The Cesspit

Kirk and Little Fatty woke up.

They were both tied up tightly and carried along by several muscular men with gleaming skin, who swayed with every step.

Little Fatty was so scared he wet himself. "Big brother! Why is the plot so Heavy Taste right from the start? Muscles and men everywhere—what the hell is going on?"

Kirk was panicking too, but his hands were bound so tightly that he couldn't break free.

The man leading them was a dark-skinned Black man with a glossy sheen to him. He smiled, showing off a row of dazzling white teeth—he could have been the face of a Black toothpaste commercial.

"You're lucky. Bartitas doesn't want to lose any more slaves today, so your punishment for trying to escape is just to go over there and reflect on what you did. You'll spend a day hungry, though there'll be food there if you want to eat. Thank Jupiter, the Main God of Roman Mythology. Your treatment is the envy of every slave in Rome!"

Then he had Kirk and Little Fatty thrown into a huge hole!

Kirk and Little Fatty screamed as they fell.

With a splash, they hit like cannonballs landing in a cesspit, sending up a tidal wave of public outrage.

But this really was a cesspit!

A cesspit—look it up in the dictionary: a place where human waste collects.

In an instant, Kirk and Little Fatty were covered from head to toe in shit and piss. The stench was so foul they couldn't even open their eyes. Kirk struggled with all his might. If he drowned in a cesspit right after entering the Plot, even death wouldn't stop him from waking up in outrage. Little Fatty was plump and round, rolling around in the cesspit like a little white pig. After struggling for ages, he'd swallowed several mouthfuls of shit.

Kirk couldn't hold back and started vomiting violently. This place was just too disgusting.

Little Fatty, with his mouth full of shit, swore at the top of his lungs. "You bastard, Space! Do you die if you don't torture the protagonist or what?"

He kicked up a spray of piss and shit toward the sky. It fell right back down, giving them both another shower of fertilizer. Little Fatty was so mad he started laughing at himself, then sat down in the cesspit with a plop.

But Kirk stared intently at the cesspit as though it held not foul-smelling shit, but gold and beautiful women.

The disgusting white maggots in the cesspit began to wriggle slowly. They linked head to tail, gradually forming the following Chinese characters:

Contractor 4444, the details of the Plot World you are about to enter are as follows:

[Main Plot]: Blood and Sand! Spartacus.

[Scene Type]: [Arena Mode].

[Arena Mode] rules: Contractors may kill without penalty. Blood-red room-card keys dropped by enemies grant a 20% bonus reward, but cannot be opened or used until you leave the World. The [Valuable Item] and [Soul Crystal] (shard) issued for Arena Mode have been placed in your personal Space Mark. Kills are guaranteed to drop loot, and rewards will be granted during the Plot summary based on the number of [Valuable Items]!

[Scene Difficulty]: C+.

[Timeline]: 100 BC

[Location]: Roman Republic, Xeres

[Personal Attribute Adjustment]: Attributes increased by 30%. After adjustment, Contractor No. 4444's attributes are: Strength 19 (14), Agility 19 (14), Stamina 20 (15), Intelligence 6 (8), Wisdom 5 (6), Charisma 2 (2). (Values in parentheses are the original values of a newbie; the adjustments have been completed.)

[Pain Weakening]: 50%.

[Main Mission]: Survive! Stay alive until you are transported back to Space.

[Warning]: Watch your back.

Kirk and Little Fatty looked at each other. Space still had that same thuggish, shameless face: "No foreplay, no protection, no strings, no discussion, no condoms, no responsibility." As the saying went, "It wasn't afraid of anyone dying; it was only afraid things wouldn't get ugly. If you have a way out, figure it out; if you don't, go die."

Little Fatty climbed to his feet. "Can't Space give us any missions besides survival missions?"

Kirk said, "I guess the designer's imagination is limited. They couldn't think of any other ways to mess with us brothers."

Just then, a man's voice sounded nearby. "If I were you, I'd get out of there. Quickly."

"Why—" Little Fatty began, but before he could finish, a steaming, freshly dropped turd landed on his head!

Little Fatty's eyes went red with fury. He looked up, and a light drizzle had started falling again. He accidentally swallowed a few mouthfuls. It turned out to be the very same "immortal water" that the Deer-Horned Immortal, Goat-Horned Immortal, and Tiger-Power Immortal had praised so enthusiastically at the Three Pure Ones Temple—the Monkey Brother's "immortal water"!

Kirk looked up and saw several big white butts swaying as they walked away. The brothers exchanged a glance, their eyes brimming with murderous intent. Who would dare treat the two of them like this? If they didn't avenge this, how could they call themselves gentlemen?

Another bucket of shit and piss poured down, and the two gentlemen were once again bathed in all-natural fertilizer.

The two of them were in a wretched state, while someone nearby was laughing so hard he could barely stand.

Kirk and Little Fatty glared over with murderous intent. There were two handsome young men over there. They had one thing in common: powerful muscles, bronzed and gleaming in the sunlight. Their well-proportioned physiques were as perfect as Roman sculptures, their fit bodies brimming with immense, dangerous strength. One had short black hair, the other blond curls. Seeing the hostile looks on Kirk and Little Fatty's faces, they both wore relaxed, faintly amused expressions, as though they weren't concerned by the pair's anger at all. The blond young man shrugged. "I did try to warn you..."

"You son of a—" Little Fatty started to curse, but Kirk stopped him. Kirk saw how relaxed the two men were, then noticed the calluses on their hands and their muscular physiques. Thinking about the ridiculous cesspit setup, he suddenly realized something!

