25 – New Gladiator-11
“Welcome with cheers. Experienced Agricola, who has suffered many victories and defeats in this Colosseum for thirteen years. This is Marie!”
Marie glanced at the pitchfork with both of her hands.
“Uhhhhh!!!”
“Do not cover the screen!”
Unfortunately, there seemed to be more criticism than cheers. Not to mention, most of the people she came to didn’t come to see her.
However, seeing her determined expression on the huge magic screen, I could tell. She, too, is sincere.
“The one who opposes him is the one who rejected the comfortable selam, punched the man he didn’t like and started looking for a new life. He is a new gladiator, but his spirit and strength are second to none! Welcome!”
It was a word that lifted me up too much, but the audience was cheering when they saw me.
Thank you, but I couldn’t accept the cheers innocently.
Daisy promoted this as a kind of event. People who came to watch this gladiator fight paid a much higher entrance fee than the normal Colosseum entrance fee.
Of course, they don’t want an ordinary sword fight. He came to see me, a man, admiring the way I move around in the ring.
“Then, the game… Let’s begin!”
The sword fight has begun. A real gladiator, the first time in my life.
There was no time to indulge in random thoughts. I moved cautiously, measuring the distance to the enemy.
First, Marie held her pitchfork with one hand.
“Whoa…”
Even a strong gladiator cannot hold the pitchfork with one hand and strike it down from above or swing it left and right powerfully.
Even tying or drawing her scythe from her waist would be something a skilled gladiator like her could do in a matter of seconds, but it would take a little time.
You can’t control my head from a distance. But even with a pitchfork held with one hand, I could pull off the ground with the blade facing the sky and hang my leg.
The scythe is not a very effective weapon, but its range cannot be ignored.
If you rush forward to close the distance, you will not be able to avoid getting hit by the scythe.
Concentrating on her pitchfork with strength in her legs, she carefully closed the distance.
With every step she took, she took a step back. A strange tension enveloped us.
The Colosseum is vast. If it was a narrow ring, you would have been able to run to the end and steal the enemy’s space, but in a sword fight, stepping back does not mean any damage.
If we move together, one step at a time, I, wearing heavy armor, will get tired first.
I don’t know if it’s strength, but I couldn’t have an advantage over the gladiators here in endurance.
After all, you have to move first. I would have been able to see the situation if she had checked it first, but Mari calmly responded to my movements with her backward steps, not trying to move her weapon.
“Marie! Don’t look at me! I bet on reverse! Beat me with a pitchfork!”
It was hard to believe that I was a spouse.
However, apart from yelling at the audience, Marie was pressuring me on the contrary by ‘taking no action’.
If I rather go into battle, even I, a beginner in sword fighting, will be able to follow along to some extent. Because it was all I had to do was block or cut off the pitchfork attacking me and close the distance.
However, it was too daunting for me to attack first, even against an enemy with a different weapon.
Even in baduk or janggi, if you are the second player, you can set the stone in the beginning ‘like a person’ by following the opponent’s move.
Of course, if the situation persists, you will lose, but you will not make such a terrible mistake as a person who is new to chess.
However, I had to decide. The armor was heavy, and I couldn’t see just standing there as a good thing for me.
The clothes Mari was wearing were completely casual clothes.
It has a bit of a ‘gladiator-like’ decoration, and the body is tightly tightened, but the clothes themselves are clothes that would not be strange even if a farmer harvests wheat wearing them right away.
Then, I have to go ahead.
“Haap!”
He took a few steps while screaming. In an instant, I came within the range of the pitchfork.
“It’s pretty fast, isn’t it?”
“Keugh!”
However, she slipped back with too light a step. In addition, the pitchfork, which was half leaning on the ground, moved into a strange position.
I couldn’t get my legs on the edge, but enough to pass through my leg armor.
Due to the strong impact on my legs, I had to pay attention to my posture instead of running forward.
And, her recovered pitchfork did not miss even that opportunity.
It was not an attack that came from top to bottom. If it was an attack that required such a long time and preparation, I would have avoided it.
