The Primal Hunter

Jake believed he had reached his limit for his kicking-only challenge when he hit Veteran Warrior, but his newfound Fear Gaze allowed him to keep the streak going for at least a little bit longer. He had still been unsure if he could really go all the way to Gladiator, and after reaching the rank of Expert Warrior, he did meet quite a problematic opponent in his third match.

His foe was a large orc wearing armor covering his entire body. The difference between this guy and the other armor-wearing opponents Jake met was that his armor was of a lighter variant while still offering plenty of defense against kicking opponents. Moreover, it had one very problematic design decision…

It was covered in spikes.

Not just a few spikes. Spikes freaking everywhere. Jake didn’t see a single opening where he could kick without seriously hurting his foot, and the orc clearly knew this as he went on the offensive, swinging his hatchet wildly while making sure to always keep his buckler ready. A buckler that was naturally also covered in spikes.

Jake found himself being pressured quite intensely as he didn’t ever get the chance to respond. Even with Fear Gaze, he doubted he could end the fight instantly. Did he see a way to win? Well, yeah, there were a few dozen openings present at all times that would allow Jake to end the fight in a single move.

The problem was that none of these moves were kicks or required him to use magic, so they were off-limits.

After fighting for several minutes, Jake finally found an opening that was kick-viable. His opponent had gotten slower and realized he had to pace himself or get exhausted before the timer ran out, which gave Jake more time to think and figure out a way to take the big orc down.

Because there were a few places where he didn’t have spikes, namely around his joints, on the inside of his thighs, the front of his helmet, and his boots. Jake took advantage of this. Without even using Fear Gaze, Jake dodged under his opponent’s hatchet with perfect timing and performed an equally perfectly executed leg sweep. He had aimed for the ankle of the orc and hit right where he wanted.

The large orc was swept off his feet and fell on his side, making many of the spikes penetrate into the sand. Before the orc could even try to get up, Jake finally used Fear Gaze right as he stood up and prepared to deliver the finishing blow.

With the big guy frozen in fear, he couldn’t protect his face when Jake delivered a kick straight into it. Hitting the non-spiked parts of the helmet did hurt Jake’s foot quite a lot, but the orc had it far worse as his head lunged back, and Jake faintly heard something snap. That is when Jake realized he may have made a mistake.

Due to the embedded spikes, the orc had been stuck. Usually, when you hit something, the impact would be partly lessened as that opponent would get moved backward… but with the spikes stuck in the ground, the only thing capable of moving was his neck.

A neck that was entirely incapable of handling Jake’s kick.

Fuck, Jake cursed internally as the orc went limp. He wasn’t dead, but Jake was unsure if he was dying or not. Reacting quickly, Jake tried to stabilize the guy’s neck as he held it in place while employees of the Colosseum soon rushed in. He had entirely zoned out everything but zoned back in when one of the employees took out what Jake recognized as a health potion and made the orc drink it before dragging him out of the arena.

Nearly killed him on accident, Jake sighed as he exited the arena, ignoring the commentator. Sure, the ones he fought weren’t “real people,” but Jake still didn’t want to kill someone like the orc when he had no reason to. None of his opponents ever seemed to strike with the sole intent to kill either, and only a few showed true killing intent or aimed solely to land lethal attacks. While it was true that Jake could still die even if his opponents didn’t aim to kill him, he fully realized the other combatants had to risk killing him if they wanted a chance.

While waiting for his next match, he got confirmation that the orc had survived but would probably be out of commission for several days. Jake did know that potions were a thing even before this match, as while he couldn’t really craft any himself due to the time constraint and his lack of ingredients, the Colosseum did sell them. They were not allowed to be used during matches but were only for faster recovery between fights, so he had no interest in getting any.

Feeling relieved, Jake did the rest of his matches of the day quite easily while maybe being a bit more cautious than normal that he didn’t accidentally kill anyone.

The final promotion match before he became a fully-fledged Gladiator was versus a wind mage. This was his first time meeting an opponent that was truly faster than himself, and the slicing wind blades he sent out were more than a little problematic as they were fully capable of leaving nasty flesh wounds.

Ultimately, he still proved easier than the Spiked Orc, as Jake dubbed him. The wind mage simply didn’t have a response to Fear Gaze, allowing Jake to catch up after dodging all of his attacks and land a good kick to his noggin.

