Micchi Versus the New World - Chapter 129

*I'm retconning Lord Vermire's name to Lord Vermin

Alt link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TCN9Ah69o_QrtuADvduFP7l7A6fmJU7kfQD1D3g2pKc/edit?usp=share_link

Chapter 129

We entered the arena to boos and heckling coming from the stands. Broken and dried bones littered the ground and gathered at the edges. Hundreds or maybe thousands had gathered just to watch a bloodbath. The arena itself was formed by the lower jaw of the gargantuan dragon, so the bones and long rows of sharp teeth served as the wall

Combatants of all kinds with different arsenals of weapons pushed past me to get to the front. Spellcasters, archers, some with weird-looking weapons… there had to be at least a hundred of us in total.

"I-I'm not sure this was a good idea…" Hurai said, trembling as she shot a look to the bones on the ground. "Doesn't all these bones mean a lot of contestants died fighting?"

Lilim scoffed. "Nonsense. I'm certain most of the bones were eaten by Vermin's monsters. The gates we came in from stay open should we wish to retreat. See that? Perhaps you surface dwellers may very well abandon the master's side at the first sign of trouble."

"You're acting awfully high and mighty for a demon when Micchi is also a surface dweller." Thelesia squinted at her.

"Hah. Master is an extraordinary exception. Her unbridled strength is—"

A loud horn bellowed through the arena and the crowds went wild. A couple of obelisks rose from the ground ahead of the fighters. Rabid demon dogs poured from them by the dozens.

"No announcer, huh? Going straight into the fight?" I asked.

"It is marketed as a contest, but Lord Vermin only sees this as a training ground for his beasts." Lilim made a repulsed face at the snarling monsters.

When my team raised their weapons to fight, I waved them down.

"Not yet. It's a little stuffy so let the crowds thin out a little. I wanna see what the fighters and monsters are made of," I said.

They backed down and watched on. A few other demons had the same thought process.

The more gung ho ones charged head-long into battle. The group of cloaked, chanting mages from earlier froze the legs of a pack of hounds, then bombarded them with explosive spells. Another group cleaved through them with swords and axes.

Not everyone was strong enough to stay standing. Weaker demons were singled out, chased down, and made chew toys out of.

"They start out with meager creatures to give us hope, then…" Lilim pointed to the sinking obelisks that were quickly replaced by larger ones.

While hounds were still running amok, half a dozen trolls the size of demon giants stomped out of the obelisks, wildly swinging their clubs. They walked with a hunch because their gorilla arms were thicker than their legs. One troll batted a homerun on a party of imps. They went flying into the sky.

"Nice hit." I whistled sharply.

"Watching the grunts take a beating until the bigger fights come along, too? I can respect that." A blue-skinned, seven-foot tall demon sauntered up right next to me and grinned.

"Geez. What ugly smurf gave birth to you?"

"Smurf? My name's Larick. Just wanted to dangle the offer of working together when the real meat of Feeding Frenzy comes knocking. We get out of this alive and split the prize money. Whaddya say?" he asked, reeking of schemes.

"What do I say? Get lost and rope someone else into your game," I said.

"Suit yourself." Larick clicked his tongue and moved on.

"Hmph. Telling him off was for the best. You can't trust any other demon but yourself in the ring." Lilim sneered.

By the time the trolls were pushing daisies, the number of participants had fallen by half. The next obelisks to rise caused the ground to shudder. Kawa began snarling as two hulking, wingless dragons crawled out from the obelisks with their tongues flicking about. They immediately pounced on the fighters and gulped some of them down.

"N-Now do we fight?" Hurai asked, nocking an arrow onto her bow.

One of the dragons stampeded right for us.

"Sure, why not." I shrugged.

Kawa leaped into battle. She ran ahead and clamped down on the tail, holding the dragon in place. I threw a punch across its head. It crashed hard into the side of the arena.

Hurai fired two arrows. They plunged into the scale body. A thin string attached to the arrows glimmered slightly and moved on its own to entangle the dragon whole.

