“I came to sign up” The short, fat man smiles.at my comment.

“For one to trade blows with Spetus, you’re more than welcome!” I have to turn and spit, the blood in my mouth having piled up a little and feeling disgusting.

“Hey, hey!” The Spetus guy approaches us again. “He can’t just threaten me with a good time and then walk away!”

“Shut up, you fool!” The short man retorts at him. “I have said it before! You will save any real fights for the circle!”

Spetus scowls a little, but turns around with a “Whatever” and walks off.

“Sorry, let’s start this over properly. I am Porar, head manager of the fighters, and you are?”

“Yos. I came here to sign up.”

“Yeah, yeah I heard you the first time, follow me” He walks away and I follow him. He walks into a wooden building, that looks a little different from the rest. It is smaller and of unique design compared to all the others.

He leads me up some stairs and into a room, where a desk is present, with a comfortable-looking sofa chairs on each side of it. He walks around the desk and jumps into the chair.

“Right, take a seat, we will do a short interview”. I move to sit in the chair.

“Do you have any fighting experience?” He starts.

“ehm, I am a hunter.”

“What rank?”

“Third”

“Huh? I was thinking it was either going to be second or first rank, how does one like you get stuck at third rank”

“It’s not so much “get stuck” as it is I didn’t bother turning in requests for a few years.”

“And what made you take this break?”

“… Training” That’s truth-adjacent. I did power up a little.

“Next, I take it you have a gift? Fighters are separated by whether they have a gift or not.”

“Yeah, I do”

“What kind?”

“Self-healing”

“Hoo” he smiles a little.

“Any specifics?”

“It only works once a day, but heals any and all wounds”

“Right, you know, you really shouldn’t answer questions like that” He says, as he nods. Huh, then why did you ask?

“Gifts are trump cards, and if people know how they work, it will be easier to beat you” A small smile forms on his lips. I mean, I guess that is true, but I am not really concerned.

“Right, and the last question. Why do you want to fight in the circle?”

“To meet the hero” His smile turns into a slight frown.

“So, you are one of them, who only sees this place as a stepping stone, eh?”

“I mean, I know the hero, but I am a nobody and I didn’t know how to get in contact with him.”

“And you casually decide to fight in the circle?” He sighs. “You know him, right? If you just needed him to see your face, there’s a ton of easier ways to go about it.”

But, he thinks I am dead… I really feel the need for a private meeting. I don’t say that out loud, of course.

“Maybe he knows you, but doesn’t like you, eh?” He smiles wrily.

“Well, nevermind. But you can’t just drop into a fight here. We will need to make sure you understand the circle way of doing things before you can fight, so at the earliest, you will probably fight in grand championship 4 months from now.” Shit, that’s a lot of time.

“There isn’t one sooner?”

“There is, but do not think I will simply allow you to fight here and waltz out again immediately. If you seek to use our facility to meet your own needs, it is only logical that I seek to do the same, right?”

Well, I guess that is fair. It is at least much better than a decade.

“Right, so, have you seen a fight in the circle before?” I just shake my head.

“Come with me, we’ll talk on the way”. He says and jumps out of his chair again. What was the point of coming here then? I follow.

He moves towards the circle itself, once we’re outside.

“You see, a lot of people think circle fights are a desperate struggle to wind up on top, but that is not all that this is. This is entertainment, people come to see blood, struggle and skill” He guides us through an opening with the portcullis retracted. We go down stairs.

“If every fighter here fought as best they could, a match would be over in seconds. Therefore, we have couple of rules” We are walking into another room, one where weapons and more of the chainmail coverings hang.

“They are not only there to prolong the matches, but also to make them more dramatic, to make each fight feel special” through another door, up some stairs again.

“But don’t worry. The outcome of each fight is still down to personal ability. We make sure both fighters reach a place with similar, shallow wounds, and then the fight starts out for real”

We pass through one last opening, as I see the circle from the arena itself. The ground is covered with sand, but what gets me, is that I turn around and see thousands of seat, all on different levels, all the way around.

“Therefore, you need practice. Practice to engage in some convincing fake swordplay, practice to deliver your lines, practice to appear wounded and tired, even if you aren’t”

Only one word goes through my head. Stadium. Emotions and memories from my past flow into me.

“Can you give me minute to do something?” I ask Porar.

“Sure, knock yourself out”

I kneel down into my running form, and take a few laps around. The sand is a bad foothold. Way inferior to the polyurethane that makes up most running tracks, but as I let my mind flow, imagine the seats filled and the competitors, it feels incredibly nostalgic nonetheless. The only issue is that I can’t run full speed. There is not only a spectator now, but my highest speed probably would allow me to turn fast enough or stop me from tripping on the poor footing, that the sand provides.

“You got a hell of a pair of legs there” Porar comments. “What was that anyway?”

I realize that bringing sports to this world, had probably always been an unrealistic dream.

“Nothing, just wanted to feel how it was to move around here” I say.