Arena Forty-Nine: Their Secrets IX

I opened my eyes with a grunt. My head still felt dizzy from the tranquillizer shot as I groggily looked around.

I was inside a white room, much akin to the room I had visited all those days ago in the A.R.M.A. facility. My hands and feet were bound to a comfortable yet strong chair, while my mouth was closed with a gag.

"You're finally awake, Arnold."

I immediately recognized the voice as anger and frustration rose inside my heart. I should have known better than to trust Felicia, an Imperial Princess.

I looked at the wall in front of me, which had turned transparent as soon as Felicia's voice had reached me.

Behind it stood Felicia, smiling. She was in the same attire as previous night.

"Mmmhph! Mmmh!"

I tried to yell, but couldn't due to the gag in my mouth. Seeing that, Felicia smiled wryly and pressed some buttons on the screen in front of her.

The transparent wall suddenly parted open and Felicia entered the white room.

She approached me with small but confident steps and crouched down in front of me.

"Mmmhph!"

I glared at her as she studied my expression. Finally, she sighed and removed my gag.

Instantly, I tried to activate my skill.

[Alter Ego]

Yet... Nothing happened. Dumbfounded, I looked at Felicia, who brought out a locket from inside her dress and swung it in front of me.

"As long as this is active, you won't be able to do anything at all, Arnold."

"... Is that a skill restrictor?"

"Yes, seems like you know your things well enough."

Felicia nodded, satisfied. I had heard about these devices in the classes I took, they were used to stop rogue skill users and terrorists.

And being a part of the Imperial Family, of course she would have one on her.

"What do you want, Felicia? I already said no to Atlas."

I hissed at the girl, who just shrugged.

"You can keep saying no... But have you ever thought what would happen to your friends and family if you keep denying our offer?"

Hearing her threat, I growled back.

"You can't harm my family. A.R.M.A. is taking care of them."

"True, but what about your friends?"

"Both Anastasia and Roxy are part of the major nobility... And I don't think His Majesty is a fool. He won't just go around kidnapping people."

"True... However, you are forgetting something."

Felicia didn't back down. Instead, she brought her face closer to mine with an eerie smile.

"You are forgetting your importance to them, Arnold."

"What do you mean?"

I asked, confused.

"You say that we can't harm Anastasia or Roxy... But that's only in the case where they don't do anything foolish. However... To them, you are an extremely important person. To tell you the truth, Anastasia has already been lashing out at us."

Felicia pulled her face away from mine and looked at something behind me. Then she smirked.

"..."

I kept silent and waited for her to continue.

"If we don't release you soon... What do you think will happen?"

"..."

I slowly realized my mistake... It was just as Lord Winchester had said.

Without me, those two would explode.

Seeing my face turn pale, Felicia nodded with a bright smile.

"That's right. They will try to rebel. And once they do that, no matter what their backgrounds are, they will be arrested and charged as criminals for treason... Perhaps they will be executed. However, that would be the easy way out, don't you think so?"

"... What are you getting at, Felicia?"

"Both Roxy and Anastasia are excellent specimens who hold superior genes and skills... You don't think we'll just let those genes die, do you?"

"You don't mean..."

I gritted my teeth as I understood what she was hinting at.

"That's right, Arnold. Roxy is the only heir to the Rubiat House, and her powers of [Denial] is essential for the empire... So if they get captured, Roxy would probably be forced to bear the children of many men. If she's lucky, she'll get executed after the first child, if the child gets her powers, I mean. And otherwise... Her torture would continue."

"..."

I could feel my heart turn cold. Whatever sympathy or good feelings I had for Felicia was disappearing.

"And Anastasia... Well, while she doesn't have the powers of charm, she still is a powerful Elliot. It's already proven that genes play an important part in making an Elliot... So, she'll also be put through the same hell. Or... Perhaps father will try to merge both of their genes together and give birth to an artificial baby."

"... The previous emperor has banned that."

I muttered while trying to calm myself down. Getting angry right now will only benefit this bitch in front of me.

"Yes, he did. But that was because such a merge might harm the mother, whose womb will be impregnated in the process. The mother might die due to the complex nature... But that isn't the issue here, is it? We can just use Anastasia as the womb... After all, she's a failed product of the same process."

"What did you say?"

I widened my eyes in surprise as I heard the latter part. Seeing my surprise, Felicia giggled.

