Chapter 60: Unanswered Questions
Chapter 60: Unanswered Questions
Alex sat on the straw bed, his back against the cold stone. The wounds had stopped bleeding, but the exhaustion was deeper than any wound. It was in his bones, in his breath, in the spaces between his thoughts.
The system UI hovered in front of him. The apology notification was still there, waiting.
He clicked on it.
[The System offers its deepest apologies for the recent glitches, and going offline temporarily without warning.]
Alex stared at the words. The silence stretched. Somewhere above him, the crowd was still chanting—a distant, muffled thunder. Across the corridor, the Gaul was still watching from his cell. Somewhere in the governor’s box, Aurellia was still sitting in her stolen throne, her twisted smile still curled at the corner of her mouth.
But down here, in the cold and the dark, there was only Alex and the system. The system that had abandoned him in the water. The system that had been silent for days. The system that was now offering its deepest apologies like it was apologizing for a late shipment of grain.
He let out a long, slow breath. Shouldn’t there be more? Like a compensation, or something. He said to the deadpan system. I almost died out there.
[The system has already offered the host compensations.]
Alex blinked. He re-read the words. Then again. A third time.
What compensations? He asked flatly. I didn’t get anything.
A beat.
Are you playing me or something?
[The host received 200 points for Tenacity rewards.]
Alex frowned at the notification. His brow furrowed. He waited for more, but nothing came. The system just sat there, patient and silent, as if that explained everything.
[The actual tenacity points allocated to host were 100 points. Then an extra 100 points were rewarded to host as compensation.]
The silence that followed was absolute. Even the distant roar of the crowd seemed to fade. Alex stared at the words, his mouth slightly open, his exhaustion-addled brain struggling to process what he was reading.
"You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me!"
The words tore out of him before he could stop them; raw and loud and echoing off the stone walls of the holding area. Across the corridor, the champions stirred in their cells. He could feel their eyes on him. They stared at the Ghost who had walked in drenched in the blood of 49 men.
And that Ghost was yelling at nothing.
Alex took a deep breath. The air was cold and tasted of torch smoke and old blood. He let it out slowly and deliberately, forcing his heart rate back down.
"You slimy piece of shit." His voice was quieter now, but the edge was still there. "Okay. I have a series of questions for you. How about answering those as a real compensation?"
Nothing.
No ping, no flicker. No acknowledgment that the question had even been asked. The system UI just sat there, hovering in his face, patient and silent, the way it always did when he needed answers.
Alex let out a dry chuckle. It wasn’t a laugh... not really. It was the sound of a man who had expected nothing and received exactly what he expected. He leaned back against the cold stone wall and stared at the ceiling.
"What was I expecting?"
He closed the apology notification. It vanished without a sound. He clicked on the level-up prompt instead, the words hovering in his vision like a choice he wasn’t ready to make.
[Level Up! Congratulations, Host! You have reached Level 4. Please select a skill to upgrade: Temporal Dilatation (Lv3 → Lv4) or Blade Work (Lv1 → Lv2).]
He stared at the options. The skill that had failed him in the water. The skill that had glitched, stuttered, abandoned him when the crocodiles were closing in. Temporal Dilatation. The power that had been his safety net since the first day he woke up in the sand. The power that had saved him from the giant, from the lion, from a hundred threats that should have killed him.
And Blade Work. The skill thas saw him through five giants. The skill that was purely his own—no glitches, no interference, no cosmic force that could take it away. The skill that had been growing, quietly, steadily, while he poured his trust into the other.
He thought about the water the cold, the dark. The massive shape closing in. He thought about reaching for Temporal Dilatation and feeling nothing. No slowed world... nothing. Just silence. Just the jaws of death opening.
"With what just happened up there," he said quietly, "I trust you even less."
He glanced at Temporal Dilatation Level 4; More charges, more duration, more power. The safe choice. The familiar choice. The choice that had kept him alive since the beginning.
Then he shifted his gaze to Blade Work. Level 2. A small upgrade, nothing flashy, nothing dramatic. Just a step toward something that was his.
"I need to learn not to be dependent on you." His voice was barely a whisper now, but the words carried weight. "If I’m going to survive in this world."
He clicked on Blade Work.
The system pinged. The upgrade took effect—no fanfare, no warmth, just a subtle shift in the numbers at the corner of his vision. Blade Work, Level 2. His choice. His skill. His survival.
He closed the notification. The cell was dark and cold and utterly silent. Somewhere above him, the crowd was still chanting his name.
But down here, in the cold and the dark, Alex leaned his head back against the stone and closed his eyes. The system was still there—patientiently waiting in silence. But he had made his choice. And for the first time since he woke up in the sands, he had chosen himself.
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The pulvinar was still silent. The kind of silence that came after the world had been turned upside down and no one knew how to set it right again.
Ignatius hadn’t moved since Alex climbed out of the water. His eyes were still fixed on the platform below, where the last of the bodies were being dragged away by guards who moved like men who wanted to forget what they’d seen. Beside him, Oseka was still standing, his mouth finally closed, his hands still gripping the back of Ignatius’s chair.
Gaius slowly reached for his bag. His fingers found the leather strap and tightened around it with a grip that was steadier than it should have been. The scroll inside seemed to pulse against his hip, a heartbeat of its own, demanding to be heard.
"I need to go," he said.
Ignatius turned his head. His expression was stiff, but there was a crack in it now—a hairline fracture where the impossible had slipped through. "Go where?"
"There’s something I need to check. Something I should have checked days ago." Gaius stood up with a groan, his knees protested, as they always did. He ignored them, as he always did. "I’ll meet you back at the room, Oseka."
Oseka blinked. He looked at Gaius like he was seeing him for the first time. "You want me to come with you?"
"No." Gaius was already moving. "Stay here. Keep an eye on things."
He didn’t wait for a response. He walked out of the pulvinar, past the senators who were still frozen in their seats, past the other lanistae who were muttering among themselves in low, shaken voices. Aurellia was still sitting in the governor’s throne, her back to them.
The corridor outside the pulvinar was empty. The distant roar of the crowd was still there, but it felt like something from another world now. Gaius walked fast, his sandals echoing off the marble, his bag bouncing against his hip with every step.
He had seen a dead man come back to life. He had watched the boy fall into the water with a killing wound and emerge as something that wasn’t quite human.
The description in the scroll matched Albius like a portrait painted centuries before his birth. The impossible healing. The speed like wind. The armies that fell before one man. And now, the dead man coming back to life. The connection to Macedonia was there, somewhere, hidden in the ancient text he’d found in the restricted section. He could feel it pressing against the back of his skull, a name he’d almost spoken once before and was determined to speak now.
And he was going to find it.
The streets of Macedonia were wide and empty, the nobles and senators still in the arena, the servants still waiting for their masters to return. The setting sun cast long shadows across the cobblestones, painting the white marble in shades of amber and gold. Gaius walked alone, his sandals echoing along the empty thoroughfare.
The image of a library he had passed earlier flashed across his mind. He remembered it as a small, neglected building tucked between a temple and a magistrate’s office. He’d noticed it in passing the day they arrived, and filed it away.
Now it was exactly where he needed to go. If any place in this city held records old enough to explain the connection between Macedonia and the legend in his scroll, it would be there. It had to be there.
He turned down a side street and kept walking. The truth was close. He could feel it, a pressure at the back of his skull, a name he’d almost spoken once before and was determined to speak now.