But she pulled the pitchfork lightly and used it like a pole to push my chest away.
“Ugh…”
Not fatal. However, it had enough impact to give a shivering sensation to the chest.
As if taking a few steps was my mistake, the distance between her and me widened before I knew it.
From noble mtl dot com
You shouldn’t waste your stamina. However, if this battle continues, there is no chance of winning.
However, even the confrontation situation was not so good for me. In the midst of a dilemma, I stared at Marie.
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“Cowardly!!!”
“Fight properly!”
Boos rang out from the crowd, but the faces of the gladiators watching the match were much more serious.
“Don’t hit a man with a dirty pitchfork!”
“Now get caught and die, you dirty b*tch!”
Some of the gladiators had to cover their ears to the shouts that came from the upper seats.
“Noisy…”
“Well, how can it be? It looks like they bet money on some years… Even if it’s not, it’s the first time a man appears in a gladiator arena. He must have hoped for a little rounding up.”
“Well, it’s not that I don’t understand that feeling, but it’s not because we don’t want to do that, right?”
“So. Those motherf*ckers need to know how f*cking f*cking hard Evan is training.”
“That can’t be missing.”
“Even if it doesn’t fall out, it won’t go into you anyway.”
“This bastard…”
Some of the gladiators joked, but it wasn’t that they weren’t watching this gladiator properly.
Evan’s swordsmanship couldn’t be said to be sharp, even with empty words, but she was as good as a female gladiator in terms of physical ability and spirit. No, maybe she was stronger.
Many gladiators were looking forward to seeing how he would fight when he actually stepped into the ring. However, their expressions were dark.
“Neither can I.”
“It’s a harsh fight for beginner gladiators. No matter how weak Mari is, it’s meaningless if she can’t fight in the first place.”
Marie has been at the Colosseum for quite some time, and her fair share of gladiators have fought with her once.
So, they knew. Dealing with her with her short arms was very irritating, inconvenient, and not easy.
“It’s the realm of the senses. Even if a knight or a soldier who was said to have used his strength broke in, fighting like that in a 1:1 situation would be an unknown territory.”
Of course, there were spearmen and swordsmen in the army. In an urban battle or melee, it wasn’t that there was no possibility that they would face each other 1:1.
However, it was highly likely that they would meet while both sides were sufficiently exhausted. It is a matter of course on the battlefield where ranks are regarded as life.
The fact that they met separately meant that something had happened.
“What do you usually do at times like that?”
The soldier-turned-gladiator answered the question casually.
“Features… Well, if there are many elements that can get caught in the spear, they try to fight once, but most of them just fall back and call their allies.”
A soldier holding a long spear cannot hold a shield. If you join the friendly archers and unleash arrows unilaterally, there is nothing they can do except rush or run away with the spear facing forward.
Even if that wasn’t the case, it was a weapon that could be used much more flexibly than a black spear in many-to-many fights.
Elongated spears get caught in the surrounding terrain, but it was also a weapon that got caught in the bodies and spears of other spearmen.
“I also learned how to adjust the distance here for the first time. In the first place, it’s not like someone taught me to learn.”
Fighting inside the ring is different from fighting outside the ring.
Even Dana, the champion, was not able to gain an overwhelming advantage in fighting outside the ring.
“That will lose, right?”
Besides, Marie’s pitchfork is a weapon that an ordinary person would never have been hit with.
There may be people who have fought with an enemy holding a pitchfork when suppressing a peasant uprising or when bandits from peasants appeared, but most of them have not.
Moreover, in such a situation, even those who have combat experience with pitchforks, they are not dealing with people who use pitchforks as weapons seriously.
Marie’s career and research were astounding enough to influence all Agricola in the Colosseum.
It was to the extent that he could creatively fool the enemy by using the peculiarity of the pitchfork.
“Well, I don’t know yet.”
However, one of the gladiators gave Mari a negative prediction.
“Really? How is Evan going to catch that thing? If he just adjusts the distance like this, will he be able to keep up with it?”
“Think of it the other way around. With a pitchfork held in one hand, how are you going to knock that Evan down?”
“…What?”