These two men, built like leopards, were none other than the main duo of This World: Spartacus and Vero!

Picking a fight with a Plot Character, especially Spartacus, who could beat anyone in the Roman Empire, would be like an old woman hanging herself—she'd clearly had enough of life!

Still, Kirk had to admit that accidentally meeting Spartacus, the manliest of men and the most handsome of men, a Plot Character of incomparable personal strength and historical significance, in a cesspit was a historic encounter that would stink for the ages!

Shouldn't they have met in the fragrant restroom of a five-star hotel, both wearing suits and chatting with effortless elegance?

But knowing that such a badass Plot Character was also sitting in a cesspit and getting showered with fertilizer left Kirk and Little Fatty speechless. They could only move aside and stand against the wall.

Kirk began observing them closely. The one with short black hair had to be Spartacus, the protagonist. He was a Thracian warrior who had volunteered for service in Rome's auxiliary forces to fight against a common enemy of Rome and Thrace. As punishment for openly defying Roman deputy commander Claudius Grebo, he was sentenced to death in the gladiatorial arena. He killed four swordsmen and survived, after which he was condemned to slavery. Bartitas took him away and trained him to be a gladiator at the training school. Bartitas used the promise of finding his wife, Sura, to lure him into working for him.

The handsome blond man beside him was Vero. He was a Roman citizen who had sold himself into slavery to pay off gambling debts and provide for his wife and children. A resolute warrior, he followed the rules strictly and got along well with the other gladiators. He admired Spartacus for his legendary performance in the arena, where he faced four opponents alone. Spartacus was impulsive, while Vero was more cautious. Even so, he was Spartacus's only true friend in the training camp.

A little while later, Little Fatty's stomach began to rumble. Kirk gave him a helpless look. Little Fatty said sheepishly, "It's a hidden talent. I get hungry fast!" Kirk groaned. "Brother, you can still think about food in a cesspit? What kind of powerful talent and metabolism does that take?"

Vero smiled. "You don't need to worry about food. Someone will bring it soon."

Watching Vero handle himself in the cesspit as though he were perfectly at ease, Kirk and Little Fatty exchanged a look. Cool as a cucumber—what a guy.

"Big brother, are you familiar with this place?" Little Fatty asked cautiously.

"Spartacus and I come here all the time. You look new. How long have you been here?" Vero asked casually.

"We only arrived today..." Kirk answered for Little Fatty, afraid he'd start shooting his mouth off.

"No wonder. You just got here, and they didn't kill you even after you tried to escape. You're pretty lucky. Looks like Bartitas is in a serious financial crisis." Vero glanced at Spartacus. Spartacus still had his usual cool expression, his face as hard as carved stone, without a trace of softness.

Clearly, Kirk's two points of Charisma, which could instantly kill any Plot Character, were working their magic again. Vero didn't seem opposed to talking with them, so Kirk and Little Fatty could keep fishing for information.

"Why would they kill us? We haven't done anything wrong," Little Fatty complained indignantly.

"That's just how things work at this gladiator training camp. Escape, and you're beheaded. Steal, and they chop off your hand. Lose, and you get whipped. Get injured, and they execute you. Disobey, and they throw you in the cesspit..." Vero laughed at his own words, and even Spartacus couldn't help showing a faint smile.

"That strict?" Little Fatty gaped. This was a serious violation of human rights!

"I'm talking about gladiators. Bartitas and Dochet are even less forgiving with raw material like you. They'll kill you without hesitation if you try to escape. If they threw you alive into the cesspit, I'd guess it's mostly because of the financial crisis. The training camp is short on cash, so they couldn't bring themselves to have Barka butcher you!" Vero certainly knew how to say shocking things.

"What!" Kirk and Little Fatty cried in unison. "What do you mean, raw material?"

"Raw material..." Vero was struggling to figure out how to explain it to them when the stone-faced Spartacus took over without changing expression. "We gladiators use it for sparring and as targets during training. Every gladiator in the training camp must have the blood and lives of nine people on his hands before he can earn the title of gladiator and qualify to enter the Great Arena!" With that, he turned toward the stone wall, clearly uninterested in raw material who wouldn't last more than a few days.

Kirk and Little Fatty fell silent. Their situation was even more dangerous than they'd imagined. Kirk had watched Spartacus: Blood and Sand. The training camp was full of powerful, fearless elite gladiators: retired soldiers with nowhere else to turn, bankrupt citizens who had sold themselves into slavery, vicious death-row criminals, and strong slaves from every corner of the Mediterranean world. At first, Spartacus and Vero had both been nobodies there! They'd been bullied and looked down on, or they wouldn't have been stuck in that foul-smelling cesspit!

The devilish trainer Dochet, the gladiator Cress, Barka—none of them were easy to deal with!

No wonder it was another survival mission. If they could just survive, they'd be fine.

How long the two of them would last was something only the heavens knew.

"Big brother, I suddenly think this cesspit is pretty nice. At least we don't have to go to training!" Little Fatty, who'd been cursing and grumbling the whole time, had changed his tune. He stared happily at the maggots as though he were a little girl gazing at a tank of goldfish.

Just then, another bucket of slop came pouring down. Kirk and Little Fatty looked at the moldy bread and rancid black meat floating among the shit and piss, and their faces turned green. But Spartacus and Vero walked over expressionlessly, picked through the bread and black meat, and ate every edible bit. Then they walked back, sat down, and didn't waste a single bit of energy.

"Little Fatty, we're in trouble, brother," Kirk said, each word deliberate. "This training camp is the ultimate test of our ability to survive. We have to be careful."

For the uncensored original, please visit the first-release site.