My Femboy System-Chapter 146: Let the Games Begin

If hell had a lobby, it would probably look like this.

The attendant led me up a spiraling stair that seemed determined to outlast eternity, every step creaking with a kind of smug ancientness, the air growing thinner with each turn.

Torchlight bled through narrow slits in the walls, casting long orange veins across the stone like the colosseum itself was trying to remember it had a pulse.

I climbed, one hand on the railing, one on my pen, pretending the tremor in my fingers came from exhaustion and not the lingering image of Japeth’s smile branded into the inside of my skull like some saintly sigil gone rancid.

I tried not to think about Lysaria’s blood. Or Dagon’s laughter. Or the fact that apparently, I now had a father who looked at me like a well-trained dog.

No, best not to think about that. If I did, I might start throwing myself down the stairs just to make it stop. Instead, I focused on the rhythmic echo of our steps, the distant hum of a crowd swelling like the tide, and the faint scent of roasted nuts drifting in from above. Saints damn me, the bastards were selling snacks for this spectacle.

At last, the stairs emptied into a long arched hallway—bright, open, and lined with marble columns that gleamed like polished bones. Beyond them, the arena spread wide and roaring, sunlight cutting across the sands in golden slats.

The viewing platform sat at the far end, draped in silks and banners, the so-called "privileged" contestants gathered like exotic birds waiting to preen for each other.

I straightened my coat, smoothed my hair, and practiced my best expression of world-weary elegance—one part disdain, two parts exhaustion, with a garnish of "try me, I dare you." Then I stepped onto the platform.

Salem spotted me first. Of course he did. The man had an uncanny knack for appearing wherever I least wanted company, all smiles and insufferable charm.

"Cecil!" he called, striding over like an overeager puppy that had just learned my name meant treats. "You’re alive! Saints, I was starting to worry you’d been swallowed by the architecture."

"Almost," I said dryly, waving a hand as though fending off bad perfume. "Though in my defense, the architecture did try to eat me. Its name was Dagon. Massive fellow. Looks like someone fed a rhinoceros too many hymns and told it to run a church."

Salem blinked. "Wait—what?"

"Oh, and then Japeth appeared." I tossed the name casually, like I wasn’t dropping a bomb. "Yes, that Japeth. Smiling like a serpent that’s just joined a family picnic. Called himself my ’Pops.’ Very touching reunion. We laughed, we cried, he monologued about destiny while a giant priest smoked fire behind him. You know, normal paternal bonding."

Salem’s smile died. His eyes went wide, then narrowed into a look of fierce, unshaken resolve—the sort of look one reserves for impending tragedy or tax audits. "Japeth?" he said quietly, voice taut. "You’re sure?"

I gave him a look that said do I look like a man prone to hallucinations? "Unless I’ve suddenly developed the charming habit of inventing genocidal father figures, yes, I’m sure. He’s here. Alive. Breathing. Possibly moisturized."

Salem exhaled slowly, gaze darkening. "Then this tournament really means to break us."

"Oh, darling," I murmured, "the tournament means to turn us into performance art. Breakage is just the opening act."

My wit hung in the air like perfume on a corpse, but before Salem could reply, movement caught my eye over his shoulder.

There he was—the High Priest of the Southern Sun Cult. Standing at the edge of the platform, his gilded armor catching the light, one hand raised to wave at the mob below. His smile was wide enough to make a saint sweat, all teeth, charm, and sanctified arrogance. The crowd adored him. They howled his name, tossed petals, drank to his glory. I felt my stomach twist so hard I nearly retched.

"Ah," I said faintly, "there goes my appetite. If he smiles any harder, his face will fold into itself like bad origami."

Salem followed my gaze, lips pressing into a thin line. "He’ll get what’s coming," he murmured.

"I hope it’s scurvy," I muttered.

We drifted toward the others, the din of the crowd swelling like a living thing beneath us. Rodrick and Dunny were off to the side, engaged in the world’s most forced conversation about sword polish, clearly trying not to acknowledge Selwyn’s gaze boring holes into the back of their skulls.

Selwyn himself stood at a distance, arms folded, every line of his posture screaming disapproval incarnate. I could feel the temperature drop ten degrees in his direction.

Further down, the Lady of Fangs stood alone, parasol tilted delicately over her shoulder, her porcelain skin almost gleaming in the light.

She wasn’t looking at the arena, or the crowd, or even at us—just into the empty air, eyes unfocused, lips curved into a faint smile that had absolutely no business being as unnerving as it was.

"I think she’s communing with the void," I muttered. "Or auditioning to be its muse."

"Better not interrupt her," Salem murmured.

It was then I noticed two notable absences—the stitched man and the new fishman competitor with the eyes like polished glass. Their spots on the balcony were empty. I frowned. "They’re missing."

