The iron door slowly opened, the torches outside barely illuminating the dark room. Two dwarfs entered the room and approached me cautiously. One of them was wielding a sledgehammer, while the other had a bucket.

One of the Dwarf anxiously exclaimed: {Look at the damage on the door!}

Both of the Dwarfs stared at door in horror. Despite looking fine from the outside of the room, the door was completely warped out of shape on the inside.

The same Dwarf quickly stammered out: {I-is it really out of fuel? What if it s-suddenly attacks us?}

The other Dwarf, despite being nervous, replied with a false sense bravado: {If it dares to attack us, I will whack it. Now, quickly fill it up with the magic fuel.}

The other Dwarf did not look convinced at all, but walked towards me anyways. Also, what the heck is magic fuel? Is that what's in the bucket? I quickly used 《Appraisal》 on the bucket.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Iron bucket

Quality: Low

Description: A normal bucket made out of iron.

Enchantments: Anti-Rust I

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dear God, there's more.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Crude Magic Fuel

Quality: Lowest

Description: Magic Fuel which has been mixed with impure water.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

No...

The Dwarf who was holding the bucket asked: {Hey, where do you think the hole for fuel is?}

Other Dwarf: {I don't know. Just grope around for a bit. You will eventually find it.}

Nope! Nope! Nope! What the hell?! I absolutely do not want him to touch me, not a chance! For my own sake, I slowly began to stir in order not to cause an alarm. Upon seeing me exhibit movement, the dwarfs immediately stumbled back a few steps and went into high alert. In the process of retreating, a few drops of glowing liquid sloshed out of bucket. 

Bucket Dwarf: {I thought you said it was out of fuel!}

Sledgehammer Dwarf: {Hey, at least we get to save on the fuel.}

The bucket dwarf grumbled as he left the room, leaving only the sledgehammer dwarf alone in the room with me. He looked at me and said: {You should be glad that you have some fuel left. Magic fuel of this quality can cause permanent damage, you know. Not that it matters since you are going to die soon.}

Wow, thanks for the exposition.

He began laughing annoyingly at which I decided to blind him with my spotlight. He screamed and clutched his eyes before falling on his butt, causing five other dwarfs to enter the room with their weapons ready. And thus, I was escorted out of the room by six dwarfs, five of which were staring attentively at me while the last one was busy complaining that all he could see was black spots.

Before leaving the room, I took one last look at the magic fuel droplets on the floor. I am pretty sure I had never seen magic fuel in my two pretty short lives before, but the feeling it gives me felt familiar for some reason. 

Random Dwarf: {Get going, will ya?}

Before I could think up of the reason for this feeling, I got rushed out of the room by the dwarfs.

We went into the long hallway, where the portcullis gate was slowly opening with a grating noise. 

(Woah...)

My first thoughts while entering the new room was that it was massive. The arena itself was rectangular, the length of which being at least 200m while the width was at least 80m. 

Unlike the rooms before, the arena was fully lit up with what looks like modern day ceiling lights, although the fact that I am able to feel magic radiating from it tells me that they do not run on electricity. This makes me wonder, does this world even have electricity, or does everything run on magic?

The floor was soaked with some sort of glowing liquid, looking suspiciously similar to the magic fuel I saw before. I could also see debris of various shapes, materials and sizes strewn all across the liquid. It was already clear what those pieces of debris are, but on the slight chance that I could be wrong, I decided to appraise them.

(Appraisal!)

Upon seeing the display panel, I could not help but gasp softly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Remains of an Autonomous Golem

Quality: Low

Description: Pieces of materials from an Autonomous Golems. Can be used in construction or crafting.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A large portion of the arena was covered with the broken pieces of an uncountable amount of autonomous golems... And it seems like the genocide just happened recently considering that the air is still dense with magic.

How could I not have noticed this? My radar should have informed me about the slaughter happening here.

(Is it because I'm underground?)

I thought to myself as I tried to ignore the dead golems.

[Krrrrrr!]

All of a sudden, the ground began to rumble! The audience began cheering as a voice reverberate through the entire arena.

