When I opened my eyes, I was sitting on a cold marble floor. I had appeared in some sort of giant pit; The circular floor had a radius of about 500 meters and the walls surrounding it were nearly 20 meters high. Definitely not the office I had been in a few seconds ago.

I looked around and spotted several dozen people doing the same. They all had a mixture of surprise and fear in their eyes.

<Contestant 'Hella' transferred successfully>

<Introductions in 120 seconds>

I remembered typing in my code name 'Hella' and quickly stood up, startled. I reached into my suit and took hold of one of my pistols. Confirming that I had my weapons I calmed down and looked back at the text that had appeared in mid-air.

The first line of text disappeared and the second one started counting down.

Looking around I could see people in various degrees of panic. I could see people crying, screaming and some were just sitting on the ground with an empty look in their eyes.

I spotted someone who looked reasonably calm and approached him. "Hey, do you know what's going on?", I asked him.

"Que?" The man didn't understand me, he obviously couldn't speak English.

<Skill 'Language translation' granted>

As I was looking for someone who might speak English, more text appeared in front of me.

The man looked at something in front of him. He probably got the same message.

"Do you know what's going on?", I asked him again. The man seemed to have understood me this time.

"I do not know, I suddenly appeared here. Do you know where we are?" The man's English sounded a bit off, but I could understand him.

"Don't know, I'm going to look around some more.". I responded to the man and walked off.

 

<Introductions in 0 seconds>

Light flashed and on the edge of the pit someone appeared. A man with long white hair was looking down at us. He carried a sword on his waist that didn't match up with his clothes, a bright blue shirt with pineapples on it, pink shorts and brown flip-flops.

"Ahem! Attention please!" The man's voice reverberated through the pit and everyone quieted down and looked at him.

"Welcome contestants! You are the first 100 humans to enter the arena!" Confetti appeared in the air as he said this. "Now, you might be asking. What is the arena? But don't worry, I'll explain everything. Well... not everything, but you know... enough."

I moved closer to the man as he spoke again. "Right, the arena! The arena is a world I created for my entertainment and all of you have agreed to join it!".

"I didn't agree to anything!" Someone interrupted the man and spoke what was on everyone's mind.

The man looked down at the woman who interrupted him, annoyed. He drew his sword and threw it at her. As soon as the sword left his hand it pierced through the woman's chest. Her heart had been completely destroyed and she died within seconds. The man raised his hand and the sword flew back to it as he continued as if nothing had happened.

"Where was I? Right, I remember." The man sheathed his sword and spoke again. "You all agreed to join the arena when you gave me your name, it might not have been your actual name then, but from now on it is."

"The arena contains all sorts of creatures you have never seen, although some of them do appear in stories and such on earth."

The man continued his speech as he projected images of all kinds of monsters on the walls. I recognized some of them, goblins, dragons, skeletons, etc, but most of them were unfamiliar to me.

"Every month one thousand people will be transported to the arena and get the opportunity to live here. You are the first group of people so, to test things out, there are only one hundred of you. I'll test how capable you humans are and change things if necessary."

"As for the creatures that live in the arena, they are dangerous of course, but if you kill one you'll also grow stronger. I've copied the system you lot have in those 'video games' so you can clearly get an idea of how strong you are, I call it 'status'."

As the man said that everyone's status appeared in front of them.

---

Name: Hella

Lvl: 1

Strength: 14

Endurance: 17

Dexterity: 24

Mental: 20

Titles:

Skills: Language translation,

Equipment:

Weapons: Desert Eagle .44 Magnum x2, .44 magazine 8 bullets x6, Combat knife x1,

Armour: Kevlar suit x1,

Other: Phone x1, First-aid kit x1, wallet x1,

---

"I think that should do as an explanation for now, I'll give you some time to prepare yourself before you get to fight some of my lovely creations. Good luck!"

The man disappeared, leaving an unnatural silence behind.

A few seconds passed while everyone was processing what the man had said and, as expected, started cursing him afterwards.

'We have to fight those monsters? No way, most people here would die.' I thought to myself as I started to walk around.

 

"Everyone! Everyone! Calm down! The old man told us those monsters are going to attack soon, we need to come up with a plan.". In the middle of the pit stood a tall man in a police uniform. He continued to get people's attention and eventually a small crowd formed around him.

I joined the crowd to listen what he had to say. "Those monsters seem dangerous and it's likely that most of us won't survive if we have to face one." I agreed with the police officer, most civilians would never have experienced a serious fight.