"Which means," Salem said grimly, "they’ll be the one’s fighting."

I nodded, though my stomach gave an unpleasant twist. However, before I could dwell on it, a sharp, irritated voice erupted behind us.

"What in the nine dripping pits of hell is this slope?!"

I turned, halfway through an eye-roll—and promptly forgot how to breathe.

A man—no, an ancient man, his skin a roadmap of wrinkles, his eyebrows so long they could have been used as bookmarks—was being pushed forward in a creaking wheelchair by a younger man.

The elder’s expression was one of eternal outrage, his mouth working nonstop as he gestured furiously with a cane that looked like it had bludgeoned gods in its youth.

And the man pushing him—

"Saints above," I whispered. "Salem, there’s a clone of you behind me. Quick, blink twice if you’ve been duplicated."

Salem turned, and his jaw dropped. "Father!" he shouted.

I almost fainted.

First Rodrick’s brother, now Salem’s father. At this rate, I’d be meeting everyone’s extended family before lunch. Next thing I knew, the Lady of Fangs’ great-aunt would pop out of the shadows to offer us tea made of despair.

The old man scowled, jabbing his cane toward Salem. "Don’t shout, you brainless welp. I can hear you just fine, not deaf yet! Though the noise in this pit might change that. Bloody racket. Filthy colosseum. Not a single decent competitor in site!"

Salem bowed so low I half-expected his spine to pop. "Of course, Gramps," he said smoothly.

"Gramps?" I echoed faintly.

"Yes," Salem murmured under his breath, smiling too brightly. "Family term. Endearment."

"Endearment?" the old man barked. "You call me ’sir,’ you indolent brat! Saints preserve me, they let children run these tournaments now? The last one I saw had champions who could split mountains! These ones look like they couldn’t split a loaf of bread!"

Salem’s father—the younger man behind the chair—sighed and muttered something too low to catch. His resemblance to Salem was uncanny, though where Salem had a mischievous brightness, this man looked tired, worn, the sort of fatigue one develops only by parenting the impossible.

"Father, please," he said softly, "we’re guests here."

"Guests!" The old man spat, quite literally. "I’d rather be a corpse! At least corpses don’t have to watch this disgrace!"

I blinked. "He’s charming."

Salem smiled without looking at me. "He’s an old man."

"That doesn’t excuse personality homicide."

Gramps was still ranting, waving his cane with enough force to threaten the structural integrity of reality. "Back in my day, we didn’t need these ’relics’ and fancy ’titles.’ We had fists, lungs, and guts! You win or you die, and either way, you shut up about it!"

Salem’s father, to his credit, simply nodded. "Yes, Father."

"Don’t patronize me, you simpering bookend! And stop pushing so slow, you make me feel like I’m being paraded in a funeral!"

Salem clapped his hands together and crouched before the chair, his usual grin intact but just a shade tighter around the edges. "It’s good to see you both," he said cheerfully, his voice the strained calm of a man negotiating with a bomb. "Didn’t expect you to come all this way."

The old man snorted. "Well, someone had to make sure you weren’t embarrassing the family name! Though judging by the company—" His rheumy eyes slid toward me. "—I may have arrived too late."

"Saints love you too, Grandpa," I said sweetly. "Would you like me to fetch you a cushion? Or perhaps an exorcism?"

The old man squinted, unimpressed. "You’re the scribe, aren’t you? The one who talks too much and bleeds even more?"

"Guilty."

He sniffed. "Figures. You’ve got the look of someone who mistakes cowardice for intelligence. The world’s full of your kind—soft hands, sharp tongues, think you can talk your way through war."

"Oh, I can," I said brightly. "It’s called diplomacy."

"Bah! It’s called cowardice!"

I bit my tongue before I said something that would get me brained by a cane. Salem, to his credit, only smiled wider, nodding along as though his grandfather’s insults were lullabies.

"My, my," I murmured to Salem. "You take abuse remarkably well."

He chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck. "Occupational habit. Gramps doesn’t mean half of it."

"Does he mean the half where he called me a disgrace to evolution?"

"Oh, he means that entirely."

Before I could retort, Gramps jabbed his cane at the air again. "Hmph. These duels ought to be dull! Not a single proper technique among them. If someone used a real Sonic Burst, the whole arena would collapse! Back in my prime—"

I raised an eyebrow then. Salem cut in, almost too quickly. "Ah yes, that’s right, Gramps invented the Sonic Burst."

I nearly spat tea across the balcony before remembering, tragically, that I had no tea. "You’re telling me your grandfather—this charming bundle of rage—invented one of the deadliest techniques in modern combat?"

"Technically, yes," Salem said.

"I thought it was a hereditary spell," I muttered, still reeling. "Something passed down through dozens of generations."