Announcer Voice 1: {Looks like the audience can't wait any longer. Shall we begin the second part of todays' matches?}

A higher pitched voice replied: {Of course! Today's sponsor is G-Fuel, which everyone of course knows that it stands for Golem-Fuel, your go to company for Magic Fuel. Well, without any further ado, let us introduce the contestants!}

Announcer Voice 1: {For our first heavy match, on the left side of the arena, we have some poor shmuck which is going to face off against our five-times heavy-weight champion, the Destroyer of Golems, the Crusher of Metal! Venatrix!}

The audience began cheering even louder at the mention of the name "Venatrix" and intense music started playing. 

Isn't this going too fast? What is even happening? I barely had time to comprehend what was going on when the floor in the middle of the arena started to split open. Smoke originating from the hole began filling the arena and a dark figure, not to different to that of a human, seemed to be rising from the ground inside of said smoke. A horizontal slit of eerie red glow appeared at where its eyes should be located, staring directly at me. I checked my weapons one last time before locking on to the figure.

(Lock-on!)

[You have locked onto the target.]

The unmoving dark figure abruptly lifted it arms and tucked it in front of its chest, and then for some reason, it began spinning? Starting off slowly, the golem began spinning faster and faster. The smoke began converging around the golem through the suction force created via spinning, forming a miniature smoke tornado. Then, it swung out its arms forcefully to its sides, dispersing the smoke in every direction.

Finally, its form was revealed. A dark grey, yet glossy humanoid golem stood in a fighting stance as it waved its two arms, which end with sharp blades instead of hands, in front of itself menacingly. It was around 5 meters tall, slightly taller than me. If I had to describe it with a word, I think it would be apt to call it a mannequin.

Despite still being horrified after looking at all of the dead golems, I had to admit that the golem's entrance was pretty cool. At least, that was definitely what the crowd thought. The entire audience stood up from their seats as they chanted "Venatrix!". Some of them even had banners that spelt out: "Crush Them! Venatrix!" or "Go! Go! Venatrix!".

(Well, that golem certainly has a lot of fans.)

Looks like this illegal fighting ring has been going on for quite a while too. It would be impossible to amass such a large number of fans with just a few fights.

Announcer Voice 2: {Poor Golem! It has to go up against Venatrix in the first match. We will definitely remember you, well, probably not.}

Announcer Voice 1: {How long do you think Venatrix's opponent can last? 5 seconds? 10 seconds? Place your bets now!}

Ouch, I was being completely overlooked! Most of the crowd began shuffling towards the two booths located on each end of the arena. 

On top of the arena's walls, I could see multiple mounted miniature ballistae trained onto both Venatrix and I.

Anyways, it seems like the fight won't be starting anytime soon. Venatrix stood there, unmoving, as it stared at me. I took this chance to appraise my opponent.

(Appraisal)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Name: Venatrix, Level 56

Species: Autonomous Adamantium Golem

Description: An ancient assassin golem which was built with focus on Speed, Agility and Power. Despite being created without a will, this golem seemed to have somehow gained some sentience.

Hp: 28054/28054

Mp: 20/50

Attack Power: 973

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[Appraisal has leveled up from Level 5 to Level 6.]

Looks like I am now able to see my target's attack power using 《Appraisal》 after it leveled up. But most importantly, its attack power is only 973! That's 400 points lower than mine! Sure, its health was even higher than that of the Alpha Wyvern I had fought, but in turn, it barely had any mana!

(Pfft! This is going to be easy.)

I was so confident about winning that I was even going to set up a flag for myself.

Of course, I wasn't going to fight and get my butt whooped by the golem using some sort of secret overpowered ability. I carefully considered what kind of characteristic the golem would have.

I had to admit that seeing a fantasy metal in its species name was slightly surprising yet exciting, it almost makes me forget about the golem genocide. I tried my best to recall the properties of adamantium from all the video games I had played. Although I could not confirm whether the adamantium in this world has the same characteristics as the adamantium in video games, at least I can estimate its durability to be very high.

