Chapter Ninety-Four: The Meat Grinder

Yuxing ultimately did not take the so-called bank card; instead, he proposed an exchange of information.

The bartender stopped beating around the bush and introduced the show on the screen to Yuxing and the others, the “stupid show,” as he called it.

It was a death-match competition, with the spectacle lying in the contestants’ struggle and demise.

The battleground was a circular arena measuring eighty thousand square meters, set in the lowest level of Starport Tower. Matches like this were held there every night, so long as there were challengers willing to enter.

On one side stood a giant monster. The monsters that had appeared so far were all over sixty meters tall. On the other stood the challenger team, with a maximum of three people allowed.

A team that succeeded in killing the monster could choose one of two rewards: five thousand gold coins or one point.

Gold coins could be spent in the Hive. In this subterranean city, beyond the reach of ordinary sight, the powerful and the privileged lived lives of luxury beyond imagination. On the surface, the Hive seemed barren and short of supplies, but in truth it had everything. It was simply hidden from view.

Points, however, had only one use: exchanging for a ship ticket.

With five points, one could buy a ticket that would allow a team to leave.

In other words, they would need to win five times in a row, because one loss meant a death with no burial place. No—perhaps there would be a burial place after all, most likely the monster’s stomach or a reactor core.

As a rule, no matter what race of alien you were, if you could not use any supernatural power, then fighting a behemoth dozens of times larger than yourself with flesh and blood alone was nothing but suicide.

Perhaps the Ultraman episodes Yuxing had watched in the past had given him some illusion: that those sixty- or seventy-meter monsters were clumsy, slow, and stupid, nothing more than oversized punching bags for Ultraman to throw around and hammer into the ground.

But in truth, even if many monsters were not very intelligent, their massive size meant they could not move particularly fast. To the vast majority of ordinary aliens, however, these giants were nearly irresistible disasters, on the same level as hurricanes, mudslides, avalanches, and earthquakes. Without ample preparation, they were crushed in a single wave.

For that reason, the monster-weapon market remained prosperous. Even if those monsters could not withstand Ultraman’s beating, so long as one was not trying to invade the Land of Light, using them to invade ordinary planets was more than sufficient—and far more economical than fleets of ships and artillery.

Because no matter how strong you were, three people could never stop an avalanche, the Starport Tower arena was a meat grinder, built to shred the strong who wandered into the Hive by mistake. The conditions and the opponents were arranged for one purpose only: to kill. It was a perfectly straightforward trap.

However, if a trap meant for rabbits were stepped on by a lion, then things would become very interesting.

Yes, a contestant had appeared who intended to break through with brute force.

And Barairu and the others already had three points, with their fourth point due to arrive today.

That was absolutely not what the armory wanted to see. They had no wish for anyone to survive with information about the Hive and get out alive, and the fighting strength Barairu’s group had displayed was unsettling as well.

From the moment they reached two points, people had begun investigating them, or trying to assassinate them.

Of course, anyone who tried to assassinate them never returned. Instead, they only kept sending supplies and equipment their way, wave after wave, until eventually no one bothered them openly anymore. Even so, there were still plenty who made things difficult behind the scenes. Yet Barairu and the others seemed to be on the side of order; even when provoked, they showed no inclination to slaughter every last one of their tormentors. At most, they would beat them half to death and hang them from lampposts for all to admire.

“So even if they gather five points, they still might not be able to leave smoothly, right? For example, someone could blow up the ship after they set out.”

The bartender nodded at that. “Yes. But the organizers probably wouldn’t bear to destroy that ship. They’ll likely make their move before the team boards. After all, it’s the carrot dangling in front of the horse’s muzzle—you can’t do without it, and you can’t let it be eaten. I think someone has already leaked this information to them in secret, but even that hasn’t frightened them off.”

By then, the fight on the screen had reached its end. Amid the crowd’s cheers, the mechanical monster had been stripped of all four limbs and could only flail in the center of the arena like a fish stranded ashore, firing wildly in every direction.

Soon, after being battered in such a frenzy, its ammunition and energy were exhausted, and it shut down on the spot.

On the screen flashed, in turn, the faces of Barairu, the handsome young man; Galum, the handsome older man; and a third man—obviously even younger and rather strikingly handsome.

“Who is that?” Yuxing asked the bartender, pointing at the unfamiliar third face.

The bartender glanced at him and said nothing, giving him only a look that told Yuxing to figure it out himself.

Yuxing had already talked himself dry. Hadn’t they agreed to exchange information about Barairu and Galum?

“All right.”

Seeing the point, Yuxing nodded and began digging into everything he could about Barairu and Galum. Of course, the man before him wasn’t the team leader, and Yuxing’s mind was clear enough to know that. So he selectively offered information that sounded thorough, though in truth it could all be inferred by anyone who observed carefully.

That could not be blamed on him. After all, the bartender’s information was not necessarily something Yuxing and the others could not uncover elsewhere.

“Still, I don’t know that third person either.”

In that earlier battle, the third man had not made a move at all; he had only stood by and watched. Yet when missiles were sent his way, he dodged them with ease. He looked like a veteran of many battlefields, very much at home in that sort of environment. It was just that combat might not be his real strength, but something else entirely.

At that moment, the commentator on the screen began describing how powerful the pile of scrap metal in the center had originally been, only making the trio who had defeated it seem that much stronger by comparison.

“Daiaboriku, huh…”

Yuxing murmured the name, then turned to the bartender and asked, “This is their fourth fight, right? What were their opponents in the first three matches?”

The bartender took out several thin sheets of paper, newspaper-like in appearance, leafed through them, and quoted a price: “Three gold coins.”

“Two units of standard medical supplies.”

“Three units.”

“Deal.”

The transaction was quickly settled, and the bartender began rattling off the menu: “First match, Astron. Second match, a special synthetic Gomora. Third match, Magiepa... Where on earth did they get these things?”

After listing them, the bartender even muttered a complaint.