"Jinwan crystal thread? Good shit." I drove a fist into the monster, splattering blood all over the audience.

They erupted into cheers.

"My money's on the pissed off-looking demon chick!"

"Make it rain guts!"

The ground rumbled more intensely this time. Another obelisk emerged, but it had a wider opening than the others. A giant, red cube slime moved out of it slowly. Half-dissolved bones of demons and monsters floated within the jelly body.

"There he is!" Lilim exclaimed.

A throne seat was fashioned out of the obelisk's peak. Vermin, the fat imp lord, sat with a glass of wine and surrounded by lady imps feeding him fruits.

"Hehe… Been waiting for a good chance to bring this baby out. How do ya kill what doesn't get hurt? Give us a nice show, will ya? Scream now because you won't be able to once it consumes ya! That elemental wolf, though… I'd love to add that one to my collection!" The many folds of Lord Vermin's belly jiggled as he laughed.

As the slime advanced, many demons started booking it out of the arena. Even Lilim was shaking.

"Damn. This slime is a lot bigger than the one I fought before. I don't even see a core. Ain't that what we're supposed to hit to kill it?" I asked.

"Cube slimes have no core, Master!" Lilim exclaimed. "Regular slimes survive long stretches of time without eating because the core serves as a bank of energy. Cube slimes, on the other hand, have no core and must keep eating to sustain themselves!"

"Not to mention, cube slimes are extremely resistant to physical and magical damage. This thing isn't going down easily," Thelesia warned.

"Well, we don't need to kill it. Just gotta get to Jabba the imp."

We were about to spread out and make our move when a giant barrier trapped us in with the slime. Hura, Thelesia, and Lilim raced to the edge and banged on the barrier to no success.

"Hah. Looks like you're in a bit of a pickle."

The blue demon waltzed up behind me. We were separated by the barrier.

"This your doing, Larry?" I asked.

"Larick! You told me to make new friends, and that's what I did." Larry thumbed behind him to the group of demon spellcasters, pooling their magic together to form the barrier. "Don't worry though. We'll finish the slime once you've softened it up—"

I punched through the barrier and grabbed him by the throat. He blinked at me with a blank expression. The mages flinched and stared, too. With one hard yank, I pulled Larry in and chucked him into the cube slime. His shouts were short-lived until. He took a deep breath before sinking into the gelatinous body.

The mages scrambled for the exit.

"Lilim!" I yelled.

"Where do you think you're going?" Lilim intercepted the group of five mages and smiled. She worked her succubus voodoo, turning them around instead of for the exit. They chanted in unison and fired a volley of magic spells at the cube slime.

The spells and explosions, however, barely fazed the slime. It shuddered and shot tentacles out to snatch Hurai and Thelesia. The Jinwan native weaved crystal threads around her fingers and sliced through the restraints, freeing them both. As the tentacles fell to the ground, they shriveled up like dried noodles.

"Psh. Just another small fry of a monster. Thelesia, beef Kawa up! Kawa, be a good girl and freeze this thing!" I shouted.

The elemental wolf glowed with each spell buff Thelesia placed on her. She trampled over the bodies of unconscious demons and stopped in front of the cube slime, then unleashed a gale of frost from her jaws like an open freezer.

I ran behind the cube slime and, clutching Sacchan tightly, wailed on it as much as I could.

"Ora, ora, ora! Extremely resistant? That just means I gotta hit ya even more!"

Every hit sent chunks of slime flying, into the stands, across the arena, and on myself. One hit sent powerful enough force to kick Larry out and flat on his face. All of the slime began to dry out and die, and the cube slime itself was getting smaller and smaller. Finally, it had gotten so small that Kawa freezed it into a cube of ice.

"My… My cube slime… How did… Preposterous! More! Bring out more! Giant centipede, shifting panthers, the glareon… make them pay for killing my precious cube slime!" Vermin threw a tantrum as more obelisks sprung from the ground.