Its high health was probably reinforced with a high defense from the material is it built out of, and according to the description, it has superb speed and agility too. However, at least on the surface level, it does not seem to have any ranged attacks.

(Oh ho ho! That's it!)

I have came up with a plan, and it is practically flawless. I inwardly sneered at the golem which was facing me as I am incapable of outwardly sneering. Let's see how you will be able to defeat me.

Finally, the audience returned to their seats after placing their bets and the countdown soon began. Venatrix began lowering its body and bending its knees, probably getting ready to pounce at me once the countdown ends. I, on the other hand, remained motionless, much to the audience displeasure. 

{Why isn't it trying to escape?  It's only fun when they are panicking!}

{What?! Dude, you are wrong! The fun part is when they get smashed apart!}

{Please don't disvalue my opinion just because you have a different opinion. I know that you aren't serious, but your words still hurt my feelings all the same.}

{Indeed, it's my bad. Sometimes, I get so excited that I speak without thinking beforehand, causing my words to be unintentionally hurtful. I apologize for my words and I am also thankful to you for pointing out my flaw.}

{No problem. I too apologize if I sounded too harsh with my words.}

Strangely civilized for people shouting for my death.

The announcers' voices boomed over the speaker as the countdown came to an end: {Three! Two! One! Fight!}

Venatrix immediately kicked the ground and leapt towards me, the shockwave from its kick causing the golem debris around it to become airborne. After landing 10m away from its starting point, it jumped again, this time 45° to its left.

Also, it turns out that the reason the debris are left on the ground is possibly to absorb the impact of Venatrix's moves and not because the dwarfs are too lazy to clean the arena up.

As expected, the force needed for Venatrix to launch itself into the air is large. Every time it jumps or lands, the debris under its feet would turn into dust while the floor vibrates. There's no doubt that cracks would appear in the ground if it weren't for the debris reducing most of the damage.

Venatrix zig-zagged its way towards me, and I promptly responded by sending my hook enchanted with wind magic towards it. Leaving a trail of glitter, my hook appeared in front of Venatrix in an instant. Venatrix immediately backed up a few metres, but my hook is specialized in speed. Relentlessly, my hook chased after Venatrix, reaching it in an instant.

This is my first plan. The ceiling of the arena is way too low for me to fly around freely, limiting my degree of movement greatly. Instead of finding a way to increase my agility to match my enemy, why not decrease the agility of my enemy instead?

My hook and chain began wrapping around Venatrix, causing it to fall over backwards, but I wasn't done yet. I changed the enchantment from wind magic to earth magic, causing the durability of the chain to go up by several levels.

Audience: {What? What is happening?}

Due to the illusive nature of my hook, the audience probably can't tell what is happening, but that does not matter to me.

My minigun revved up and open fired, sending hundreds of bullets enchanted with wind magic towards Venatrix's exposed head. 

[BRRRTTTTTT!]

Venatrix's head flinched rapidly as sparks flew everywhere from my bullets ricocheting off its head which, thankfully, only ended up hitting the arena's wall. Some of the audience members let out screams as the bullets landed on the walls directly in front of them. Okay, maybe using my minigun isn't that good of an idea.

I prepared to use my grenade launcher, but then stopped in shock. A red aura was radiating from Venatrix, its red eye glowing even brighter than before. My chain started vibrating violently.

(Crap! It won't hold?!)

My hook has been broken before, during the fight with the Alpha Boar. Back then, my hook had not evolved yet, Furthermore, I had not learnt magic to enchant the durability of my hook either, making my past hook incomparable to my current hook. 

Despite that, it seems like my hook will be broken again today. I felt some uneasiness settling in. Since I got reincarnated, despite being an attack helicopter covered with guns, my hook has been one of my main weapons for crippling my opponents.

I took down an Alpha Boar with it, I killed a Wyvern with it, even my victory against the Alpha Wyvern was largely due to mye hook. Of course, it will eventually regenerate, but I still felt like I'm going to lose an important part of myself.

