One Piece: The Legendary Pirate

Cage. It is characterized by the space concealed in seemingly unbreakable bars. Due to the gaps between said bars, its inside was partially visible from the outside.

In essence, a cage was about keeping someone or something trapped, such that he or she was inescapable. In that sense, Darvy was exposed to many types of cages since his enslavement.

"Ladies and gentlemen~!!"

Today, he's come to experience just another cage. Taking the form of a colosseum, Darvy saw beyond the iron bars, the sand pit where one individual holding onto a mic stood as the speaker, with his voice booming loudly across the entire colosseum.

Surrounding the sand pit were 999 cages, with each one of them containing a slave that included Darvy.

Above the ground level, there were seats reserved for Celestial Dragons to spectate. Some were conducting degenerate acts even via their slaves; there were some Celestial Dragons who frowned upon those sights, some who simply ignored them, and others who seemed to be enjoying the sight.

And among them, Darvy recognized one girl: Topman Vallerina. Though the distance between them was quite long, she, as if having noticed his gaze on her all the way from the cage below, looked down on him with her violet colored eyes.

"..."

In her hand was a fan. Opening it up with a flick of her wrist, her face was rendered invisible to Darvy, to which he eventually turned his eyes away from.

"You have been waiting for a long time for today! At last here it is, the finest entertainment you could ask for!"

Even now, the commentary continued booming through the devices laid across the whole colosseum, which were something that Darvy had never seen before.

In the middle of the colosseum quite high up from the sand pit, there was a four-way screen. Flashing on, it displayed the statistics for everyone to see.

"As you know, all gladiators are placed in a rank ranging from 1 to 999! The survivors from the last seasons had their ranks reserved from 1 to 746, and the newcomers were assigned the ranks from 747 to 999 according to their measured 'Doriki' level!"

Darvy squinted his eyes at the statistics on the screen.

Of course, it was impossible to display all 999 gladiators on the screen. It only showed the names of the top ten slaves.

[Rank 10: Masasuri (Sky Tribe)(D: 450)]

[Rank 9: Scorpion (Human)(D: 320)]

[Rank 8: Wid (Human)(D: 500)]

[Rank 7: Binol (Longleg Tribe)(D: 510)]

[Rank 6: Croxok (Fishman)(D: 730)]

[Rank 5: Ecogo (Mink)(D: 790)]

[Rank 4: Shelby (Mink)(D: 800)]

[Rank 3: Brody (Human)(D: 1980)]

[Rank 2: Garrast (Human)(D: 2500)]

[Rank 1: Hyena (Buccaneer)(D: 3900)]

Interestingly, the screen—or billboard in this moment—listed the race of the gladiators.

Furthermore, Darvy wondered if none of them had a surname of their own, or that those details simply weren't provided.

"Why..."

One next to Darvy's cage whispered as he sweated profusely out of nervousness,

"Why are they doing this...?"

This man had the number 998 attached on his cage. Darvy then looked at his own and saw the number in reverse—that is, '999' when read from the outside.

It seemed that no one acquired the Doriki of 3 or less apart from him.

"...Because,"

The one adjacent to said man's cell, one who had the number 997 attached next to him, grumbled in response,

"It's entertaining to them. Watching as we harm and kill each other."

"..."

Ignoring their conversation, Darvy looked the other way. There lied a cage a several times larger than the one he was locked behind, and the stature of the slave within it was large enough to shadow him.

His cage had the number 1 attached on it. This man, with his fierce eyes, rough beard, and muscular frame, was clearly the strongest among all 999 slaves present.

As if having noticed Darvy's gaze, he shifted his own eyes at Darvy.

Darvy instinctively knew, that this man was someone of strength. And he came to wonder... if someone like him was caught, just how strong was that someone?

Eventually, both of them parted their eyes at the same time, bringing their focus back on the speaker.

"As always, there is no need to worry! Should any trouble arise regarding these gladiators, our beloved God's Knights are stationed to deal with them!"

The screen then changed, now showing the faces of two bored-looking individuals among the audience, one a man with his hair shaped in a way that resembles a crescent moon and the other a woman with a long, straight black hair.

"Please give an applause to Saint Figarland Garling and Saint Jaygarcia Lavender!"

Garling simply yawned, while Lavender smiled gently as she waved her hand.

'Them being stationed means that they are stronger than this guy right next to me.'

Darvy thought as he took a look at those God's Knights,

'Furthermore, them being addressed with the prefixes of saint means that they too are

Celestial Dragons themselves.'

Even as Darvy thought, the voice continued to boom.

"With that said, we will now return to the good old explanation of this season's format!"

The screen once again shifted, this time into a diagram of some sort. 

"Simply put, this tournament will be series of one versus one battles that will hold one slave champion in the end! The first round will have 998 participants fight each other and produce 499 victors along with 1 lucky individual to move up without a fight! Who fights who will be decided randomly through a machine!"

'From 999 to 500, from 500 to 250, from 250 to 125...'

Darvy thought,

'Assuming each fight may take over an hour, this will be quite a long run.'