The giant centipede came out screeching. Thelesia lobbed her spear, plunging it deep into the insect's head. It reared up and shrieked until a barrage of fireballs exploded on its face. The insect teetered and fell backwards, piercing itself over the dragon jaw's fangs.

Next came a pack of black panthers that blinked short distances as they moved. Kawa let loose a howl. They all skidded to a stop, threw themselves to the ground belly-up, and blinked out of existence.

"Careful, the glareon might be the most dangerous creature here," Hurai said.

"What the fuck is a glareon?" I asked.

"Ehm… A large eyeball monster with many appendages that end with more eyeballs," she hesitantly answered.

"You guys live in a fucked up world with giant floating eyeballs?"

The glareon levitated out of the final obelisk. Its many eyestalks flicked around and fired beams of magic at the fleeing audience. The largest of the eye that was its body stared directly at me. Its upper eyelid furrowed in a piercing glare.

"Don't stare at it, Chieftain! Your magic will become ineffective against it!" Hurai turned away.

"Holy shit, it is a big eyeball. Who invited the junkyard parade float?"

The flames that wreathed the club containing Sacchan snuffed out.

"Master, watch out!"

The giant eyeball scanned the arena, catching Lilim, Thelesia, and the mages. They collapsed to their knees. It turned back to me and floated right up to my face.

"Hahh? What the fuck are you staring at, you bodiless cyclops?" I growled.

Confused, the glareon's many eyestalks looked at each other.

"Hey, I'm talking to you." I grabbed one of the eyestalks, yanked the entire glareon to me, and spat a loogie into the big eye. "You got a fucking problem? Don't go around staring at other people unless you wanna pick a fight. Hahh? You gonna say something or do I gotta beat it outta you?"

A waterfall of tears ran down the glareon's big eye. All of a sudden, it tried to fly away from me, but I'd already gotten a firm hold on the lower eyelid. I dragged it to the ground and tied up the eyestalks until it was just one giant crying eye.

"That's what I thought. As for Jabba the imp, you're coming down!" I bounced the glareon and batted it into the obelisk Vermin was sitting on.

"Oh, shit!" Vermin tried to fly away, but his small wings couldn't carry all that weight. When the glareon crashed into the obelisk, it toppled with him slipping off the throne.

Kawa snatched the imp in her jaws and deposited him at my feet like all the dead critters before. Vermin was sticky and wet with slobber. He pushed himself up only to meet my eyes. The crowds returned and started cheering.

I picked Vermin up by the tail and shook him. Gold, jewelry, and some lint fell out of his fancy robe pockets.

"How dare you! Do you know who I am?" Vermin shouted, spit flying from his mouth.

"You're about to be Kawa's chew toy. If you don't wanna know what a real feeding frenzy looks like, then you better give me the crystal that opens the demon lord's palace," I said, dangling him towards the elemental wolf.

"Y-You mean you're not after my money…? Whatever, you're insane if you want to mess with our lord! Giving you the key will sign my death sentence!" he cried.

"Kawa, open wide."

Kawa did as ordered, and I brought Vermin right above her fangs.

"Wait, wait! Okay… I'll give it to you…" Vermin pulled a ring from his finger.

I snatched it and tossed it over my shoulder. Lilim was there to catch it.

"This is it, Master. The inlaid red jewel on this golden band is the one Melfyssa described," Lilim confirmed.

"W-Who are you all? Don't tell me you're going to challenge the demon lord for the throne? Give up. That woman is far too powerful! She can destroy mountains with a single punch. I've seen it happen!" Vermin exclaimed.

Kawa lowered herself to the ground for me, Hurai, and Thelesia to climb on.

"We're done here. Time to scram!" I ordered Kawa, who leaped onto the stands and down to the city streets. Lilim flew right behind us.

"Hey, you're supposed to let me go!" Wasn't that the deal?" Vermin asked while swinging violently in my hands as we escaped.

"Looks like you haven't figured it out yet." I squeezed the iron club until pieces of it broke off to reveal Sacchan underneath. "We ain't demons, and you're about to be our hostage."