Should I release Venatrix? No, judging by the cracks, my hook is already too damaged to use during the rest of the battle anyways.

I sighed depressedly as I enchanted my missiles with wind magic. Since I was going to lose my hook anyways, I had to make sure my enemy won't be able to get up. I steeled my resolves.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Venatrix struggled against the chain. Snapping sounds could be heard as the chain slowly slackened. This was the first time she had to activate her battle aura since her temple got invaded 1974 years ago. Almost half of her Mana fuel she had at the start of the battle was gone, but soon, she will break out of the chains that bind her and slaughter the golem in front of her, just like she had always done since she was rescued from her temple a year ago. 

She missed being in her temple. Despite not being allowed to leave the temple, she could walk around it freely with others who are like her. Furthermore, she did not run out of fuel as the density of the mana in the air is thick, refueling her automatically.

After being self isolated for more than a thousand year with nothing to do, she managed to gain sentience a while back. While everything was initially a blur and she couldn't think much, her sentience eventually got to where it is today, allowing her to be fully capable of thinking and feeling emotions. Her memories before gaining sentience became her knowledge. Thus, she knows that the term to describe the main emotion she felt during the time she was stuck underneath the temple was boredom.

When she was rescued, the mana in the air had already thinned considerably, and she was on the verge of deactivation. When she was finally pulled out of the rubber which was once her home, she saw several of her fellow golems. Unfortunately, all of their visors were pitch black.

However, one can't consider her survival a blessing. After being rescued from the temple and changing hands several time, she ended up in this underground arena. Initially overjoyed at the prospect of meeting other golems, it soon became dread as she was forced to kill the first golem she had ever met in a long time.

Every month, she had to fight for survival. Not in the sense of how other golems fight so that they don't get destroyed by each other, since none of the other golems could threaten her. But in the sense that she had to fight so she had magic fuel to survive. 

How much magic fuel she gets depended on how flashy her fight was. Even though she doesn't understand why playing around with her opponents lets her have more magic fuel than normal, she still did it, holding herself back against the other golems before finally ending the match in a flashy way.

She remembered one time when she had just entered the arena, she had overestimated an enemy and killed it instantly. As a result, she barely got any magic fuel for the week. While a normal golem would feel nothing, an autonomous golem would feel a similar sensation to starvation. For an entire week, she had to huddle up in the corner of her room, in a state similar to deactivation, to save her energy. And even if she did perform well in a fight, they did not give her enough magic fuel to break out of the prison.

In the end, she finally convinced herself that she was just a tool, and that the people who are running this arena are the ones who are evil.

(If it isn't them who die, then it will be me who gets killed.)

She wasn't scared of the Dwarfs in this underground facility, she knew they were no match for her, ballistae or not. However, once she left, how would she obtain magic fuel? And what will happen if she got caught again? She did not fear the Dwarfs, but she feared the outside world filled with others who are like the Dwarfs. She did not want to escape, only to find out that everyone used golems like her as entertainment.

{SNAP!}

A particularly loud snap resounded through the arena, waking her up from her state of absent-mindedness. She glanced at the chains binding her. One of the links had finally fully snapped, and the rest are on the verge of breaking. 

This battle won't last long now, although, she was surprised at how long the match has already lasted. All of the other opponents she had previously faced were pushovers, easily forgotten by both the audience and her. This one, however, managed to hold her back for quite a while. Her opponent did not deserve to be forgotten, even if it is only her that remembers it. It is the least she could do.

(It is a worthy opponent.)

Her singular eye glowed brighter as she looked towards her enemy, intending to remember its appearance, only to find eight cylindrical tubes flying towards her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The eight separate explosions combined into a single, more powerful explosion. The audience members let out screams as a transparent barrier, which had been erected around the arena after I almost pulverized the audience with my bullets, distorted greatly before completely shattering and disappearing. The entire arena was now filled with flames, smoke and screams of terror, but I remained focused on my opponent.

