Aaron had no intention of stupidly waiting in place.
Sitting in the outermost area of the coliseum, who knew how long it would take before it was actually his turn to leave.
Even so, it still took around twenty minutes just to get out of the massive, ancient arena.
The duel between Gazef and Brain that had just ended had truly been an eye-opener for everyone who watched it.
So even now, the excited buzz of discussion had not faded in the slightest. If anything, it only grew more intense as people streamed out of the arena.
Aaron had thought that once he escaped the packed stands, he could finally breathe a little easier, but the moment he stepped out of the main gate he discovered there were even more people outside.
Obviously,
these were citizens who did not have the money to enter the coliseum but were just as eager to know the result.
Both Gazef and Brain had massive numbers of supporters.
After all, this was the first time since the founding of the Royal Tournament that the final showdown had no nobles involved—only two commoners.
In the nobles' eyes, this might have been a shameful match, but for the commoners, it was the exact opposite.
"Look, it's Red Drop!"
Suddenly, cries of surprise rose from the crowd.
In the next moment,
the relatively open space around Aaron became congested as everyone voluntarily made way, opening up a wide path for a certain party.
Red Drop?
Aaron's brow lifted slightly. He raised his head and looked toward the figure walking at the head of the cleared path.
The first person to enter his field of view was a figure with light-golden, medium-length hair, with a conspicuous streak of red hanging over the forehead.
He wore a black jacket over a red shirt that resembled a noble's formalwear, and silver-black trousers—a lazy, casual outfit.
His entire demeanor exuded noble elegance and composure. Every so often, he would wave to the people on either side, instantly drawing a string of excited shrieks from the women. It all looked rather flamboyant.
Azuth Aindra.
That name surfaced in Aaron's mind, and his gaze grew more serious.
He was the leader of Red Drop, one of the only two adamantite-ranked adventurer teams in the Re-Estize Kingdom, as well as a kingdom noble who held the title of Knight.
Aaron looked at the four figures behind Azuth Aindra, who were likely members of Red Drop.
One was a middle-aged man in silver armor with a perpetually cold expression and an extremely wide greatsword strapped to his back.
Another was dressed as a magic caster, in a pale blue robe with no visible staff. The robe was so loose that it completely covered his frame, revealing only that he was also male.
The other two were men as well.
One carried a longbow that faintly shimmered with a grayish light, while the other was shorter in stature and so plain in both looks and clothing that it was impossible to tell his class from appearance alone.
Compared to the others, he had almost no presence at all.
However, as common sense would have it,
the less presence someone had, the more dangerous they tended to be.
Aaron felt the man was very likely a thief-type class, though he had no idea whether these few were the entirety of the team.
Red Drop had always been a relatively mysterious party in both the anime and the novels. Aside from their leader Azuth Aindra, the other members had never really appeared.
He had not expected to see the rest of the team here.
Compared to the others, Aaron's focus was still more on Azuth Aindra himself.
He did not know the exact levels of the other members, but he could guess that none of them had reached the realm of heroes—that is, level 29 or higher.
The only truly dangerous one was Azuth Aindra.
His personal strength was not great. In fact, he was probably the weakest member of the entire party, yet he was also the true core of Red Drop.
Because the party existed for his sake.
And that was not due to his noble status.
It was because Azuth Aindra possessed a set of power armor around level 51.
Thanks to this armor, his otherwise unimpressive strength was forcibly raised into the first tier of human combat power.
"Power armor like that is definitely not something humans of this world could create. It has to be a player relic."
"Whether it's an inheritance from the Six Great Gods, the Eight Greed Kings, or the leader of the Thirteen Heroes, though, is anyone's guess."
Aaron's eyelids drooped slightly as he thought to himself.
That was probably something only Azuth Aindra himself truly knew.
Aside from Azuth Aindra, another power armor owner was the Platinum Dragon Lord, who possessed a set of power armor around level 85—and according to the light novels, likely not just one set.
Nor was that all the Platinum Dragon Lord had in terms of player relics.
There were also the other True Dragon Lords. Those guys all knew of players and the existence of YGGDRASIL.
In short, this world ran deep.
If the Great Tomb of Nazarick were not overwhelmingly strong, it might have taken several nasty falls by now.
The player who had led the Thirteen Heroes, a man clearly named Riku, had, in fact, died from such a fall.
Not only had the Platinum Dragon Lord extracted full information about "players" and "YGGDRASIL" from him,
he had also publicly claimed that the leader of the Thirteen Heroes had accidentally killed his own comrades, taken the blow hard, died young, and refused resurrection.
The natives of this world might believe that.
But as a transmigrator, Aaron knew very well what "players" were like.
Refuse resurrection?
What a joke.
The Platinum Dragon Lord was clearly lying—a two-faced schemer through and through.
Once Red Drop passed through the path cleared by the crowd, several more adventurer parties followed behind, sparking another round of exclamations.
Aaron had expected to see the other adamantite-ranked adventurer team, Blue Roses, but he did not.
He did not recognize any of these adventurer parties, but judging by the level of welcome they received, they were probably orichalcum or mithril-ranked.
Clearly, the duel between Gazef and Brain had drawn in no small number of powerful figures.
"It's about time to leave. Next step is leveling up and building my class setup." Aaron withdrew his gaze and thought silently, preparing to turn and go.
Hm?
Just as he turned his head, something at the edge of his vision caught his eye: an adventurer party trailing at the very end.
They only had four members, but something about them was striking.
Two men and two women.
The most eye-catching were the two women in the lead. One wore full plate armor, with long black hair, blue eyes, and a cold, beautiful face.
The other had long pink hair and was dressed as a cleric.
Despite the holy nature of her outfit, the lower half was split high on both sides like a cheongsam, revealing black long boots and thighs wrapped in stockings.
Their appearance instantly drew the gazes of most of the men present.
Aaron knew this adventurer party.
"If memory serves, they're called Four Armaments. Almost didn't recognize them."
He thought back for a moment, then found his own eyes drawn to the pink-haired cleric as well. When he registered her outfit in detail, the corner of his eye could not help twitching.
"The fashion in this world really is hard to figure out."
"Still, something related to the Six Great Gods or the Eight Greed Kings is definitely involved. At the very least, the players' influence on this world's clothing is pretty decent."
That thought crossed Aaron's mind.
In the future, this adventurer party would be mithril-ranked. Right now, they evidently were not yet.
"Black hair, no wonder I didn't recognize her at first glance." Aaron looked at the full-plate, black-haired woman with the frosty face.
In the future,
her hair would be white—not for any particular special reason, but by choice.
Looking closely, one could see faint golden hues at the roots beneath the black dye.
Yes, she was actually a blonde.
The Re-Estize Kingdom was dominated by blondes to begin with. She had dyed her hair black because it drew more attention and helped raise the party's profile.
Dyeing it white later on had to do with Ainz.
Because, in order to gather information, Ainz had formed a party called Darkness. After they became an adamantite-ranked adventurer team, Four Armaments, wanting to avoid association—and because any mention of "darkness" made people think of Ainz's party—
had dyed her hair white instead.
Aaron strongly suspected there was some padding involved in Four Armaments becoming a mithril-ranked party.
Still, if they could tangle with a Death Knight for a while in the future, they clearly had some strength among adventurer teams.
In any case,
neither pink-hair nor the dye-loving blonde could be considered particularly normal.
As for the other two male members… Aaron had no impression of them whatsoever.