Feast Day

After several days of hunger, when most of the Gladiators were nearly starving to death, Feast Day finally arrived.

The cave's gate opened, and a large number of Security Automata entered in neat, synchronized ranks, wielding electric batons. Behind them came the slaves who served the Arena but did not fight, carrying a long dining table into the cave.

The table looked extremely heavy, yet dozens of slaves carried it with ease.

The food on it alone was heavy—an entire roasted animal resembling a cow, along with many foods Qin Xa had never seen before. It was clearly abnormal that the slaves could carry it.

And as the slaves carried the table along, the food, wine, and water atop it did not even show the slightest sign of swaying.

The table was clearly another piece of high technology used by the slave masters.

"Sorry, gentlemen." A female slave stepped out from behind the Security Automata and bowed apologetically to the Gladiators. "There was a slight problem while preparing the food. I'm sorry we couldn't let you eat sooner while you were hungry."

The Gladiators heard the female slave's apology, but no one responded or even looked at her, except Qin Xa and Angron.

That was because most of the people here had already passed out from hunger.

The female slave who had apologized quietly fell silent and looked around.

The slaves took medicine cases from the bags on their persons, then went from one Gladiator to the next, injecting them with drugs.

The female slave, who appeared to hold a higher status than the others, personally approached a young Gladiator. With a loving expression, she cradled his head and injected him with the drug.

The young Gladiator soon woke up. When he saw the woman holding him, a childlike smile appeared on his face. "Mother... I missed you so much..."

Two streams of tears ran down the female slave's face as she embraced her son. "I missed you too... My son, I missed you too..."

Qin Xa withdrew his somewhat puzzled gaze from the female slave and her Gladiator son, then looked at the others.

The Gladiators who had been too starved to move instantly regained their strength after the injections. Their complexions even looked much rosier.

Qin Xa deduced that the drug could not only help people recover physically, but could even strengthen the body for a short time—for instance, ensuring that a stomach that had just endured starvation would not suffer from suddenly consuming huge amounts of food.

The Gladiators sprang to their feet and rushed toward the food-laden table.

Angron rushed toward the table as well.

Primarchs did not need to eat, but they could eat, and eating was somewhat useful to them just as it was to mortals.

Angron's body believed that, in this environment, it had to store energy through eating and expend more energy on the rapid growth of his flesh-and-blood body, so he ran over quickly.

"Get lost!" A Gladiator shoved Angron. "If a big bastard like you eats first, we'll be lucky to get even some meat broth after a few seconds!"

Several nearby people agreed with him and began shoving Angron as well.

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

Angron, whose emotions had been fairly stable these past few days, suddenly let out a roar. He grabbed the first Gladiator who had shoved him by the collar and casually hurled him more than twenty meters away.

Angron was now like a monstrous beast. His roar and display of immense strength instantly intimidated everyone else.

The Gladiators backed away in panic, no longer daring to compete for the food.

"Don't let other people's emotions influence you," Qin Xa said, standing behind Angron.

Although he did not possess Angron's ability to sense and absorb emotions, he could tell why Angron was competing for food and displaying aggression.

It was because nearly everyone here was consumed by greed for food. Deep down, every one of them wanted to eat first, finish everything they could, and then toss what remained to the others.

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

But just as his huge hand was about to seize the entire cake and lift it, he suddenly stopped.

As if possessed, Angron turned his head and looked around at everyone present.

The Primarch was not looking at their faces. He was sensing their emotions.

They feared that some giant would eat everything, feared that they would get nothing to eat, feared that they would go hungry or only eat half their fill before being sent into the Arena, where they would die...

Angron felt those emotions as well.

"I'm hungry, and I don't know why." Angron withdrew his hand and sat crouched beside the table. "Obviously, I could survive for a long time without eating anything in the deep mountains, but right now, I'm hungry..."

Qin Xa silently watched Angron.

He had already discovered Angron's greatest problem before the Butcher's Nails were implanted—and the problem Angron would still have if they were never implanted in the future.

That problem was being influenced and controlled 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 fixed on the cake.

"Could you give my son a piece of cake? He loves it most."

As she spoke, the female slave looked at Angron.

She had clearly realized that Angron wanted it too, because he had headed straight for the cake from the beginning.

"..." Angron hesitated.

"There's more to this table of delicacies than just one cake, isn't there?" Qin Xa stepped forward, tore off a leg as tall as half a person from the enormous roasted beast resembling a cow, and handed it to Angron. Then he cut off a piece of cake and handed that to him as well.

Angron looked up at Qin Xa, nodded, and accepted both foods.

Seeing Angron agree to share the cake with the others, the female slave breathed a sigh of relief and smiled as she cut off a piece for her son.

Then everyone sat beside the table and began to enjoy this wonderful Feast Day.

As all the Gladiators ate, the cameras on the table recorded every one of them.

The footage was broadcast live.

In the cities surrounding the Arena, Arena staff stood beneath holographic projections that nearly covered the entire city, holding banners high that read, "Bet on the Gladiator You Think Will Eat the Most."

In the nobles' mansions, the nobles sat beside tables piled with even more lavish food. They chatted and laughed as they watched the Gladiators eat, while the food on the tables before them remained untouched.

In the Arena's conference room, the person in charge watched the Gladiators wolfing down food on the screen and felt that their ravenous eating did not have quite the... effect he had envisioned.

He ordered that the Gladiators' fasting periods be extended in the future, leaving them starving to death, but not quite dead.

After all, there were a hundred drugs capable of leaving those Gladiators too weak to move one second, then making them leap up and wolf down food the next.