"Ah yes, about that..."

However, before any more could be said, a trumpet blared across the colosseum, followed by the booming voice of the announcer.

"Ladies and gentlemen, monsters and mystics, ghouls and glory-seekers!" he declared, his tone bright with mock divinity. The sound reverberated against the stone walls until the whole arena seemed to hum with delight and dread.

Below us, the sands of the pit glimmered like molten gold, each grain stirring beneath the pressure of ten thousand roars. The crowd answered him in waves of noise—stamping feet, shifting silk, shrill whistles that seemed to melt into one continuous, bloodthirsty hymn.

From my perch upon the viewing platform, I could feel it all, the rhythmic vibration beneath my boots, the gusts of heat rising from the torches that circled the pit, the mingling scent of sweat, dust, and roasted meat.

It was chaos dressed in ceremony, and saints save me, but it was intoxicating. The arena was a living thing, and every scream fed it.

"It’s has been far, far too long since our last righteous massacre, and I, for one, am positively starved for spectacle!" The announcer continued, his voice rippling with theatrical glee. "So polish your blades and sharpen your fangs, my darling degenerates, because this first match promises to make even the saints peek through their fingers!"

Salem leaned in, his voice barely audible over the din. "He always sounds like he’s flirting with the crowd."

"He is," I replied dryly. "And the crowd’s clearly consenting. Possibly enthusiastically."

Rodrick coughed into his hand to smother a laugh, while to my left, the Naked Knight—bare as the day he was born—had already risen to his feet. He cupped his hands to his mouth and bellowed, "Start the slaughter!"

If enthusiasm could kill, the man would have died mid-cheer.

"Now then," the announcer purred, letting the words drawl out like a lover’s tease, "to open our little feast of violence—straight from the glimmering waters of Crescent Bay, survivor of seven duels and one most unfortunate lightning storm—please welcome our first competitor: Jinway the Silverscale!"

A trumpet sounded somewhere high above, thin and brassy, as the eastern gate shuddered open. A figure emerged from the shadows, and for one brief moment I wondered whether the sea itself had crawled onto land to join us.

He was the Fishman—tall and slender, skin the color of morning tide, scales glinting faintly beneath the light of the rising run.

His gills pulsed along his neck like breathing jewels, releasing fine ribbons of mist that curled and vanished in the air. His eyes caught the light oddly, twin mirrors of mercury that seemed to reflect too much; I had the distinct and uncomfortable feeling he was assessing us the way one might examine potential prey.

And, by some cosmic joke, he was dressed as though he’d just finished catching shrimp at the docks: a loose white shirt stained by sea salt, frayed trousers rolled up to the knee, and heavy boots still crusted with sand. The only thing missing was a half-eaten fish dangling from his belt.

A fisherman Fishman. Somewhere, a poet had just died of irony.

Slung across his back was a trident—long, rusted, and cruelly pitted with corrosion. The weapon looked ancient, more relic than armament, though the way he balanced it across his shoulders told me he knew exactly what it could do.

Around his upper arm shone a thin band: the mark of a knight-class mage.

The crowd roared its approval, a tide of voices crashing against the walls. The announcer seized the moment, his voice swelling to match the frenzy.

"Jinway the Silverscale!" he sang out. "Slayer of pirates! Conqueror of crustaceans! Devourer of oysters both literal and metaphorical! A legend of the deep! They say he survived the preliminary rounds by hiding beneath the bay for days, dragging his opponents to watery graves when they dared approach!"

"Cheater," I muttered into my hand.

Salem’s mouth twitched into a smirk. "You’d have done the same."

"Oh please," I sniffed. "I have standards. I’d have poisoned the bay first."

Jinway raised his trident and gave a sharp, practiced salute, his grin wide and glinting. The nobles in the upper stands adored him immediately, showering him with cheers, flower petals, and—unless my eyes deceived me—a single discarded shoe.

The announcer’s voice swooped back in, riding the momentum. "And now, to face our aquatic avenger," he declared, "a being with no name, no home, and—depending on which theologian you ask—no soul! Forged by gods or nightmares, bred for violence, and known only for the silence that follows him. The butcher of the southern sands! The reaper without remorse! The one, the only..."

A pause.

Even the announcer faltered. His tone softened, uncertain for the first time. "...uh...the Stitched Man I suppose..."

No title. No accolades. Only dread.

The western gate opened with a deep groan that rattled through my chest.

He stepped out slowly, each movement deliberate, heavy, soundless. The stitched man. A tower of scarred flesh and shadow.

Across his broad shoulders hung his maul, its head dented and rusted, as though it had been dragged through a battlefield rather than forged upon an anvil.

He looked less like a man and more like a cruel joke whispered by the gods.

