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As I walked into the arena, I could hear the growled whispers of the crowd. Thankfully, this was not my first time performing in front of a large live audience, but it was my first time performing before an audience so physically powerful and intimidating that even the least of them could kill the whole of the previous large audience I performed for.
Curious to hear what they were whispering about, I used some subtle sir instinctive magic to preserve the traveling sound waves so that they would reach me before they degrade due to the distance traveled.
As I listened to them, I found that even though their perspectives and focuses may be somewhat different from the so-called "mortal races" that i belong to, one thing that stays the same is the thrill of gambling.
All around me, besides small pockets of puritan hardliners, most of them were simply curious at the match-up, and some even disgusted by the perceived power disparity between a human and a full blooded red dragon, even if my opponent, Druuv, had just become a young adult.
But even so, there were a few wyrms around who looked to be acting as bookies as they called out odds and had other wyrms flocking to them. And unlike civilized society where I came from, wyrms do not bet in coins. They bet in ingots, which kind of made sense because the coins of different countries had different sizes and weights, but apparently, ingot sizes worldwide were standardized.
From the odds I hear the bookies calling out, the odds are in Druuv's favor. That's when I heard a familiar voice and tilted my head to the side to take a look..
[Fifty gold ingots on the human!] I heard Professor Sageira call out to one of the bookies, and the moment the bookie acknowledged it, she was off to another bookie to make another bet on me.
The moment she started making bets, there seemed to be a few wyrms that recognized her and followed her bets thinking that she had some inside knowledge, which, to be honest, she did. The rest of the other wyrms, however, scoffed at what they thought was to be the obvious outcome of a single human facing an adult dragon.
Wanting to get in on some of that action, I fed some mana to the scale and contacted her to make bets on my behalf. After having a mental chat with her and telling her my current liquid assets and what I was willing to bet, she helped front the ingots for me and put me down for two gold ingots for each bookie.
If things go well today, I will have more capital for some projects I have ideas for in the future.
A few seconds later, a red dragon around Thryz's size, but red in color, strutted out of his entrance with his head held high like a prized horse, and was sporting a gold chain around his neck that had a dented helmet hanging from it. This must be the Druuv I have heard so much about.
As he strutted his way to the center of the arena, he did not even deign to look at me while he was met with polite cheers. Only when he stopped before me did he look in my direction and give the dragon equivalent of a sneer.
[This is what I am to be fighting? And to think grandfather told me to strike you down fast and with all my power. A human is not even worth a strike from my pinky claw, much less my breath or spells.] Druuv said with a loud, derisive voice while raising one of his pinky fingers.
His trash talk was met with chuckles from some of what seemed like the younger audience, while I saw the larger and older wyrms slowly shake their heads.
As I eyed my opponent, I finally got a closer look at the dented helmet hanging from Druuv's gold chains… I recognize the insignia on that helmet from geography and politics class.
[Nice helmet, where did you get that from?] I asked while using air magic to carry my voice further without increasing my volume.
This caused the whole coliseum to fall silent. Apparently, besides the elders, hardly anyone else got the memo that I was capable of speaking Dragon Tongue.
Seeing that Druuv's brain has just hung, I decided to restart it and loudly cleared my throat and said, [Well?]
Taking my apparent fluency in Dragon Tongue in stride to make it look like I was unfazed, he replied while puffing out his chest and thumbing his chain to show off. [This was taken from the leader of a castle I was sent to for my Broken Scale trial, of which I slew their defenders and brought their walls low! They were of no match for my power.]
I feigned ignorance as I rubbed my chin while commenting, [Huh… I thought the Broken Scale trial was supposed to pit their young against challenging opponents. If my studies are correct, that helmet belongs to the Orris kingdom. They do not have any records of winning a war since their founding, and are just used as a political buffer country between their three larger neighbors. From what my teacher tells me, a squad of well-trained knights can storm and take over their royal palace if it would not kick off military action with the neighboring countries.]
From what I could see from the crowd behind Druuv, most of the crowd and Druuv himself did not get what I was implying, but those who did chuckled while shaking their heads.
It did not take long for those in the know to share what they knew with those who were oblivious to the structures and politics of mortal civilisation, and soon, words like [weak prey] and [rigged/fixed Broken Scale] were being thrown around in the audience.
It did not take long for Druuv to put two and two together and snarled at me with venom in his voice. [You would question the integrity of my Broken Scales trial, Vermin?!]
I exaggeratedly moved my body from side to side as if I was trying to get a better look at Druuv's large body before shrugging. [I don't know, I don't see any broken scales on you.]
The moment those words left my mouth, Druuv's eyes became bloodshot as he roared and brought his clawed hand to strike me, only for Dragon King Brakkh'zhaarn's mana to reach out and telekinetically hold Druuv in place.
Brakkh'zhaarn chuckled as he said, [Ah, the hot blood of youth… but that is no excuse, young Druuv. The fight will not take place until I say so. This is my only warning to you.] he then used his telekinetic hold on the young dragon to put his hand down to the ground before saying, [Now, without further ado, let the fight BEGIN!]