The bearded, tan-skinned man who had let them in walked over to a table covered in documents, a bright red lump pulsing on the back of his neck. Both women felt shivers run up their backs, their killing instincts demanding that this poor wretch be put out of his misery, but they both held back.

“De-po-sit?” the man asked again.

Zel wordlessly pulled out two sacks of money, tossing them onto the table, to which the parasitized flesh-puppet of a man opened them with inhuman dexterity, counting the money in a few seconds thanks to the high denominations. He scribbled down something on a piece of paper, put it off to the side, and using a different pen dipped in luminescent, scarlet-coloured ink, he drew a complex glyph on another piece of paper, forcefully tapping his finger next to both to gesture either of the women to take them.

The moment Zelsys stepped over and grabbed the papers he started up again, turning his head up to stare Zelsys right in the face. There was nothing behind his eyes.

“Auct-ion be-gins at… Two ayy-em,” he gurgled. His breath stunk like rotten meat, and where one would expect a tongue, there was a small, tongue-coloured beetle.

They departed as quickly as they had arrived, making their way back to the amphitheater on a meandering path, and in the absence of anything better to do, the two went out of their way to find a peddler that sold alchemically-activated alcohol. It was only ever sold in its pure form, and mostly marketed for its intended use as an elixir base, but it was also so potent that it could effectively intoxicate someone with an inhumanly capable liver such as Zelsys. This intoxication, however, took hold nearly instantly and only lasted a short while, much like the elixirs which the alchemic alcohol was used as a base for. After obtaining a quantity of equally cheap and delicious sangria to dilute the alchemical base into a palatable form, they found their way to an inn that conspicuously rented lavish, sound-insulated rooms on an hourly basis. Of this hour, they spent the better part putting the aforementioned insulation through its paces before returning to the amphitheater in a much better mood and with only a scant few minutes left before the next round of fights.

Victor had initially refused to believe it when Reiner had told him that the supposed main character of his pulps had challenged Adalbert Von Wickten to a pit fight, but he couldn’t convince himself of it being untrue either. So, still off-balance and irritated, he agreed to come with, following Reiner to Scarlet Silk Road with his Tablet, and thus pulps, in hand.

He’d been here before, albeit not very far in at all. When the two young men made their way to the Amphitheater, Victor saw a man who looked nearly exactly how the books had described Jorfr; the Borean who had bet Zelsys the starmetal that was later made into her armored sleeve, the man who had shared with her the shamanistic knowledge of his ancestors and taught her how to draw Metallum from deep within the earth, and who had supposedly played a vital role in the slaying of Ubul during the Blue Moon War. Still, he refused to fully believe Reiner’s claims, holding onto that disbelief for nearly an hour, even as Jorfr magnanimously supplied both of them with drink and regaled them with tales of battle, reassuring him that Zelsys and Zefaris were dealing with some business in the deeper parts of Scarlet Silk Road and that they’d return before the clock struck nine.

…And indeed, that promise came to pass, shattering what little disbelief was still left inside the Khestun heir. Seeing those two enter the amphitheater with the tall one casually gesturing a greeting in the table’s general direction before they headed up into the stands, was enough to take him most of the way to admitting that it wasn't all a coincidence and that these were real, flesh and blood cultivators.

Wait, no, she had gestured at him. “Why?”

After coming up to their table for what little time remained until the next round, Zel didn’t even get the time to sit down so she could preemptively take her boots off before Victor hit her with a question: “Are you really Zelsys Newman?”

“...Well I don’t know who else I could be, I’m a bit hard to mistake for anyone else,” she responded without even looking up at him.

“But that’s just a novel character. You didn’t really-”

“What, wipe out a locust hive, spit in the Emperor’s face, and kill one of his Generals? All true,” she said to him with a great deal of pride, rising above the table after pulling both her boots off. “But then, I don’t need you to believe the books - Reiner here brought you ‘cause he thought you’d like to see me beat some civilization into the degenerate your duke calls a knight-captain, isn’t that true Reiner?”

Though clearly not quite in agreement with the way Zelsys referred to Von Wickten, Reiner still nodded. She smiled at the affirmation, continuing: “Seeing that ought to be proof enough of my identity, if what I did to that False Drake didn’t suffice. Nice tool-assisted pyromancy, by the way - very creative use of a weapon you wouldn't have otherwise been able to use effectively.”

“Er- Didn’t you mean civility?” Victor asked cautiously, clearly trying not to insult her. Zel shook her head, reaffirming her choice of words: “No, I meant what I said. He’s a vile, uncivilized beast pretending to be human.”

Zelsys couldn’t help herself. She could feel that what tenuous grip the young man had had on his conception of a mostly mundane world was being ripped away with every word she said, and she derived a great deal of enjoyment out of finishing the job. Between what Duma had shared about his genetics and upbringing to the bubbling, barely-contained savagery she could sense inside the boy, Victor just positively reeked of wasted potential. It would have been such a shame to let him fester in depression, and in a town that he clearly didn't fit into to boot, which was why Zel had decided to raise him from that mire.

She’d already had the Teacher slip that pamphlet into one of his books, after all - the fact that Reiner had brought him here changed nothing about her intentions, but only served to accelerate her plans. Pulling out her Tablet, she checked the time - around three minutes left until the next round. Idly scrolling through her extensive Fog Storage inventory, she questioned him: “Say, how much money did you get for that drake? Just… Out of curiosity.”

