A King is Born pt.2

For several years now he had spent most of his time punching rocks, all the other slaves were far too defeated to do anything like training as they mourned their lost lives, loved ones, and their freedom.

When he had been young he had watched other children try to escape and watched as they were lashed with a whip for it, the lashing lasting until the guards were confident they had destroyed what little spirit they had, luckily no new children had come by for quite a few years and he took comfort that at least child slavery seemed to have fallen out of style.

"Do you have a family?" his new friend drew him back from his thoughts and he looked away from the adults fighting over the cushions to her, her name was Suzie, no last name given. She was a stacked young lady and he was sure most of the men were already trying to scheme a way to get her to join them in the drainpipe, he frankly would have liked to do the same but instead of trying to be seductive to the hot elf woman who obviously wanted his attention he simply shook his head.

He wasn't about to get attached to someone when either of them could be dead tomorrow, he had officially reached nineteen years of age, the minimum age required of slaves in the Colosseum to enter a fight. If he signed up for one he would receive a reward, usually extra rations or a dingy-ass weapon to use in the next fight.

However, he could still be forced into a fight, at random or specify if he caught the eye of a challenger. If he won the challenger's fight his reward would be getting thrown back into the lowest level. If he lost there was a good chance of death or of the challenger taking his contract and keeping him as his slave, and since he was an elf he had no doubts he or Suzie would be the next ones taken to the arena.

"Do you wanna play a game," Suzie asked him sweetly, leaning forward a little, the pitiful sack she had on hid nothing about her anatomy and he, in turn, shook his head, doing his best not to fall to primitive urges that would leave him heartbroken when they ended up being separated. As much as he wanted to, he was not the kind of person who could get with a woman once and just get over it the next day.

 "Oh, ok," She looked around dejectedly before looking back at him "I know, maybe you can tell me your name now?" He just shook his head, frankly, he wouldn't have cared not to but at the moment, he didn't have a name, he had just been called the baby, and then kid, and later on kid had dissolved into you. He could probably have made one up, but his naming skills were zero, and despite his best efforts he couldn't remember his old one from his previous life.

"Please," She begged him, she simply sighed and shook his head before looking at him with a pouty face. "Do you not like me?" Before he could try and think how he could answer that without talking to her the sound of metal scratching against bricks hit his ear.

He immediately jumped to his feet and without hesitation grabbed Suzie's hand. she yelped out in shock as he forced her to her feet and led her away as two guards opened the gates. The fighting adults scattered, leaving the cushions for later as a large man with a copper medallion on his chest walked into the lowest level.

A challenger had appeared, and he was looking for an opponent. The medallion on his chest marked him as the lowest-ranked adventurer, and they only ever showed up to the Colosseum to gain some attention and get some work with the noble crowd who frequented the capital city that housed the Colosseum.

And the best way to advertise to them was to prove you're a ruthless bastard who held no hesitation in harming non-human races, in fact he'd get extra points if he made it as inhumanly painful as he could.

As both the unnamed Man and Suzie were the only sub-humans, picking one of the two would was the obvious option, increasing his chance of being allowed to challenge again for a lower price than what he had probably paid this time if the crowd liked him.

If the nameless man was like all the others who had been raised in the depths of this hell hole, he would have shoved Suzie into the challenger's line of sight and rushed away.

That line of thinking was just another reason why he kept away from them, try as he might, even if it meant his odds of survival increased, he could never just throw someone to the wolves and run, he'd rather dive at the wolves and let her run in his place. although he wouldn't go out of his way to do that before trying to get them both away from the situation first.

Even as he ran he knew the others would sell the two of them out the second they thought he was looking at them, they had done so before but everytime someone had tried to pick the nameless man they had been denied due to such a high value item like an elf being a high value target they wanted to see die at just the right age for just the right price. But now there were two elves, meaning at least one of the two of them were easily disposable while the other could be saved for a higher paying client.

He and Suzie made it to one of the furthest columns in the Lowest Level from where the challenger had entered and he pulled her behind it.

When she tried to ask him what was going on he put his hand to her mouth and spoke for the first time in what might have been years, if not his entire life.