[I simply focused on being a normal gladiator. I learned that people here are obsessed with learning different sword techniques, which are ranked from 3rd class to 1st class. These techniques are also extremely expensive, and everyone keeps them secret for some reason. Almost every gladiator uses 3rd-class techniques, the lowest level, and they are obsessed with sticking to them. Because of that, their movements, stances, and attack patterns are almost always fixed and predictable.]
[Every technique has strengths and weaknesses against other techniques of the same class. So I memorized these patterns on my own and began replicating the techniques, using them to counter my opponents' techniques.]
[People here usually need to buy these techniques first, and mastering them takes even more time. I, however, simply memorized them by watching. Before I knew it, I had learned all the 3rd-class sword techniques used by the gladiators. Now I wanted to see something higher.]
[I reached an unbeatable winning streak against veteran gladiators within three months. Then suddenly, I was placed in the apprentice-knight arena, even though I couldn't sense aura. Liam and Noah were moved to the 2nd-class arena. I was surprised to find that I was the only non–aura user in the apprentice-knight arena. But I noticed that the gladiators here practiced techniques I had never seen before, 2nd-class techniques. They were on another level, far less stiff and predictable than the 3rd-class ones.]
[A 3rd-class heavy technique that focuses on strength can be countered by a 3rd-class swift technique that focuses on speed. But I realized that I couldn't counter a 2nd-class heavy technique with just any 3rd-class swift technique. Only a few of the very best would work. And 2nd-class techniques couldn't be countered simply by memorizing patterns. They were more flexible. But if I could completely replicate 2nd-class techniques, I would eventually be able to counter all of them.]
[After two months in the apprentice-knight arena, I was transferred again, this time to the 2nd-class arena with Noah and Liam. But in terms of strength, I wasn't even close to them. 2nd-class knights can empower their strikes with aura. Their power is on another level. With their fists, they can bend armor and break swords with their grip. And if they choose to enhance their defense with aura, no ordinary attack without aura can penetrate it. It's not something I can compete with using technique alone.]
[And most importantly, from the 2nd-class arena onward, my opponents were no longer only humans. I had to fight different creatures from this world. There were also new rules. A death-match rule existed where gladiators were forced to fight to the death against untamed monsters or death-row criminals.]
[Fortunately, I had not yet been placed in a death match. But if I were, I wouldn't just lose the battle, I would lose my life. After losing many battles consecutively, I focused on dragging fights out long enough to force a draw. But my body was becoming more bruised every day. While my skill kept improving, it was nowhere near enough to defeat a 2nd-class aura user. I was being put into battles before I even had time to fully heal.]
[One day, I learned that my next fight would be a death match. That day, Ethan came to see me and said he wanted to try something new. If it worked, I might be able to use aura. I agreed. But nothing happened.]
[Ethan explained that he had advanced to the Master rank. At that level, one gains extraordinary control over aura. Combined with his control-type Esper ability, his control over aura should not be inferior even to a grandmaster. I knew that grandmasters were said to have the ability to transfer their aura into another person and turn them into an aura user. But doing so would cause the grandmaster's own ability to regress.]
[Ethan said that for people born without aura, receiving aura from a grandmaster should make them a 1st-class knight immediately. But that didn't happen with me. He came up with a hypothesis: I might have some sort of Esper ability that protects me from all foreign power. That could be why I was never affected by aura, and why Ethan's aura transmission couldn't turn me into an aura user.]
[That left me with only one option. I could only become an aura user by awakening my own aura. People born without aura can become aura users if they surpass the limits of their bodies. That seemed to be the only possible path left for me, to surpass my body's limits. Maybe that was what the gladiator king had been aiming for all along, pushing me toward death.]
[One night before my death match, Ethan returned secretly. He had made a plan to help me escape. He knew that I would most likely die tomorrow. And I knew it too.]
[But I refused. I could see that Ethan was genuinely concerned about my life. But I couldn't understand why an Esper would suddenly treat me like a human. I refused to believe that an Esper could see me as a friend. While it was true that our relationship here wasn't the same as back home, Espers never see an unawakened Level 0 as an equal. In their eyes, we are beneath human. That wasn't going to change just because we were in another world.]
[And even if he saved me, what then? Would I spend the rest of my life knowing that I was only alive because an Esper decided I should live?]
[Ethan was surprised by my refusal. He asked why I would throw my life away. I replied that rather than becoming his guinea pig, I would take a gamble tomorrow, to awaken aura in a life-and-death situation, even if the chance was less than one percent. I told him to stop acting so buddy-buddy with me. It was disgusting. Ethan left, dejected.]
[I knew my words hurt him. And maybe I wanted them to.]
[The next day, we discovered that something major had happened. Ethan had exposed himself as a Master-class aura user and challenged the gladiator king. This was an enormous event. After the gladiator king, who was a grandmaster, there were only three other masters under him. We didn't know all the details, but it seemed a fight had broken out between Ethan and the gladiator king. Ethan rebelled against him, severely injured two masters under him, and fled after failing to defeat the gladiator king.]
[The incident shook the entire region. Not only had someone challenged the gladiator king, a grandmaster, but he had also severely injured two masters with decades of experience, despite not even being an aura user a year ago.]
[Somehow, it was revealed everywhere that Ethan was an otherworlder. Rumors spread rapidly. Many people were even calling him a hero, the man who managed to injure the gladiator king and escape alive.]
[But I couldn't dwell on it for long. I was facing my own challenge. In the arena, my opponent turned out to be a 1st-rank aura user, a death-row criminal. Only one of us could leave the arena alive. I knew it wouldn't be me. An ordinary person without aura has no possible way to defeat a 1st-class aura user.]
[People weren't betting on whether I would win or lose. They were betting on how quickly I would die.]
[The faster I died, the less painful it would be. But I held on. I used everything I had learned, everything I knew. Predicting his attacks before they came and dodging them. Memorizing the path of his sword to deflect the strikes.]
[Eventually, I dragged the fight on long enough that it would have been a draw, if this hadn't been a death match. But in a death match, there is no draw.]
[In the end, I tired out faster than my opponent. The battle came to an end. I lost. With a single decapitation, my opponent claimed victory.]
[He grabbed my head and held it high for the spectators. What a show-off. I wasn't even an aura user, what was there to be proud of?]
[Through my fading vision, I thought I spotted someone in the cheering crowd who wasn't smiling. A gloomy face among the celebration.]
[He looked like Ethan.]
[Or maybe just another poor fool who had bet on the wrong man.]
[What a wasted life. Maybe I should have run away. But even if I could turn back time, I don't think I would change my decision.]
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[You died.]
[The simulation has ended.]
[You died at the age of 18.]
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