I was still locked on to Venatrix and my radar showed that it was still alive, which didn't surprise me in the least since it did take hundreds of my enchanted bullets while receiving virtually no damage. Spinning my rotor blades slowly, I swept all of the smoke away, revealing a badly damaged Venatrix kneeling on the ground.

It wasn't damaged beyond recognition, but cracks and dents could still be seen all over it as magic fuel flowed out of it onto the ground, which acted as a fuel and caused the flames to grow larger. The fire wasn't going to melt Venatrix since it is made out of adamantium, but if the fire does manage to travel up one of the magic fuel stream, it might cause an explosion on the inside of Venatrix. I quickly used wind magic to scatter the burning magic fuel around Venatrix. Venatrix stared at me before collapsing onto the ground, the cracks in its body still leaking magic fuel. It's running out of mana, but at least it won't instantly lose all of its mana from the flames burning them up.

Looking at this scene, I felt empty. Well, that isn't exactly the correct way to describe my feelings. It would be more appropriate to say that I felt slightly regretful. For some reason, the image of Venatrix looking at me before falling over stuck in my mind. It's almost as if I felt sorry for it? Why would I feel sorry for a golem though? Why did I even use wind magic to put out the flames?

Well, whatever, I still had more important things to do. I glanced at the audience seats. Although some of the audience had ran away due to the explosions, many still remained in their seats as they looked at me, either in horror or in awe.

(Well, that's good. If too many of them ran away, then it would have all been pointless.)

I wasn't going to let the people who captured me and forced me to fight in an arena to run away scot-free, and the audience members aren't innocent too.

{Inventory}

Drone 3 popped out of my inventory and rushed towards the only exit for the audience. Everyone stared at Drone 3 in confusion, but quickly turned their attention back to me. The arena's speaker created crackling sounds as the announcers began to speak.

Announcer Voice 1: {Well, that sure wa-}

[BRRTTTT!]

The speaker was torn to shreds as I rudely interrupted the announcer with my gun. From here on out, it is my turn to speak now.

Me: {Everyone, please remain in your seats.}

The audience, initially surprised that I could talk, started discussing with each other under the misunderstanding that this was part of the show. Nonetheless, I achieved my goal of making the audience members stay. I then contacted Carl with my reusable communication crystal he gave me before we split up. It took him a while to pick it up.

Carl: {Sorry, I was in the library. What's up?}

Me: {Can you tell the guards to come to my location?}

Carl: {Is something wrong, are you okay?}

Me: {Yeah, I'm fine. Just get here as soon as possible.}

After hanging up, I noticed that the audience members were becoming restless.

Audience Member A: {What's taking so long? Did something happen backstage?}

Audience Member B: {Maybe a golem went out of control, will we be in danger?}

It started with one or two audience members getting worried about what was holding up the performance. However, more and more people joined in. Some of the audience even threatened to leave if the announcer doesn't explain what was happening immediately. I quickly called Carl again.

Me: {Where are you? Are the guards coming?}

Carl: {We are already at your location? Where are you? Did you lose your tag?}

Me: {I'm underground, come quick!}

Carl: {What?! How did you get underground?}

Me: {There is an alleyway beside an inn called "Johnson's Hotel". At the end, there is a brick wall. There is a hidden passage behind that wall. That's how I went underground. Ok, I've got to hang up now, Bye!}

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(Hang up? What does that mean?}

Carl felt that what his friend says does not make sense sometimes, but that wasn't the time to worry about that. He quickly told the Squad Leader of the guards he called over: {My friend say that he is underground!}

The squad leader initially had an expression filled with doubt, but quickly changed his expression to that of a more thoughtful one. He said: {I have heard that this city has some underground facilities. Is it possible that your friend is being stored in one?}

Carl frowned slightly when he heard the word "stored", but replied anyways: {My friend said that the entrance is beside an inn called "Johnson's Hotel". He says that there is a secret entrance behind a brick wall.}

A mage, who was busy trying to track Hel, suddenly spoke up: {If there is a secret entrance, I will be able to find it. We can't let the golem kidnappers continue kidnapping golems. Let's go.}