“Uh… The payout was supposed to be three-hundred gelt for each member of the hunting party and six-hundred for the captain, but since we didn’t actually take it down and the huntmaster found out, we only got one-fifth,” he explained, his knuckles cracking as he clenched his fists in anger, even as his voice remained mostly calm.

Victor reminded her of the very first person she’d fought after her arrival to Ikesia - an arrogant young master by the name of Halxian Estoras, the son of Willowdale’s provisional governor, the descendant of a rare heroic family which had not fallen to dead-end cultivation methods and inbreeding… And, in the last few months, one of her favored disciples, as much as she didn’t want to admit it even to herself. Besides both of them being genetically gifted noble descendants with all the vanity and good looks such an upbringing included, Victor came across like a version of Halxian whose self-assured confidence and confrontational nature had been smothered by depression and maladaptive escapism, and somehow, Zelsys loathed this defeatist outlook even more than Halxian’s obnoxious veiled insults.

Zel turned the Tablet and tipped it towards Victor, willing it to eject six Cold-Iron Sovereigns. The fifty-gelt coins slid out from the newly-formed Fog vortex, emitting resonant tones as they struck one another.

“There’s your payout. Another three-hundred if you come along as an independent contractor on the next assignment I take from the huntmaster - that means you sidestep the guild, I’ll pay you myself, not a fucking word to the huntmaster. Sound good?”

After unflinchingly looking him in the eyes for the few seconds that it took Victor to process what had just happened and shamelessly snatch the money, Zelsys got the answer she’d wanted: “Sure. It’s not as if they offer anything above Hazard Grade D anyway.”

Of all people, Reiner cut in, a tinge of amusement in his tone: “A False Drake is Hazard Grade D?”

“W-well, no, but that was an exception-” the Khestun heir stuttered, and just as the exchange began, the clock struck nine and the bookie’s voice blasted across the amphitheater once again.

Not even bothering to listen, Zelsys just leapt directly into the middle of Pit Three and, just as before, sat herself at its edge before the dust had the time to clear. Her opponent this time was to be none other than the second highest-ranked contender, Baldwin von Burgghusen. His epithet was almost pitiful: “The Second Strongest Man in Arches”. He certainly looked the part, being a Dragon Knight just like Von Wickten, and having an appearance similar to him, but being a less exaggerated version of him. A natural face, two somewhat asymmetric horns, a tamer haircut and a thin mustache of black hair to complement a beard of scales and spikes.

Zel couldn’t help but bring it up before the fight: “Isn’t it a little sad? Your entire identity, reduced to being Von Wickten’s second-best.”

“Tell me, why do you fight?” he questioned, ignoring the jab. “What drives you to seek out violence and struggle, to put your own life at risk? Power? Glory? Revenge? Answer quickly, but answer well, for-”

Zel interrupted him: “This is just how I get my kicks, man.”

“Huh?”

“Yeah, I just… Like fighting. That’s it.”

It wasn’t the whole truth, of course, but it was the truth as far as his question went, if that question was interpreted entirely at face value. Zelsys had no deeply personal reason driving her to seek out violence - she was just a naturally violent person. The enjoyment she derived from combat was an entirely different, and far longer-lasting thrill compared to the satisfaction of putting down a rabid beast.

“Now tell me… Why do you fight?” she turned the question around on him, already knowing the answer.

“Just-” he began.

“-following orders?” she interrupted, lunging at him with an obvious jab, one which he blocked just as she’d predicted. “Wonder from whom.”

So it was that they fought. Baldwin’s raw capability combined with stereotypical draconic abilities such as a fiery breath, envenomed claws and his legitimate skill as a martial artist improved Zel’s opinion of the Dragon Knights as a whole, but unfortunately for him, he was a few ladder-rungs below what she would’ve considered a proper fight. Fighting him was certainly fun, but it was fun in the same way as shooting coins mid-air was fun for Zefaris - terribly impressive to a layman, but a matter of muscle memory to someone of their caliber. More of Zel’s attention was put towards making the fight entertaining for onlookers than actually fighting.

The struggle, the exchanges of blows, the apparent closeness of the match - it was all a show. Zelsys limited herself to using the absolute basics of her toolkit, metabolizing a greater volume of Pneuma to produce flashy visual effects than she did to saturate her own tissues… And Victor noticed the discrepancy between her apparent performance and how she was described in the books. He also asked questions, directed as Zefaris, albeit with quite some timidness: “...Why hasn’t she knocked him out yet? If the books are true, she should’ve been able to punch through his head.”

“She’s sandbagging,” the cycloptic gunwoman said offhandedly. “Von Wickten won’t agree to a fight if she shows her true strength, so she’s putting on a show to make it seem like she’s a manageable opponent.”

When, after a good fifteen minutes of falsified competition, Zelsys performed an equally falsified tombstone piledriver on the Second Strongest Man in Arches, it was over. She sat there holding him upside-down with his head buried in the sand for a good half-minute before she let him out, not out of malice, but because that was how long it took the visibly-nervous ref to actually count down from ten and declare her the winner. In this case, she gladly took her rightfully earned winnings, holding no sympathy for a man she considered to be a follower content to serve under a subhuman slaver.