"She never told you? Anastasia was born by merging the genes of both the Valentina family head, Flora Valentina and an extremely powerful Elliot together. However... The end result was least than satisfactory, you see. Unlike her actual mother, the one who held her in her womb, Anastasia took command of a weak Regalia, a Regalia that burns its own master. Well, even so, such a process has a 70% rate of giving birth to a powerful offspring, so father had been practising it in secret."

"... Who was the Elliot?"

I felt disgusted at Felicia and her father... But more than that, I needed to confirm the suspicions I had.

"She was an Elliot named Alicia. Currently works for A.R.M.A., I think."

Felicia said, pondering. Seeing her act so nonchalant while talking about torturing her friend made me feel repulsed. This girl was better off dead. Even so, as I thought, Alicia was involved in this whole thing... no wonder she hated the emperor. But what did Grey have to do with this?

I frowned, not finding an answer.

"Anyhow, as I was saying."

Felicia went back to the previous topic and tried to convince me.

"All of these can be avoided if you just join Atlas, you know? You might lose their trust and friendship, but they'll still have a bright future ahead of them. However... If you continue to resist us and if they go through their plan of rebelling against the empire, their fate will be worse than death."

"I swear this... Felicia... I will kill you the first chance I get."

I growled at the mad girl in front of me, who just giggled in reply.

"I'd like to see you try."

Saying that, she again put the gag inside my mouth, sealing my way of retorting.

"So... Arnold. Think seriously, okay? Anastasia is my friend too, I would hate to see her hurt."

She stood up and turned around to leave.

Just before she stepped out of the room, she turned and looked back at me.

"If you want to accept our offer, all you have to do is nod."

Finally... The words Christopher had said to me made sense.

...

The soldier got down from his hoverbike to scan the ruined city in front of him. This part of the Outer City in Stigma was always infested with high ranking phantoms, as well as normal stragglers, so no one wanted to patrol this part of the city.

Though, due to his bad luck, this soldier was assigned to that very same area today. Fortunately, though, he hadn't seen any phantoms on his way here.

"The hell? Where did all those zombies go?"

He muttered as he looked at the city through his experimental binoculars. These were developed specifically to see high-ranking phantoms while in the field, as an alternative to the satellites and the radar maps.

But even with these new binoculars, the soldier saw far fewer phantoms than he should have seen.

While there were a few wandering around here and there, most of them had just disappeared.

It didn't make any sense... Until he saw the reading in his binoculars.

"What the..."

The soldier couldn't believe his eyes. The reaction that was coming from the middle of the city... more specifically, from the skyscraper in that area, was enormous.

[Procure Item. ID: #3334]

He muttered, and a vortex appeared beside him. The soldier pulled a drone out from the void and threw it up.

The drone, which had a camera built-in, flew over the city to the skyscraper with a low buzz. The man watched it go there via the screen on the remote control that came with it. He watched as the drone finally reached the high rise building and went through a broken window.

The first thing he saw was a dark hole on the ground. The building looked like it had been eaten up from the inside, only the edges of the floors remaining. The whole thing was just like a hollow pipe. And the crater on the ground was the most horrifying thing, surrounded by countless phantoms which were falling down into the void one by one.

The drone hovered in the air for a few moments... Until it finally showed itself.

The fleshy abomination immediately reached the drone and swallowed it whole. The camera feed got cut off as the drone was destroyed, but it had shown enough.

The monstrosity, whatever it was, was so large that even an SSS-rank phantom would be hard-pressed to come near it. Trembling, the soldier stepped forward without realizing what he was doing.

That was a fatal error on his part, however.

As he stepped forward, the ground beneath him crumbled into pieces, forcing him to fall.

He rolled down the slope before crashing hard against the fence covering the city.

The fence rattled loudly from the impact, and just as the soldier had feared, grabbed the attention of the nearby phantoms.

The soldier hurriedly stood up and ran towards the slope, but the slope was too straight for him to climb.

Grunting, he turned around, only to see hundreds of phantoms running towards him. Unlike the usual phantoms... These were fast.

Extremely fast.

Shrieking in fear, the soldier ran in the opposite direction, trying to get as far as he could from the area.

But the moment he turned around the slope, another massive horde suddenly attacked him. These phantoms, even without any intellect, had formed an ambush.

Before the soldier could even save himself, let alone send the data to the headquarters, he was torn apart by the flesh-eating monsters... becoming one of them soon after.