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

down… if you can even call that

regard to obtaining victories. One could win in one of three ways: kill your opponent, knock them out, or have them surrender. Apparently, in higher ranks, the rules could change, forcing some

match and reach the next rank. If you lost a match and survived, you would lose a point, and if you went too much in the negative, you risked getting demoted to a lower rank. All in all, a simple system that made it quite easy to see that Jake just had

of the tunnel leading to the arena, Jake went straight to the Battlemaster, who congratulated him and told him to take a rest before coming back for another fight. Before Jake could protest, he

as he stared at Jake with starry eyes. “I didn’t know you were

didn’t want to use a weapon… it

smiled. “That kick was clearly practiced. You hit him right on the chin, too, and the timing… definitely not something you just

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

bit more before

I think I am going for another match,” Jake

I guess you don’t

he walked up to the

Jake. “Hmph. Don’t get overconfident just because you won one fight against a goblin, New Blood. Plus, I heard you revealed to everyone your

the goblin normally but

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

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 know if the system would at least try and offer

ready for his next match. Everything proceeded as before, as it was even the same announcer who went wild and introduced them both as Jake reached the second

overly elegant dress that Jake suspected was against regulation. She held a simple wand in her gloved hands, looking incredibly full of herself - something her words that sadly interrupted the announcer also made

is thoughtless kicks! I have been training under my revered master for years,

Not a martial artist.

the woman walked slightly forward as she held out her wand. “Behold!

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

kept watching as a fireball about the size of a basketball condensed over the next dozen or so seconds, as the elven woman looked incredibly strained. She kept her eyes trained on Jake,

“Try to dodge this!”

He did.

for him, and Jake pretty casually side-stepped it as she stared wide-eyed as the fireball hit the sand and left a nice black

bit as he kept walking until he got within three meters of the elf, and she looked right at

this distance, you cannot

He could.

and kept flying before it, already half-fizzled out, hit the back wall of the arena behind Jake.

let me win, I am sure my

closer,

“Please don’t kick me.”

his eyebrow as she

as she stumbled back and fell down on the sand. Before Jake could even do or say anything,

before quickly scurrying out of the arena again, sighing mentally

me out of

nearly felt bad about that last fight; the lady clearly had no damn fighting

once more told not to get cocky. Alas, at least the guy wasn’t a complete idiot as the middle-aged man allowed Jake to fight again immediately, and on the way back to the arena, he only said a quick hi to Owen, who had also decided to do some

had another quick victory, all the build-up taking

for how he

One kick.

it was amazing how good a quick kick was at convincing someone that continuing fighting was probably a bad idea. His fifth opponent did

to make actual progress. That’s

fights

Two kicks.

a pat on the shoulder. “Good job, New Blood… or should I call you, Initiate Fighter. Who knows, if you keep this up,