Before the Arena

Itsuki didn't listen to her.

So many questions swam into his head like swarms of flies that gnawed at his sanity. What was he doing here? Why did he look like this? Where was he? Was this real? Who, what, and where questions kept popping up one after the other, and he didn't have a single answer to any of them.

"Ah." The witch rubbed her forehead with her palm. "So much mental strain – stop it. I can feel it even through our summoner link."

After a few seconds, the witch realized that Itsuki was drowning in a mixture of anxiety and confusion that stopped him from paying attention to her. Sighing, she pointed an accusing finger at Itsuki.

"[Greater Synchronicity]"

When Itsuki heard those words, his mind cleared out. The swarms of questions buzzed out of his brain, leaving him calm and his thinking unclouded.

"What was that?" he said.

"You can still ask questions after that spell?" The witch blinked and gaped her mouth in surprise. "Wait!? You can speak Common?"

"Common?" Itsuki raised a questioning hand. "You mean like English? Or Japanese?"

"English? Japanese?" Now it was the witch that raised a questioning hand. Not one, but two, giving a full-bodied shrug. "Are those Insectoid dialects? I didn't ask about them, but I guess you don't have the best grasp of Common yet, what with it being specialized for the People of the Tree."

The People of the Tree. Hearing that familiar term got Itsuki thinking with a little more depth and understanding. In Volsunga, the People of the Tree were the human races. Men, elves, dwarves and so on. So called because in the game's origin myth, these races all came from one massive tree they lived in before an evil dragon split it apart.

It would seem that Itsuki had been transported into Volsunga. He felt just the tiniest hint of surprise that he could accept that reality so quickly, but he knew that was also from the spell she had cast earlier. It had made him so much more accepting of the reality around him, much calmer and understanding. In a way, it made him accustomed to his new life, leaving him only with technical questions about the world and not thrust into an existential crisis where he wondered if he was in a coma dreaming all this up or not.

If so, then that meant Common was the tongue of the People of the Tree. Despite the fact that Itsuki trained solely for game performance, the thousands of hours he'd spent gave him enough finesse to name every single city, capitol, and major event in Volsunga's world.

"Okay, I'm beginning to understand," said Itsuki. "I do speak Common. Whatever it is that humans can speak, I can speak."

"Great. That means you'll fetch an even higher price at the slave market."

"Excuse me?"

"Well, I hate to break it to you, but I have to sell you." The witch shook her head with a nonchalant frown that didn't have a shred of remorse. "It's better this way. Plenty of people are willing to get their hands on an exotic species like you, and I guarantee that such a fate is better than dying in the Arena."

Itsuki felt his pride flare up. A little twinge of heat in the depths of his now cold-blooded chest.

"Who says I'll die?"

The witch sighed. "You're level one."

"So?"

Itsuki felt confident that as long as he could damage an opponent, he could outmaneuver and outskill anyone within ten levels of himself.

"First off," said the witch. She talked faster now that she was impatient. "The minimum level of entry for the Arena is level 10, and that's for the Bronze League. Nobody watches that so I won't get money off of it. On top of that, since you ended up being a sentient summon and not a beast, I need to supply you with weapons and armor, and my pockets are quite empty."

"Any way to get me to level 10 quickly?"

The witch took off her pointed hat with an angry swipe. She held it between her hands and scowled.

"Come on. Why do you want to die so badly? I mean, there is a way to get you to level 10, but it's going to cost me a rare item, and I need to sell that to pay for my rent."

Itsuki looked into his head and scrolled through the entirety of Volsunga's items. He'd memorized them, of course, as all professionals should, and he found what he was looking for.

"You mean an experience wand?" Itsuki tapped his chin. A dull clink echoed as his claw hit his armored face. "It'll get me to level 10 for the duration of a battle, which is all I need. Plus, it's just a rare item, and not even a good one considering it's a consumable."

The witch furrowed her brows and her amber eyes looked like they were set afire. "Are you kidding me? A rare item costs almost a hundred white serpents."

"Hm, I see," said Itsuki. "But why fuss over white serpents? Only gold ones matter."

"I don't exactly take kindly being reminded that rent is something I have to think about every night."

Itsuki sensed her growing anger. "My bad, I didn't mean any offense."

Back in the game, max level players didn't use anything except gold serpents. Black and white serpents sucked because rarer items very quickly got into costs so high that a player would need millions of black or white serpents where a few thousand gold would suffice, and exchanging serpents took up valuable time and had a percentage fee attached.

Meaning this area did not have a high general level. The witch even thought rare items were something to fuss over. A max level player would scrap rare items for materials without a single second thought. However, Itsuki had a hypothesis that the whole world operated on this watered-down scale.