This sent him tumbling, and Jake pounced on the opportunity and kicked the wind mage a dozen times before he finally surrendered. Overall, it was a good match and definitely more fast-paced than many of the others.

Jake’s knockout rate was definitely far higher than the average due to Fear Gaze, but only the orc in Expert Fighter rank had been knocked out, the rest managing to hold on. None of them tried the same tactic of the Cleaver, though. Something he assumed was partly due to the nice side-effect of Fear Gaze.

Fear was not an emotion that would instantly pass, and everyone he fought kept showing apprehension toward him even after the effect wore off. They also clearly felt that he wasn’t shy to kill his opponents if he deemed it necessary, making them not want to risk a stupid death by trying to test the apex predator that had just beaten their ass. The fact that he nearly killed that orc probably also played a part for the last few opponents.

After his victory, Jake once more returned back to the Battlemaster, as the middle-aged man, for the first time ever, greeted Jake with a wholly positive attitude.

“You bloody made it to the Gladiator rank, proving yourself a true warrior!” the Battlemaster said with a smile as Jake walked up to him. “Never once did I doubt you could do it, and I knew the very first time you walked in here that you were the real deal. Not only did you manage to become a Gladiator, but you did so without losing a single match and by fighting every single day. Take a well-earned rest, and come back tomorrow for your first real match. Your true debut. I am looking forward to seeing how far the Doomfoot can go, Gladiator.”

The entire round of praise was a bit ruined by calling him fucking Doomfoot, but he had learned days ago that there was no use fighting it. No matter how much he tried to correct the Battlemaster, the guy simply hadn’t cared and even commented on the name being pretty good.

Just as Jake began to wonder when his menu would update, registering his promotion, he got a message quite a bit longer than expected, as it became clear he had entered the second phase of the Challenge Dungeon.

Congratulations! You have reached the Gladiator rank, making you a true mainstay of the Colosseum of Mortals. However, this is only the beginning of your climb to the top. As a true Gladiator, you attract a crowd, and every single match is an event. Due to this, the Colosseum cannot have you fight in an official match every day.

You are limited to one fight a week against another Gladiator.

All crafters will now have better equipment and items available.

In addition to gladiatorial battles, you can fight against non-Gladiator opponents in Show Matches once a day. These Show Matches are against a variety of foes and have far looser rules and regulations than regular arena fights. The possible opponents one can face in Show Matches are decided daily. Winning Show Matches reward Colosseum Points based on the opponents fought. Show Matches and battles against other Gladiators cannot be scheduled on the same day.

For reaching Gladiator rank without losing a single time or losing any lives, you are rewarded an extra 500 Colosseum Points.

For reaching Gladiator rank in the lowest number of days possible, you are rewarded an extra 500 Colosseum Points.

Continue to fight, and claim your glory as you prove yourself the strongest mortal! Become the Champion!

There was quite a bit to unpack with this one. First of all, only one Gladiator match a week now? What? Jake already felt like only six in a day was insufficient. At least he could still do those bonus Show Matches, even if those were also only one a day… and with the rule of not having both a Gladiator and a Show Match on the same day, Jake would only ever be able to do one fight a day from now one.

At least those Show Matches were a bit interesting as those would not necessarily be against other fighters, which made Jake guess that he could also face non-humanoids or even groups. Getting to fight a bear or something would definitely be cool. Jake had always wanted to try and fight a non-magic bear.

The bonus Colosseum Points were also a surprise he had not expected. He was only a tiny little bit miffed that the system didn’t recognize the fact he didn’t kill anyone and won using only the mighty power of kicking, but then again, perhaps the feeling of satisfaction from succeeding was enough. The true reward was not the Nevermore Points at the end, but all the kicks landed along the way.

Not to say the points he did get weren’t great. 1000 Colosseum Points certainly weren’t anything to scoff at, and it did make him wonder if there were more similar “achievements” he could earn by not losing any matches and keeping up a good pace. Guess time would tell, as that was his plan anyway.

Mentioning that better equipment and items were now available was also interesting. Primarily that the system felt the need to point it out specifically. Every single time he had ranked up, better stuff had become available, but Jake hadn’t gotten any special notifications about it like this. Maybe this meant he could truly get some good or unique weapons.