"However, if everyone who can fight groups up to protect the rest, we should survive." The officer said this, and hope returned on several people's faces.

 

The crowd had split in two. The smaller part was made up of the police officer, me, one other woman and 10 men. We were the fighting force.

"Right, is there anyone who has real combat experience?" The officer spoke again and raised his hand. Me, the woman and two men raised their hands.

"I'm Walter West, I am... I was a bouncer at a club. I don't know about weapons, but I've fought plenty people." One of the men introduced himself and the rest followed suit. The woman was a professional kick boxer and the other man was a sergeant in the American army.

"You can call me Hella, I'm a member of MI6, the security agency of the British government. I have had extensive combat training and several years of experience in the field." Not feeling the need to hide anything, I introduced myself as I showed my id.

After a few seconds of silence, the officer spoke again. "I, I see. I'm sure you'll be of great help. Anyway, I'm Hugh Miller, as you can see I'm a police officer. I've been one for several years." Everyone seemed shocked since I was a secret operative, but we eventually got through our introductions.

"Does anyone have anything we can use as weapons?" Hugh asked as he pulled out a baton.

The sergeant pulled out a small pistol and I followed suit by taking out my own handguns. I ended up giving one of them to Hugh, since he knew how to handle one, and his baton was given to someone else.

We asked the group of non-combatants, and eventually everyone was equipped with something weapon-like.

 

<Warning! First wave starting in 30 seconds>

We were chatting when the warning finally came.

"Everyone to positions!"

We had discussed beforehand how we were going to defend against the monsters and moved quickly.

Because we didn't know where the monsters would come from we decided to first have the non-combatants form a loosely packed mob. We, the combatants, moved to the middle of that and when the monsters showed up we would quickly rush out and form a defensive wall.

This was a risky strategy, but we didn't have enough people to surround everyone.

"There they are!" a group of monsters appeared, along with a flashing light. We quickly rushed out to form a defensive wall.

The monsters, however, were faster. The monsters looked, at first glance, like a pack of black wolves. When you looked closer you could see that instead of fur they had shiny black scales and a sharp horn on their head.

We were still inside of the mob of people when the wolves reached it. I saw a wolf open his jaws, about to bite into a small boy.

I raised my gun, aimed and shot. A loud sound rung out and the .44 destroyed the wolf's brain.

<Congratulations! You have obtained the 'First blood' title>

A notification popped up, but I didn't pay attention to it. I aimed for another wolf and continued shooting.

As the wolves started to die they faltered. This gave the others time to approach them and form a defensive line.

The melee fighters started killing the wolves and I lowered my gun. Hugh and the sergeant continued shooting, taking down any wolf they spotted.

The non-combatants had fled from the fight. I turned around and saw them several dozen meters away. Since they were fine I turned my attention back to the fight, there were only a few wolves left.

Before I did so, however, I spotted a flashing light behind them. I looked closer and saw several more wolves.

"They're behind us!" I yelled and started running. I moved to the side of the group to get a line of sight on the wolves.

The wolves reached the non-combatants and started killing. Every time they swung their claws or closed their jaws someone fell. The lucky ones screamed in pain whilst the unlucky ones would fall silently.

I got the wolves in my sight and started shooting. Every time the sound of my shooting rung out, another wolf died. But, as more wolves joined the fray, it couldn't keep up with the amount the wolves killed.

<Congratulations! You have obtained the 'Marksman' title>

After emptying three magazines I obtained another title. I ignored it and shot the last four wolves.

<Congratulations! You have obtained the 'One-man army' title>

When the last wolf died I got a third title.

 

I looked at the corpses, for almost every dead wolf there were three equally dead humans.

Of the initial one hundred people only forty-two remained and nearly half of them were injured.

"There's something here!"

Thinking another group of monsters had appeared, I rushed over.

A boy, maybe 16 or 17 years old, was standing over a dead wolf. He reached down, picked something up and handed it to me.

He had found a pair of odd-looking gloves. They were made from black scales and had sharp claws on the fingertips.

As I was studying them a small window popped up:

---

Gauntlets of the dark wolves (rare)

Attack: 4-5

Defence: 7-8

Effect: +2 dexterity

---

'hmm, this seems useful' I equipped the gloves and moved my fingers, making sure my movement wasn't hindered.

