. I gave this a term and called it, ‘the emperor has returned’.”

“His majesty’s sacred body is currently laid inside the palace. Saying such blasphemous words could cause problems.”

“Completely right. Yet, how could I not compare the symbol of heroism to the emperor? It’s down to my imperfect cultural sense, so let’s not make a big strife about it.”

During their discussion, Sina tried finding something to use as leverage but it certainly wasn’t easy.

Although he was an ignorant, idiotic public official, he was excellent at providing logical excuses.

Sina had expected this to happen. Daaron was not an easy opponent. Instead, Ausrey and the other knights were instructed to desperately search for any clues around the Colosseum.

If they didn’t find anything, today would once again end in failure. And it felt as if this was their last opportunity.

Sina wanted to close down the colosseum by any possible means.

The colosseum had been built when Sina left home to finish her training in order to become a knight. Of course Tantil wasn’t the cleanest city to begin with.

But with the Colosseum arrival, the darkness inside the city thickened.

The things that were done secretly in the dungeons were brought up for the people to see.

The slavery market also blew up in size. People’s blood and lives were mistreated as they were sold and bought with a couple of coins. This had an influence on the ordinary public as well.

Naturally, as people were used to conduct business, people’s value were calculated with money.

By the time Sina had returned to her hometown, the place had manifested into something unrecognizable.