"The win condition of each fight is to either have one combatant knocked out or dead!

Additionally, depending on at which round the gladiators are eliminated, a punishment of different severity awaits them... with those at lower round being harder to survive!"

The speaker's voice was lively and entertaining, yet the words spoken out of his mouth was frightening.

"With that said, we will now start the first round!"

'...So essentially, all 998 individuals save one victor will end up facing a punishment... and even the victor won't be given a reward of any kind.'

Darvy chuckled hollowly.

'How fun.'

As he thought so, the numbers began to roll within the screen above. Eventually, they stopped and revealed the following:

[034 vs 596]

With the speaker now gone from the centre, two cages surrounding it automatically opened.

From the cage that had the number 34 labelled, one man made his way out, looking confident. However, from the cage with the number 596, another man, looking malnourished and weak, walked out... with his right arm missing.

That man without an arm was shivering.

"P-Please... no..."

As that man muttered, Darvy noticed that there were spikes that protruded out from the cage's back. Simply put, those two men were forced out of their cages.

Grimacing, Darvy turned around, looking at the backside of the cage—the only area that had a solid metal as a wall instead of metal bars. Looking carefully, he found numerous circle lines, which probably will serve as holes to shoot spikes later on.

"Number 34~ with the Doriki level of 120! On the other hand, number 596~ with the Doriki level of 42! Who will be winning, I wonder?!"

The Celestial Dragons laughed at the speaker's act.

As this was happening, the 596th man, trembling in fear, gulped as he quickly reached one wall that had a variety of weapons and shields. Similarly, the 34th man did the same on the other wall which was the exact replica.

The 596th man, holding onto a large shield with his sold arm, hid his trembling body with it.

On the other hand, the 34th man, now holding an axe with both hands, grinned as if having ascertained victory.

What happened next was nothing but sheer violence. The 34th man barbarically hacked his axe onto the shield over and over, such that the 596th man fell to the ground and lost his hold over the shield. The hacking continued onto the vulnerable 596th man, splattering flesh and blood everywhere.

The arena erupted in excitement, with the audience—the Celestial Dragons—laughing and shouting as they looked at the gory death of one human as if looking at the death of a bug.

Witnessing this, the slaves felt despair.

'...Fuck.'

On the other hand, Darvy was already strategizing as he locked his eyes on the wall that contained the weapons and shields, trying to come up with the best way to guarantee his victory.

Then, the sand below the 34th man, who was slamming the axe onto the corpse non-stop with a crazed smile, began to swirl, before it suddenly pulled both him and the corpse downward—out of sight. After, the swirl stopped and the arena returned to nothing but a sandy plain once more as if nothing happened.

And just like that, the screen's numbers began to fluctuate again.

"So the number 34 turned out to be the victor, what a surprise! This time around, who shall be fighting?!"

[871 vs 342]

Two other cages opened, and with the spikes slowly pushing out of their backs, two slaves were forced out of their cages.

The man with number 871, the newcomer like Darvy, didn't move as if frozen. His eyes contained fear, and he nervously shouted,

"H-Hey!"

Unlike him, another man with the number 342, one with dull eyes, was already reaching for a sword emotionlessly.

"D-Do we really have to fight?!"

The 342nd man didn't listen to the cry. With the sword in his grasp, he marched toward the 871st guy.

"W-Why don't we just... wait?!"

"...You know what happens if we don't fight?"

Finally, the 342nd man opened his mouth, letting out a dry voice. Even as he did so, his march didn't stop.

"They shoot us. We both die. So we have to fight."

It was as he said. Upon closer look, Darvy saw them—the God's Knights—holding onto firearms.

What happened next was a one-sided battle, one that resulted in the death of the 871st man. The sand swirled once more, pulling the victor and loser in.

[056 vs 091]

[752 vs 329]

[238 vs 247]

What happened next was an endless series of one-versus-one fights. Most of them were one-sided. However, they all ended up in a brutal and gory manner in the end, which seemed to earn enough entertainment out of Celestial Dragons.

Some slaves yet in cages threw up upon the scene. Some, turning pale, began to fear for their future. Some seemed to be praying even, though Darvy didn't know if it had any effect.

The time continued to fly, and Darvy had no idea how long he had been locked behind the cage.

Then, it happened.

[221 vs 999]

Time seemed to slow down as the cage exit creaked open in front of Darvy. From the back, the spikes were protruding out.

Slowly, he walked out of the cage. 

Darvy's opponent, given the number of 221. He was relatively high-ranked among those who survived. As if reflecting this fact, this man's body was full of scars and he was missing an eye. He seemed to be around 30s in terms of age, and he was tall and strong-looking, in comparison to Darvy who was anything but those.

"Number 221~ with the Doriki of 155! On the other hand, number 999~ with the Doriki of..."

There was a pause. Then,

"...3?"

Following the speaker's remark, there was an eruption of laughter from the audience.

The laughs reached Darvy's ears. His heart thumped, indicating to him that this was the reality. His diaphragm suddenly contracted as he breathed in with widened eyes.

'Move.'