The noise of the crowd faltered, thinned, and died. Even the torchlight seemed to dim as he crossed the threshold.

The announcer cleared his throat. "Our... ah... mysterious contender, ladies and gentlemen," he stammered gamely, "with no name, no record, and, I’m told, no survivors! Let’s hope today’s match is a touch more... educational."

I didn’t laugh. Neither did anyone else.

"Without further ceremony," he said quickly, "let the match begin."

A hush swept across the arena. Even the banners overhead seemed to hold their breath.

Then Jinway moved.

He surged forward like a wave breaking free of gravity—light, fluid, deadly. His trident spun in his hands, catching sunlight as it sliced toward the stitched man’s chest.

The blow met something harder than flesh. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

The stitched man didn’t dodge, didn’t flinch. He lifted one scarred arm and batted the trident aside with casual ease, the sound of metal against muscle ringing sharp as a bell. Jinway’s eyes widened; he stumbled back a pace, recalculating.

The announcer’s voice rose to fill the stillness. "And they’re off!" he crowed, his tone desperately bright. "Our aquatic ace opens strong, but the stitched titan prefers his seafood raw! A bold approach! Will it pay off?"

The laughter that followed was thin, nervous.

Jinway began to circle, fins flicking faintly at his calves. His movements were sharp but cautious now, the confidence draining from him like water through a sieve. He jabbed again, feinting left, twisting right, striking with perfect precision. Every blow met the same end—a hand, a forearm, an unyielding wall of flesh and indifference. The stitched man was simply watching. Studying.

Beside me, Salem murmured, "He’s analyzing his pattern."

"Or he’s bored," I replied. "He looks bored."

The Naked Knight laughed loud enough to draw glares from three rows down. "Ha! Swat him again!"

Below, Jinway’s patience finally broke. His teeth bared, and with a growl low in his throat, he reached into the pouch at his hip and flung something green toward the ground.

It landed with a soft slap.

Seaweed.

For one bizarre moment, I thought he’d gone mad. Then the thing began to grow.

It swelled like a living thing, roots burrowing into sand that had never known the taste of water. The strands thickened, multiplied, coiling up the stitched man’s legs like serpents, then around his arms, his torso, his throat. Within seconds, the creature was cocooned in writhing greenery.

The crowd gasped in awe.

The announcer, ever ready, seized the moment. "A brilliant maneuver!" he cried. "The legendary Sea Snare! A technique rarely seen on land, and for good reason—it requires seaweed! Yet our slippery knight has come prepared! Let’s hear it for creative botany!"

The nobles applauded wildly, clearly delighted to witness something they could gossip about over wine later.

Jinway grinned wide, confidence reborn. He twirled his trident and began to strut forward, each step measured, predatory. "Even monsters drown," he said, voice carrying through the magical wards. "Don’t worry, big man. You’ll make a fine trophy on my wall."

I groaned softly. "Oh, dear. He’s talking."

Down below, the seaweed tightened its grip. The vines hissed and strained, the stitched man vanishing beneath a mass of green tendrils. For a moment, even I wondered if it might hold him. The arena trembled with cheering. The announcer was beside himself with joy. "What form! What finesse! Will the nameless brute yield? Or will the tides of fate drag him under?"

For one long heartbeat, nothing moved. The vines creaked. Jinway stepped closer, trident poised. His smile widened.

Then the stitched man moved.

It wasn’t even dramatic—just a simple tightening of muscle, a small breath, a faint tremor.

The vines exploded apart like wet paper.

Jinway froze mid-step, the trident half-raised. The sound of snapping seaweed cracked through the air, sharp and final, followed by a silence that felt almost reverent.

Beside me, the Naked Knight gave a low whistle. "Ouch."

Just then, the Lady of Fangs finally looked up from beneath her black umbrella. "He’s a fucking joke," she said simply.

I couldn’t argue.

Below, Jinway staggered backward, disbelief etched across his face. "How—" he managed, voice trembling.

The stitched man didn’t bother answering. He reached out, caught the trident in one massive hand, and regarded it with quiet, chilling curiosity.

"Well," the announcer ventured, tone quivering with false bravado, "it seems our stitched contender has decided to try fishing. A fine catch! Though perhaps a short-lived hobby, judging by—oh dear, that grip does not bode well."

Jinway stumbled back further, panic creeping into every movement. "Give it back!" he shouted.

The stitched man tilted his head, considering. His fingers shifted slightly. And then, with the gentlest motion imaginable, he snapped the trident in two.

The sound was small—like a twig breaking beneath foot—but it carried through the colosseum like thunder rolling over a grave.

Jinway stared at the fragments in horror. The stitched man raised his gaze to meet his opponent’s eyes. For the first time since I had met him, he spoke. Gods above, he spoke!

"Coward," he echoed softly.