The Primal Hunter

“Welcome to the Colosseum! Today, we have two New Bloods, both here to prove their worth! As they set foot on the sand soiled with the blood of their predecessors, who will come out on top!? Who will have a chance to move forward!? Perhaps... no! Not perhaps! Surely, today is the first match of a coming champion!”

The voice of the announcer echoed loudly throughout the entire arena as Jake stood behind a fenced gate leading up to the arena itself. After talking to the Battlemaster, the guy had looked him over once before agreeing he was ready and sent him down one of the many hallways leading into an arena. These hallways were a mishmash of spatial distortion, taking you pretty much anywhere in the arena without you even noticing. No one around seemed to comment on it either, as everything was indeed very low-fantasy. There weren’t even teleportation gates anywhere, and regular gates had replaced magical barriers everywhere. He also had to admit that everything large-scale magical going on could only be detected by him due to his sphere.

“Combatants, enter the arena!”

Jake began walking forward, bow in hand and ready to go. He quickly made it up to a still-lowering second meshed gate, his opponent directly ahead of him.

“Go Jake!” he heard yelled from the stands as he saw Owen there.

The arena was entirely circular and pretty small, only about thirty meters across, the ground covered in sand. Jake knew that as one moved up the ranks, arenas got bigger and grander, but for a starter arena, this was honestly pretty good. The stands all around were just benches, but there were surprisingly many in the audience. Though, Jake quickly came to realize they weren’t humans. They were instead small green creatures.

Jake stared at his opponent at the other end of the arena as he cursed internally. Really?

[Goblin]

The goblin looked exactly as he would have expected. It was not even a meter tall and carried with it a wooden club that it held over its shoulder, trying to look intimidating. This was Jake’s first time encountering a goblin that truly personified a starter mob, and he honestly had no idea what to expect from the fight.

He knew goblins came in many different forms. They were an enlightened race as they had professions and classes like humans and elves but rarely reached high levels. If a goblin reached D-grade, chances are it wouldn’t be a goblin anymore but, at the very least, some kind of hobgoblin. Jake even heard that goblins sometimes evolved into orcs and ogres or other such races.

As for the audience? Yeah, it consisted of ninety-five percent goblins who were all cheering and hollering loudly at their fighter. The crowd definitely wasn’t on Jake’s side.

Right as the mesh was about to fully lowered, the announcer spoke one more time:

“Let the battle begin!”

Without hesitation, the goblin charged toward him, having no doubt realized he would have a better chance in a melee. Jake had a bow, and the faster the goblin got close, the fewer shots he could get off. Additionally, Jake only had a knife for melee combat, which would make it very difficult to block a club.

The goblin knew all this and quickly ran across the arena, closing in at an impressive speed. The sand barely seemed to slow him down as he sneered at Jake, soon getting within only a few meters with Jake yet to nock a single arrow. The goblin prepared to swing its club the moment he entered striking distance, with Jake still yet to respond.

“Oh no! The goblin is simply too fast for the human to respond in time and draw his bow! How will he-“

Jake kicked the goblin.

His small green opponent tumbled to the ground, losing grip of his club. The little guy tried to get back up and find the club but stumbled again. After a dozen seconds, Jake just sighed as the goblin had managed to stand back up, even if he looked wobbly on his feet, barely able to hold onto the club.

“If you try to hit me again, I will kick you harder than last time.”

The goblin stared at him for a second.

“I give up!”

Silence persisted for a good three seconds as the announcer yelled loudly.

“A perfect victory for the archer… no, the martial artist! A glorious display of misdirection to bring a bow and confuse his foe! Truly brilliant!”

Jake tried to ignore the announcer guy as he walked back the way he came. He raised his hand and waved as the goblin bowed while Jake made his exit to the excited yells of Owen. Reaching the tunnel, he checked his menu and saw it had been updated.

Current rank: New Blood (1/5)

Colosseum Points: 2

Lives remaining: 10

you can even call that

were rather simple in regard to obtaining victories. One could win in one of three ways: kill your opponent, knock

survived, you would lose a point, and if you went too much in the negative, you risked getting demoted to a

congratulated him and told him to take a rest before coming back for another fight. Before Jake could protest, he heard running from behind as Owen arrived. The Battlemaster threw Jake a look, making him back off and sit

slightly out of breath as he stared at Jake with starry eyes. “I didn’t

didn’t want to use a weapon… it felt like that

kick was clearly practiced. You hit him right on the chin, too,

said internally, knowing he wouldn’t get anything out of saying

bit more before Jake decided sitting there

I think I am going for another match,” Jake

Well, I guess you don’t really need

Jake said as he walked up to the Battlemaster. “Let me

against a goblin, New Blood. Plus, I heard you revealed to everyone your special kicking technique, so expect your next opponent to

wanted to point out how he literally just kicked the goblin normally but nodded solemnly. “I will keep that in mind. So will

it seemed. This time was given for a few things, including studying your opponent using stuff

one pointed out that there were hundreds of tunnels leading out of the training area was really fucking weird, but not anything worth commenting about. Also, who the hell was in charge of all those timers? How did they even know how long something would take? Of course, he knew it was all just system-fuckery, but he still kind of wanted to

down the tunnel. He soon found himself in a nearly identical arena, ready for his next match. Everything proceeded as before, as it was even the same announcer who went wild

held a simple wand in her gloved hands, looking incredibly full of herself - something her

have been training under my

Not a martial artist.

walked slightly forward as she held out her wand. “Behold! The power

a casual pace as he saw mana slowly begin to gather, glad that even if he had been pushed to G-grade, he could still easily feel it. Then again, if he couldn’t feel it, other G-grade humans also wouldn’t be able to, which would make any and all casters utterly fucked in

basketball condensed over the next dozen or so seconds, as the elven woman looked incredibly strained. She kept her eyes trained on Jake, who kept walking, and as he passed a bit over the halfway

“Try to dodge this!”

He did.

side-stepped it as she stared wide-eyed as the fireball hit the sand and left a nice black burn mark. It didn’t even

kept walking until he

this distance, you cannot possibly dodge

He could.

it, already half-fizzled out, hit the back wall of the

me win, I am sure

walked one step closer,

“Please don’t kick me.”

and raised his eyebrow as she looked

yelled loudly as she stumbled back and fell down on the sand. Before Jake could

before quickly scurrying out of the

out

that last fight; the lady clearly had no damn

as the middle-aged man allowed Jake to fight again immediately, and on the way

day, he had another quick victory, all the

how

One kick.

the same, both of them going down with single kicks. All three of his last fights had been humans, and all had gone down the same way. Honestly, it was amazing how good a quick kick was at convincing someone that continuing fighting was probably a bad idea. His fifth opponent did look like he wanted to quit before the fight even started but still allowed Jake to get in a good

make actual progress. That’s right, it was time for a promotion

be quite a lot more challenging than the fights prior. In

Two kicks.

from his grand promotion match, the Battlemaster had a smile on his lips and gave him a pat on the shoulder. “Good job, New Blood… or should I call you, Initiate Fighter. Who knows, if you keep this up, we might one day make a proper combatant out