High-Riders

"Knights?"

"What do they ride that makes you think they're gods?"

Angron rose to his feet, looking in confusion at the people holding their breath, their faces pale as though the very mention of High-Riders had made the temperature plummet and left them choking in the cold.

Qin Xa thought those High-Riders were not people who fought while riding something, as the name literally implied.

He did not know the finer details of Nuceria, but he knew quite a bit about High-Riders, Arenas, and narcotics.

The handsome Gladiator named Caesar assumed Qin Xa did not know what High-Riders were either, so he spoke first to explain it to the two newcomers, who did not seem to be locals.

"High-Riders are not knights who fight on beasts."

"Mm... they might indeed ride something..."

"High-Riders, elevated riders—every one of them is unique. Every one possesses godlike power capable of destroying the world. They are the gods of Nuceria."

"Legend says that gladiatorial combat is a ritual the gods prepared for mortals. That is why some people think we are fortunate, because we have the honor of helping the gods entertain mortals."

Caesar was plainly terrified as he said this, as though merely mentioning those names might bring down divine punishment.

"It sounds like the kind of ghost story I would have heard from my parents in the cradle, if I had any." Angron was unimpressed. "If they are those iron things, I cannot imagine how to deal with them. But if they are merely mortals playing at being gods... I will tear their heads off."

Angron thought the people who had captured him in the mountains that day were High-Riders.

In his mind, those people had indeed been formidable.

But the ones who had captured Angron had merely been Slave Catchers.

"That is not playing at being gods!"

A warning, nearly a roar, reached Angron's ears.

Angron looked toward the source of the voice.

It was Oeno.

This middle-aged man, who had always been friendly toward everyone, now hunched his shoulders and stared coldly at Angron.

From him, Angron sensed... fear, rage, hatred, inferiority, grief.

"They are not playing at being gods." Oeno tried his best to soften his fierce tone. "I have seen them. I have seen them."

"A High-Rider."

Oeno raised one finger.

"One. Just one High-Rider."

"He descended from the sky and landed among hundreds of warriors."

"When he pulled out something the size of a toothpick from his waist and gave it a slight shake."

"So many warriors... so many... in an instant, they shattered all over the ground."

By then, Oeno was trembling all over.

To the others, Oeno's trembling was fear, a normal reaction. It showed that he at least possessed a clear understanding of High-Riders. By contrast, Angron, who thought High-Riders were merely playing at being gods, was the madman in their eyes.

But from Angron's perspective, Oeno was not trembling entirely from fear.

This man might have a past unlike anyone else's.

"It sounds like some kind of technology that crushes targets with gravity, only miniaturized," Qin Xa guessed. "They are not gods."

He knew that High-Riders had standard equipment called Silver Vine, something that could freely transform into any shape and serve any purpose.

As for the "toothpick" Oeno described, capable of crushing hundreds of people, Qin Xa had never seen it. Still, it was perfectly normal for High-Riders to possess such black technology.

"They are not gods?" Oeno's bear-like body slowly lowered itself onto a stone. His eyes, divided by a scar across the bridge of his nose, stared at Qin Xa in lingering terror. "Oh, they certainly are not. But the gods I speak of are not gods in the religious sense."

"If someone looks like a god and can do things that only gods can do."

"What else could he be, if not a god?"

Oeno spoke those somewhat philosophical words.

Those words made Qin Xa think of the powerful Psyker called The Emperor. Maybe he was just an introverted, socially anxious man born in Asia Minor.

Oeno did not understand what that meant, nor did he want to find out.

To Angron's senses, this middle-aged man, this aging bear, was like someone sinking ever deeper into the ocean, plunging into terror and utter grief.

After hearing and speaking of matters related to High-Riders, the others also fell silent in despair.

"All right, that is enough." Qin Xa looked at Caesar. "Among us, you have tried to escape the most times. Everything you have told us is important. Thank you for being willing to share."

"My honor." Caesar stood with his hands behind his back, head held high and chest out, one corner of his mouth curled upward as he proudly swept his gaze over the group.

No one appreciated Caesar's cocky, rooster-like display, though that expression was genuinely difficult to dislike on his face.

The Gladiators scattered again in groups of two or three.

Qin Xa sat cross-legged on the cold ground.

Oeno, who had been sitting on a stone in grief, saw him and rose to point at the stone. "You can..."

"No, thank you." Qin Xa smiled and shook his head, crossing his legs and resting both hands on his knees.

Hoo—

With a breath of stale air, Qin Xa settled into meditation.

He began to consider how to break the deadlock.

They had to leave this place. That was Qin Xa's thought. He wanted to leave, find a starship, pass through the Immaterium, and return to his own era.

Though he did not want to admit it, even if everyone here joined forces, probably not even half of one person could escape. But after Angron, this Primarch, arrived at the Arena, their chances of getting out had increased.

There was another thing that could improve their odds of escape: psychic power.

But Qin Xa did not believe he could hide his psychic talent and reveal it at a critical moment for a surprise effect.

He had not denied being a so-called wizard after arriving here, because he did not think his psychic talent could go unnoticed.

When a group of Slave Catchers came to the wasteland and saw someone lying there, drugged unconscious, naked and carrying nothing, while fragments of the previous Slave Catchers were scattered everywhere around him—

Even an idiot should have realized that psychic power had turned the previous group of Slave Catchers into scraps.

But even so, psychic power was a useful tool for escaping this situation. At the very least, it could accomplish things that hundreds or thousands of people could not.

Among the Gladiators, there was another Psyker named Caesar.

Qin Xa felt that his own psychic abilities could work in tandem with Caesar's.

Next, Qin Xa began considering each of his abilities and what they could be used for.

So far, after fifteen years in this universe, he possessed only three abilities.

He had learned these three abilities from a White Scars Librarian.

Uncontrollable, brief flashes of clear Prophecy.

Releasing psychic power as an attack.

Healing injuries.