Chapter 8: Chapter 8: Statues of the gods

‘They were targeting you!’ Esen’s voice was full of rage. If the seller had faced her instead of Mares, he would have felt the same amount of fear, if not more.

‘Probably has something to do with that fucking leaving skeleton. Even now they don’t let me rest.’ There was a coldness, fury and killing intent in the depth of Mares eyes as he thought of that. Esen also had a similar expression; their feelings were resonating perfectly.

They were walking around the streets. Mares had his new sword in his waist and his spear in his back. Everyone else was behind him, their looks towards him were a mix of admiration, after all he manage to stood up to a guard, even if it was only a robot, and regret that they lost so many points just like that.

“I am sorry about making you guys lose so many points, I will compensate in the future.”

His voice wasn’t loud and seemed to lack some feeling, but they could all feel the honesty. Besides, they already knew Mares seemed to have difficulty interacting with others, so they didn’t mind.

“It’s ok, we needed those weapons. Is just annoying. Don’t blame yourself, they never did that before… I will talk with Elaso, maybe he will know what to do, so we can take some points back. That’s the first time I see they being so shameless and so openly!” Glarto was still full of rage with his fists and teeth clenched. If looks could kill, he alone would be enough to kill the seller.

Mares sighed.

“Even if there are some rules here, it’s not gonna work.” He only said that and didn’t elaborate.

The others looked at him startled, seeming to have noticed something.

“Guess his background is more complicated than we thought…” Naal whispered, but if Mares heard him or not, he had no way to know.

The atmosphere was much tenser and they walked without talking. Mares kept his thoughts for himself and the others simply walked after him.

“What is that?”

They almost kneeled in thanks to the heavens when Mares finally spoke again, breaking the weird atmosphere. He made the question while pointing to some big statues, that seemed to be in some plaza, which, compared to the other areas of the underground, was much emptier.

Mares was pointing at three statues that should have at least thirty meters. They seemed to be made out of stone and looked quite old, though there was not a single crack or any type of indication that they were in bad state. At most there would be some dust on them.

“That…” Naal started but was interrupted by Glarto.

“That fucker Talho spent quite some money on that. Those are statues of the god of war, god of wealth and god of games.”

Surprise shined in Mares eyes as he looked at the statues with a new light. The statue on the left was of a man with a war helmet, with horns and spikes going out of it, his chest was covered by armor, but his arms were uncovered and even through the statue was simply made of some type of stone, it almost seemed to be possible to see each muscle and vein in those arms. His legs were also covered by some type of armor, and around his feet were countless weapons. In his hands was a heavy sword, that had its tip lying connected to the ground.

In the middle was another statue. Once more it was not possible to see the face of the god being represented, this one because in front of his head, the right hand of the statue was holding a gigantic piece of gold in format of a star. Contrary to the statue on his left, this one’s muscles looked much thinner and his clothes reminded some type of scholar, but with lots of details being made out of gold, to his shoes, to his necklaces, his bracelets and even more.

And in the left was the last statue, that again had the face covered, this time by a mask. The mask had only one detail, a smile that, even if it was carved in stone, seemed genuine. This time the clothes seemed to be a bunch of fabric tied together covering everything from the shoulders to below. The right hand of the statue was lifted and in the point of its index finger was a sphere. The statue seemed to represent someone playing with a ball.

Those were respectively the god of war, of wealth and of games.

‘Why all their faces are covered?’ He couldn’t help but ask confused. There was some other feeling as he looked at the statues, it was weird and he couldn’t quite describe it.

‘Is taboo to try to represent the faces of the gods.’ Esen explained, her voice was a bit solemn. She had the same feeling as her beloved, these statues had some curious effect on the couple.

‘Why?’

The white-haired shacked her head in the space of his mind.

‘I don’t know.’

Mares nodded slightly, he wasn’t interested enough to ask further and Esen also didn’t seem to know much more to explain to him.

“Why those statues are there?”

What he didn’t understand however, was, why would statues of gods be here?

Glarto shrug and explained.

“Battle, wealth and games is everything for this place. There are some superstitions that the statues of the gods can bring good fortune, and since we are that fucker products, putting the statues here is he basically praying for his products to work well for him.” One couldn’t help but notice the annoyance in his dry and scratched voice.