'Right, I got a bunch of titles. What do they do?' I opened my status and was stunned before I even looked at the titles.

---

Name: Hella

Lvl: 6

Strength: 17

Endurance: 21

Dexterity: 30(32)

Mental: 24

Titles: First blood, Marksman, One-man army,

Skills: Language translation, Shooting III,

---

My level had increased by 5 and all my stats went up by about 20 %. I wasn't sure if this meant I was now 20% better at everything but it did seem amazing.

I calmed down and looked at the titles and the 'shooting' skill

---

Titles:

First blood

Description: Be the first person of your race that takes a life in the arena.

Effect: When sneaking, you will be undetectable until you attack; you will be able to draw first blood every fight.

Marksman

Description: 20 times in a row, kill an enemy with a single shot. Must be shooting from, at least, 100 meters away.

Effect: Grants the 'Shooting III' skill. Attacks with ranged weapons do extra damage.

One-man army

Description: Kill every member of an enemy group without any help. The group must exceed 20 attackers. The enemies must exceed your level.

Effect: When fighting alone, attack damage is increased. When fighting alone Strength, endurance and Dexterity are increased by 20%. When you kill more then half of an enemy group alone, the rest of the group will be put under the 'fear' effect.

 

Skills:

Shooting III

Effect: Accuracy +30% (+10% each level)

---

I didn’t know much about the arena yet, but I was quite sure these titles were powerful. Especially the ‘first blood’ title, I would be able to sneak up on enemies and take them down without trouble.

 

58 people had died. Among them 56 weren't combatants and 2 were.

The 2 combatants who had died had wanted to defend people from the second group of wolves; They were killed by the first group of wolves when they turned around to run towards them.

We treated the injured with what little medical supplies we had and looted the wolves.

The wolves seemed to have a chance to drop items like my gloves. And even if they didn't drop anything, we could still dismantle their bodies and make makeshift armour and weapons from the scales, horns and claws.

Since I killed all of them, I claimed all the loot from the second group of wolves. I gave the people who helped dismantle them some of the meat and scales.

I found another pair of gloves but these were only graded 'common' so I traded them with the kickboxer lady, who introduced herself as Amy. She had found a small knife among the wolves she had killed. It wasn't great for combat but would help with dismantling bodies.

---

Hunter's knife(common)

Attack: 0-1

Effect: Can cut the skin and meat of any dead monster. Monster's level can't exceed 20. Monster's grade can't exceed 'rare'.

---

I also found a few copper and silver coins but didn't know what to do with them, so I just put them in my pockets.

I checked my ammunition. I had given Hugh one extra clip, that he had used completely. I had used three clips myself, so I had just 2 left.

'I'll have to conserve my ammo' I thought. I told Hugh I didn't have any more ammo and took back the gun.

Hugh had looted a spear from one of the wolves, so he wasn't defenceless by any means.

When the last piece of loot was picked up an announcement appeared.

<First wave complete, providing rewards>

<Reward is based on contribution>

<1st Hella, 5 days’ supply of food, 5 days’ supply of water, item(unique), item(rare)>

<2nd Amy, 3 days’ supply of food, 3 days’ supply of water, weapon(rare)>

<3rd Adam, 2 days’ supply of food, 2 days’ supply of water, weapon(common)>

<4th Rock, 1 days’ supply of food, 1 days’ supply of water>

<5th Hugh, 1 days’ supply of food, 1 days’ supply of water>

I had obtained 2 items, both are extremely useful. The first one is a bag which is bigger on the inside, it made me think of a certain blue police box. The other item was flask that produced water.

---

Pouch of holding(unique)

Description: Contains a sub-space, can be used to store small items. Size of 100 cubic meters.

Flask of the water mage(rare)

Description: Fills up with water when closed. 1L, can not be used to store other liquids.

---

Since I now didn't have to worry about dehydration, I gave away my 5 days’ supply of water. I didn't want people to rely on hand-outs, so I traded it for the coins the wolves dropped.

No one knew how much the coins were worth, so I just gave it to whoever offered the most.

Adam, the sergeant who had used a pistol against the wolves, copied me and traded 1 day supply of water and food away for the coins.

Amy refused to take the coins and divided 2 days’ supply equally among those who didn't have any.

When it got darker we decided to get some sleep. Just in case monsters suddenly appeared, we got some of the non-combatants to stand guard, they would change every 3 hours and wake everyone if they saw any monsters.

We went to sleep and got through the night without any incident.