Chapter 27.2
With these words, Donzoi’s heart was struck as if by lightning.
That’s right. It was true, why was he trying to avoid fighting Bash? After all, his goals were the same. Because he wanted to make the final decision with his own hands and declare their emancipation with his own words.
That was also the case. But that was not all. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Donzoi had a thought: “I can never beat Bash.”
That was why he gave up even before the fight. In the past it was different. When all the members of Boulder’s company were alive, he thought he was stronger. In fact, he used to be stronger. For a while they were evenly matched, and then he was outmatched. But even after that, he thought that, if they were to engage in combat, he would not lose. One day, Bash became the best warrior in his unit, and another day he became one of the best warriors in the country… And he was the Hero while Donzoi was a slave.
Now, he no longer even questioned whether or not he could beat Bash.
“…Orc pride, huh?”
Pride. Yes, it was pride that Donzoi wanted to regain. It was that feeling of pride that was lost when he became a slave. After being made a slave, he remembered the words of his owner, a dwarf who said some time later: “An orc is fine as long as he has someone to fight with and a woman.”
Donzoi and his men were valuable slaves. As of recently, the slaves were dragged into the arena to fight each other and let the spectators decide whether they died or not. When they fought in the underground arena, they were forced to use poor quality weapons and wear flimsy armor. If the armor broke, the match was over. The rules were equivalent to those of the Armament Festival. They were forced to continue endlessly in a playful duel in which they would never die.
How could it be a battle between orcs? Orc dueling was more about leaving one’s soul in the fight, something tremendous.