He decided to test it.

"I just need a few questions answered," he said. "I'm a little confused is all."

The witch nodded in understanding. "A common side effect for summons."

"What level is the strongest individual in the world?"

"You're not going to get close to that tier, you know."

"Perhaps, but I do want to know."

The witch looked up at the ceiling, thinking. "Level eighty, about. That's the level that the Primal Serpent children are at."

"Ah." Itsuki nodded. In Volsunga, the Primal Serpent was a god of war and the patron god of the Arena where PvP and dueling occurred. In-game, the Primal Serpent was level 100, but it could spawn children at around level eighty. Child's play for a high-level player, in all honesty. "And correct me if I'm wrong, but item rarity goes like from common – uncommon – rare – epic – legendary – blessed – godgiven, yes?"

"It's surprising you know this," said the witch. She took a second to process what she'd heard. "And you're right, except there's no item tier called godgiven."

Itsuki narrowed his eyes. The Godgiven tier was introduced in a later expansion that also increased the level cap from 100 to 120. Which meant that if this world followed Volsunga's rules, then it didn't go beyond the game's release difficulty.

All in all, Itsuki felt confident he could stand at the top of this world. The mere thought of that made his heart burn, making him grin. His sharpened teeth slid across each other and his lips hurt a little as he made the motion, and he realized that Insectoids didn't naturally smile.

"Is this some kind of attack signal?" said the witch. She took a step back, eyes widened in worry as she saw Itsuki's unnatural smile.

Itsuki coughed. "Oh, not at all."

"In any case, I'm sure an old sorcerer would love to study your species' habits and culture." She gave a resolute nod to herself and headed towards an oaken door. "Hurry up. Let's get you to the market."

"No."

The witch swiveled around to meet Itsuki's stare. He sort of admired how she could perform such a maneuver on heels.

"You know, I am your summoner," she said, raising a finger. "I can make you bend to my will."

Itsuki paused.

Of course, summoners could control pets and monsters in the game, but he had no idea how that translated in a real-life scenario. Now he sort of got an idea. She had absolute control over him if she wanted. In that sense, he was like an advanced A.I. that could program his character but in the end would submit to any command she made.

He would need to convince her to let him fight somehow, and he remembered how badly she'd reacted when she felt her personal finances got offended.

"You need money, right?"

The witch paused. "You think you'll make enough fighting in the arena? Honestly, you're going to die in the first fight, and the compensation the Arena gives is so poor that I won't even get half the six hundred white serpents I spent for you."

"Okay, so the issue is how much I cost. Think of this as an investment. Eventually, I'll make over six hundred white serpents, and I am absolutely confident I can do that. I'm confident that I could beat a level 10 warrior right now, and if I hit level 10, then you can assume I could thrash a level 20 warrior too."

The witch gave a thoughtful pause, nodding at Itsuki's confident aura. "Alright, I'll go against the rational part of my brain and put you in the Arena. With the experience wand, you'll get to level 10 so I can stick you in the Bronze League for a match. But I'm going to warn you – since the wand only lasts for one battle, I'm going to put you in the highest-profile, highest-stakes fight in the whole league. If I'm betting, I'm going all in, you hear me?"

"That's fine."

"That's settled then. It's evening now, so rest up here and I'll come by tomorrow morning to pick you up and send you to the Arena."

"You're not staying here?"

The witch shrugged. "Why should I? In the first place, I rented this room out for you – there's only one bed. Though, I really didn't expect you'd use a bed."

She pointed to the corner of the room, and Itsuki saw a large cage covered haphazardly with a velvet blanket. He realized she'd expected to get some kind of monster or beast, and that wasn't an unusual expectation. It wasn't as if summoners in the game could conjure up other players.

"Plus, I have business to attend to during the night."

With a sigh, the witch headed over to the door and opened it half-way. It groaned and little pockets of sawdust rose from its hinges.

"Why are you doing this, by the way?" the witch said, one foot out the door already. She looked back with enough genuine concern that Itsuki felt surprised and a little touched. "I wasn't lying. You'll be treated well at the market. There are laws that protect rare species like you, and many sorcerers will give you a comfortable life in exchange for studying you. I also promise that you won't get into any grubby hands that'll torture you."

Why was he doing this? A simple answer, and he understood why he'd been transported here. It was because deep down, he wanted this. Itsuki smiled again, feeling once again the strain of making such an unnatural movement.

"I want to stand at the top of this new world. Have the most fame and the most strength. It's what drove me before, and it's going to drive me now."

"So shallow." The witch shook her head, but a smile graced her lips. "But you know, who am I to judge? I just want some money."

With a laugh, the witch closed the door behind her, leaving Itsuki with his thoughts.