Chapter 402: Expendable

Vesk shrugged. "The arena sanctioned the fight. As far as the Tower is concerned, both sides are valid combatants."

Kael filed that away.

A place where rival Climbers could kill one another without the usual consequences would appeal to exactly the sort of people he preferred avoiding. The five victories required to leave suddenly seemed less informative than the system had made them sound.

He opened the Floor interface and found a new option.

[GLADIATORIUM RECORDS]

Selecting it brought up a list of names, victory totals, win streaks, and performance ratings.

Some Climbers had left after reaching the required five victories. Others had stayed for ten, fifteen, or twenty. A number of records continued far beyond that.

Kael searched for familiar names.

Yenna had no entry. Neither did Leonard.

His master was absent as well.

That surprised him most. If any Floor should have held an obscene record from the Fist King, it was one that encouraged repeated fights in front of an audience.

Kael returned to the upper rankings. Most of the names meant nothing to him until he reached one that did.

[Mathew]

"Of course you have a record here," he muttered.

Darin looked up. "Who?"

"Nothing, just looking at names I recognized."

"Who piqued your interest?" Darin asked.

"I mean, the most obvious one, Mathew."

"Ah, the guild leader. He’s pretty tough. Even without his Achilles Armor."

"You worked for him before the Reverse Tower?"

"We all did," Darin said.

"Must have been a good leader..."

Vesk snorted. "Good leaders aren’t worth squat when your life is on the line, he was an efficient one."

"Far too efficient...Halem said.

To Kael that sounded like some sort of grudge. Maybe he was wronged by him in the former tower.

Though why would you come back to the same clan if you got screwed over?

He didn’t want to spend more time on the thought line.

"He’s a pretty big name, I remember him from the other tower. Never got a chance to meet him. Kael said.

"That’s not something anyone could do, he was pretty high up. He had climbed a great deal in the Tower of trials too.

"Alongside Asher." Halem added.

Kael’s eyes squinted, they didn’t miss that.

"If it wasn’t for Asher’s stupid ability, I think Mathew would never have died." Darin said.

Mathew had once owned the Achilles Armor. People called him immortal, or close enough that the distinction rarely mattered, and his reputation as a murderer in the original Tower of Trials had outlasted entire guilds. But Asher was a different monster altogether, Kael witnessed it first hand. He wanted to ask more about Asher and his ability, but showing too much interest in a person that isn’t part of the Reverse Tower might bring unwanted attention.

For Now, sticking with Mathew being interesting was enough. Yet seeing him at the top of the ranking of murderers had done little to change his former habits.

His record sat comfortably at the top. Kael examined it, though the names missing from the list bothered him more than the one he had found.

His master, Yenna, and Leonard should all have been capable of establishing substantial records here. Something had either prevented them from continuing or persuaded them to leave.

Kael would have liked to know which.

He closed the rankings and turned back to Darin.

"What determines the matches? Does the Gladiatorium consider our levels, equipment, or the number of times we’ve won?"

"Win count matters," Darin said. "Level seems to play a part. Some reports suggest it considers the group’s combined strength and equipment as well, but nobody has worked out the whole process."

Halem shifted against the wall. "There’s also the way you win. Several groups reported a sharp increase in difficulty after an easy match."

"So showing too much strength early could make the later rounds harder," Kael said.

"That’s what the reports suggest." Darin leaned forward. "Winning the first round impressively means very little if the second one kills you."

"Do they agree on how much harder the next match becomes?"

Darin spread his hands. "It depends on the group and what happened in the previous round."

"Everything seems to depend on something nobody understands."

"Welcome to the Gladiatorium," Darin said.

Kael almost laughed. At least the man admitted where the information ended.

The conversation turned toward preparations. Darin addressed Halem first, asking about his remaining Mana and the spells he could use without exhausting himself.

"Eighty percent," Halem answered. "I have fire and binding ready. The smoke field is available if we need to control their approach."

"Keep enough Mana for that," Darin said. "We may need it more than another attack."

He turned to Vesk, who produced three small vials and set them on the bench.

"Paralytic poison," the spearman explained. "It should work on orcs, but I wouldn’t trust it to stop an ogre."

"Then save it until we know what we’re facing. Roth, what did you bring?"

Roth took two small metal spheres from his inventory and held them up.

"Six flash charges in total. I also have the barrier scroll."

"Keep at least four charges for later rounds," Darin told him. "We shouldn’t need to use everything in the opening match."

Kael listened as they counted healing potions, antidotes, smoke bombs, and spare weapons. Throwing knives joined the vials on the bench. They had two emergency restoration potions between them, along with an item Kael did not recognize that apparently produced a temporary ward against mental effects.

They had come prepared.

Nobody asked him what he had brought.

At first, he saw nothing unusual in that. They belonged to the same clan and had climbed together. Establishing what remained of their own supplies before questioning the stranger was reasonable.

He waited while they returned most of the items to their inventories.

Darin began discussing positions.

"If we face humanoids, Roth holds the front. Halem controls the center, and Vesk works the flank. I’ll move wherever the pressure builds."

Roth nodded, flexing one gauntleted hand. Halem adjusted the strap of his staff while Vesk retrieved his spear.

Kael waited for Darin to look at him.

"If we get monsters, we keep the same formation unless they’re larger than ogres," Darin continued. "We can adjust once we see how many there are."

"What if they’re faster than us?" Vesk asked. "We won’t hold them in front of Roth if they can circle him."

"That’s what Halem’s smoke field is for. Force them to approach carefully and give us time to reposition."

Roth glanced at the barrier scroll before storing it. "I’ll keep this ready for anything using ranged attacks."

They continued speaking of contingencies and of plans, safety, and even more plans that almost sounded completely improbable. Like how do you plan for a boss fight in the first round?

This made Kael feel uncomfortable, they were far too wary for no reason. As if expecting something wrong to happen was the norm on this floor.

Kael shifted his attention between them.

They had assigned every member of their group a position and accounted for several kinds of enemy. Nobody had asked what weapon he used.

Halem glanced his way, then returned his attention to Darin without speaking.

That was harder to dismiss.

Kael was the largest person in the room, wearing equipment that should have been worth at least a second look. If they expected him to fight alongside them, they needed to know whether he belonged at the front, at a distance, or somewhere between the others.

They did not even know whether he used magic.

He remained quiet while Darin worked through another contingency. The man’s eyes briefly met his, then moved away before Kael could read anything useful in the expression.

Perhaps they already had enough supplies to disregard his inventory. Perhaps they preferred to trust their own healing potions and emergency items.

That did not explain leaving him out of the formation.

"If someone goes down, don’t break ranks immediately," Darin said. "That is how one casualty becomes several."

"Does that apply if you go down?" Vesk asked.

"You take command if that happens. Keep the others together."

The spearman nodded. Roth and Halem appeared satisfied with the arrangement.

Kael slowly lowered his arms.

Darin had invited him to stay with them. He had presented the clan’s reports as a reason to follow their lead, then begun planning for repeated fights without learning a single thing about what their fifth member could contribute.

Kael remembered Floor Eleven and the confidence of another man who had expected everyone to listen. He had been too willing to assume that someone with information also had a sound plan.

This time, he was paying attention to what the plan left out.

He leaned back against the stone wall while the four Red Sun members continued talking. They had prepared for monsters, ranged attacks, injuries, and even the loss of their leader. Whatever they wanted Kael to do in the arena, they were making no plans for him to survive alongside them.

It was obvious to a boring degree even.

If you were not asked to contribute to the plan, that means you were never part of it.

And that the job of an Expendable.