"Why do you know so much when we're both stuck in the Arena?" Angron asked, baffled and curious. "If I grew to be your age, would I automatically gain all the knowledge you have?"
Kleist could not make sense of those weapons either, but she hid the embarrassment of her own lack of knowledge behind a mocking look at Angron.
"I recognize the sword in there." Yochula picked it up. "I once saw this damn thing slice through the flesh of a desert worm, flesh as hard as steel."
Oeno stopped fiddling with the weapons, rose to his feet, and explained to Qin Xa and Angron, who wore identical puzzled expressions, "I've not only seen these weapons—I've used them. I was once part of the Rebel Army. These were the weapons we fought with."
Oeno looked at Angron again. "Ordinary people like us don't have a build like yours. We can't tear steel apart with our bare hands. If we hadn't learned to use the weapons that belonged to the slave masters, the uprising I took part in wouldn't have lasted two months. It would have lasted one minute."
Angron nodded.
Kleist stared at Oeno in surprise. She had thought this frighteningly bear-like man was merely an unlucky fellow born with a kind heart. She had never imagined he was such a ruthless figure, someone who had joined the Rebel Army.
Qin Xa was equally surprised. Nothing he knew had included Oeno's past, so he too had not known that Oeno had once been part of the Rebel Army.
Under normal circumstances, the term Rebel Army referred to a group of people engaged in armed resistance.
But here on Nuceria, and in the Nucerian language, the term Rebel Army shared the same root as death. That alone showed that no