Yeah, he should probably at least go take a look. The crafters were open any time the Colosseum was, so he still had time to go by and see if there was anything he would actually want to buy, as there were still quite a few hours before they closed that day. Jake wasn’t delusional enough to think he wouldn’t ever have to buy any equipment during his stay in the Challenge Dungeon. At the very least, he would need some proper weapons.

He had enough Colosseum Points to get some good stuff too.

Current objective: Be promoted from Gladiator to Veteran Gladiator

Current rank: Gladiator (0/10)

Colosseum Points: 2740

Lives remaining: 10

Wait, he now also had to win ten matches to get promoted to the next rank? No, it was worse than that; he had to win eleven, including the Promotion Match… and he could only do one match a week? That was bloody horrible. To make it worse, how many ranks were there even to Champion?

Oh well, hopefully, Polly or Owen would know. He had already spotted the two of them coming through his sphere, both coming over to congratulate him on his promotion. After a bit of coaxing, they even convinced Jake to go to a restaurant to celebrate. Jake was initially not a big fan until he discovered something incredible…

They sold beer. Good beer. And Jake was no longer a C-grade with Legendary Palate of the Malefic Viper. While he could still get drunk on special alcoholic concoctions even as a C-grade… there was just something different about drinking some regular good old beer and the slight buzz that came with it. Alcohol was the one thing that had allowed him to function properly in larger social gatherings for prolonged periods of time before the system, and now that he was reduced to a near-pre-system state... yeah, he wanted to enjoy himself.

All of this is to say Jake was not going to check out the crafters that day.

As Jake sat there eating and drinking, he also finally began to understand how the estimation of Challenge Dungeons taking around two years made sense. Something like the Colosseum was its own little world where one could truly get lost and spend a long time. Even for someone so goal-oriented as Jake, the limited number of matches a day - now a week - meant he would be forced to interact with the world in some shape or form.

If the other Challenge Dungeons also had similar timed events and worlds like this, it would definitely make things drag out. Sure, these forced delays likely weren’t a thing in places like Minaga’s Endless Labyrinth, and it was also possible some Challenge Dungeons took a lot longer than others, but he could see this one taking quite a while when just getting past the Gladiator Rank would take eleven more weeks.

He wanted to complain, but… it wasn’t all bad, and he understood why this downtime was in place. As Owen explained it, all the Gladiator matches would be scheduled a week in advance, with both knowing who they would be fighting. This would theoretically allow Jake to gather information on his opponent or even prepare specific pieces of equipment he would need. It was also considered very standard to research your opponents, and Jake remembered a talk he had with Carmen quite a while back.

Studying her opponent was viewed as an entirely expected part of the fight preparation when she used to fight semi-professionally, with pretty much every real pro doing it, or at least their teams did. Watching recordings of their prior fights and laying a strategy with your trainer was a big part of winning a one versus one fight, and going in with a pre-planned approach could give you a major advantage. Knowing your opponent’s habits, ticks, strengths, weaknesses, and general fighting style were all major boons. Studying who you would fight had been hard below Gladiator, but with a week to prepare for every fight, there was plenty of time now.

Of course, this also went the other way. Jake fully expected every opponent he met from now on to come fully prepared for Jake’s kicks and maybe even get special equipment or something made to fight him. Against a sword or spear, having spikes on your shield just made it awkward and heavy, plus it would make deflecting blows difficult. But against someone unarmed, only kicking, it would make the shield into a powerful tool to both attack and defend.

Jake knew all of these things… and he knew that fighting using only kicks would be quite the challenge unless he met an opponent where a foot to the face was especially effective. Honestly, he wasn’t even that keen on keeping up his streak of only kicking. Seeing as he didn’t even gain any bonus points or anything from winning every fight by only kicking, chances are there wouldn’t be any other rewards in the future, even if he continued to purposefully handicap himself.

So… perhaps it was time. Jake had achieved his silly personal goal of becoming a Gladiator through only kicking, even if he did add his Fear Gaze. Now was a good time to stop and get more serious.

It was time to retire the moniker of Doomfoot…

And become the Arcane Doomfoot.