A Feast Day

After several consecutive days of hunger, when most gladiators were nearly starving to death, the feast day finally arrived.

The cave's gate was opened, and a large number of Security Automata entered in orderly ranks, holding electric batons. Then, slaves who served the arena but didn't fight carried long tables into the cave.

The tables looked extremely heavy, yet dozens of slaves lifted them with ease.

Just the food on the tables—like a whole roasted beast resembling a cow, along with many dishes Qin Xa had never seen—was heavy in itself. It was clearly abnormal that the slaves could carry them.

Moreover, as the slaves moved the tables, the food, wine, and water on them didn't even tremble.

These tables were obviously another piece of high-tech used by the slave masters.

"Apologies, gentlemen," a female slave stepped out from behind the Security Automata and bowed to the gladiators. "There was a mishap in preparing this food. I'm sorry you couldn't eat it sooner while hungry."

The gladiators heard her apology, but no one responded or even glanced at her—except for Qin Xa and Angron.

Because most of the people here had already fainted from hunger.

The female slave who had apologized fell silent, then looked left and right.

The slaves took out medical kits from their satchels and walked among the gladiators, injecting them one by one.

The female slave, who seemed to hold a higher status among the slaves, approached a young gladiator herself. With a tender expression, she cradled his head and injected him.

The young gladiator woke quickly. When he saw the woman holding him, a childlike smile spread across his face. "Mother... I missed you so much..."

The female slave wept, embracing her son. "I missed you too... my son, I missed you too..."

Qin Xa withdrew his slightly puzzled gaze from the mother and son, looking at the others.

The gladiators, who had been too weak to move from hunger, instantly regained their strength after the injection. Even their complexions looked rosier.

Qin Xa deduced that the medicine not only restored the body but also temporarily strengthened it—for instance, ensuring that a stomach that had just endured starvation wouldn't suffer from a sudden heavy meal.

The gladiators leaped up and charged toward the tables piled with food.

Angron also rushed toward the table.

A Primarch didn't need to eat, but they could, and doing so provided some benefit, just as it did for mortals.

Angron's body judged that in this environment, he had to store energy through eating and consume more energy for his flesh-and-blood body's rapid growth, so he sprinted over.

"Get out of the way!" A gladiator shoved Angron. "If you big bastard eat first, we'll be lucky to get a sip of broth in a few seconds!"

The gladiator's words drew agreement from those nearby, who also started pushing Angron.

"You're the ones who should get out!"

Angron, who had been fairly calm these past few days, suddenly roared. He grabbed the gladiator who had shoved him first by the scruff of the neck and flung him over twenty meters away.

Now Angron was like a beast. His roar and display of immense power instantly cowed the others.

The gladiators backed away in fear, no one daring to fight for the food anymore.

"Don't let others' emotions sway you," Qin Xa said, standing behind Angron.

Though he didn't have Angron's ability to sense and absorb emotions, he could tell why Angron was scrambling for food and showing aggression now.

Because nearly everyone here was consumed by greed for the food. Deep down, each of them wanted to eat first, leaving only scraps for the others.

"But I'm so hungry!" Angron glanced back at Qin Xa, then reached for the largest cake on the table.

But just as his massive hand was about to grab the whole cake and lift it, he stopped.

Angron turned his head as if possessed, scanning everyone in the room.

The Primarch wasn't looking at their faces—he was feeling their emotions.

Fear that the big guy would eat everything. Fear that they wouldn't get any. Terror of going hungry or fighting half-starved in the arena, only to die there...

Angron felt all of this too.

"I'm hungry, and I don't know why," Angron said, pulling his hand back and crouching by the table. "I can survive for ages in the mountains without eating anything, but now I'm starving..."

Qin Xa watched Angron in silence.

He had already identified the biggest problem with Angron, before the Butcher's Nails were implanted—and if they never would be.

That problem was being influenced and dominated by emotions.

"Excuse me..."

The female slave who had led the other slaves in bringing the food held her gladiator son's hand with one hand and slowly raised the other, her eyes on the cake.

"Could you spare a piece of cake for my son? It's his favorite."

As she spoke, she looked at Angron.

Clearly, she had noticed that Angron wanted it too, since he had gone straight for the cake from the start.

"..." Angron hesitated.

"There's more than just a cake on this table full of delicacies, isn't there?" Qin Xa stepped forward, tore off a half-man-tall leg from the massive roasted beast, and handed it to Angron. Then he cut a slice of cake and gave it to him as well.

Angron looked up at Qin Xa, nodded, and took both items.

Seeing that Angron accepted sharing the cake with others, the female slave sighed in relief, smiled, and cut a piece for her son.

Then everyone sat around the table, beginning to enjoy the wonderful feast day.

As all the gladiators ate, the cameras on the tables captured everyone simultaneously.

This footage was broadcast live.

In the cities surrounding the arena, arena staff stood beneath holographic projections that nearly covered the entire sky, hoisting banners that read, "Place your bets on which gladiator you think will eat the most."

In the mansions of the nobility, aristocrats sat at tables laden with far more lavish feasts, chatting and laughing as they watched the gladiators eat, while the food before them remained untouched.

In the arena's meeting room, the person in charge watched the gladiators wolfing down their meals on the screen and felt that their ravenous display wasn't quite as... effective as he had envisioned.

The person in charge ordered that the gladiators' fasting period be extended in the future, keeping them on the brink of starvation without actually letting them die.

After all, there were a hundred different drugs capable of making a gladiator too weak to move one second, then spring up and devour food ravenously the next.