“I didn’t know that… Talho, you said? I am surprised that the head of the coliseum is religious.”

“It has nothing to do with religion, is just traditions.” Naal explained.

At the same time, they were talking they walked closer to the statues.

On earth Mares never saw monuments like these, so he was a little surprised. What added to his surprise is that he could swear the statues seemed to have a faint, almost non-existent aura.

‘Es, are you also feeling this?’

Her senses were much better than his, so to confirm this feeling she was the best person to ask about.

‘Huh… I also had this feeling with the statue of the goddess of wisdom from my home…’

There was a feeling of nostalgia but also sorrow in her voice.

‘How it looked like?’

Though they knew a lot about each other, when it came to these specific things like a statue of a god, none of them talked about it because they didn’t even consider the subject before. But now that it was raised Mares wanted to learn even a bit more about Esen and her previous life.

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‘She held a book in front of her face and had a beautiful dress. I always asked to have that same dress and the answer was always, when I get older.’ She had a sweet and sad smile, her voice seemed to reach Mares very soul, putting him in a great state of calm.

As Esen reminded those memories, her connection with Mares made so that he could see through her eyes, recreating perfectly the scene in her mind. The statue also had thirty meters and was just like Esen described.

‘Even if I never saw her face, I always felt she was so beautiful.’ Esen had a bit of reverence.

‘Hmm… you are much more beautiful though.’ Mares said naturally, the words simply flowed out of his mind.

‘Hihihi…’ A blush formed in Esen’s cheeks as she gave a light laugh.

To others it seemed that Mares was looking at nothing with lost eyes, making them quite confuse.

“Is that normal?” Glarto asked.

“Maybe?” Naal answered with a shrug.

Noticing that the aura was in both the statue that Esen showed him as well as in the three in front of him, Mares had a frown in his face, wondering what could be the mean of that.

‘Is probably just the accumulation of unconscious mental energy people leak when praying for the statues.’ Esen theorized.

‘Hmmm, yeah, it makes sense.’ To which Mares nodded. Even so, deep down he had the feeling that it was not it. It was a feeling as if he knew the answer, but had forgotten it, and was deeply troubling him.

However, it was simply impossible for silver eyed to get a conclusion, so he, even a bit annoyed, decided to let this aside and proceeded to take a good look at the statues in front of him.

They were arriving at the plaza from the left side, so the first statue in front of them was of the god of games.

The most remarking thing for Mares was the smile on the mask of the statue, especially because that was the only thing in the whole mask. It is very easy, when trying to make something that resembles humanoid appearance, to miss the mark and make it look uncanny, but that smile seemed weirdly genuine, as a genuine as that of a child having fun.

His eyes then naturally moved to the statue on the middle, the statue of the god of wealth. For someone that couldn’t be more broken and in a worst situation, looking at that statue weirdly gave him a feeling of excitement, he felt a burst of energy to get out of his predicament. Where this came from however, Mares had no idea since it was too weird and ephemeral.

And finally, he looked at the statue of the god of war. He instantly felt battle and killing intent rising in him. It was impossible for that statue to have any eyes, but Mares felt that, if it had, they would be filled with an intent strong enough to make everything kneel. Somewhere in his mind the silver eyed started seeing hazy images, it looked like a sequence of scenes but he couldn’t make difference of them yet.

Unknow to him, and the others around him, his Astral Energy also seemed to react to the statue, but it was so subtle that not even Esen was able to notice, she was simply paying full attention to what Mares was passing through right now.

Glarto, Naal and the others got startled with Mares, because his body suddenly started leaking battle and killing intent, enough to send a chill down their spines. Not only them, the few people around looked suspiciously at the group and mostly at Mares.

“Hey kid, do you need a medicine or something?” Glarto said a little anxious, pushing on Mares right arm. He was mostly like that because he noticed guards starting to move, and the last thing they needed now was guards looking for an excuse to spank them. He was sure Talho had put that on their AI just to mess with the gladiators.

With the small push from Glarto, Mares got out of his trance and looked around, noticing various eyes on him. The weird feeling he had before had also vanished, and he could not recount what was on his mind when looking at the statue moments ago.

‘What happened?’

‘I am not sure… the statue had an effect on you, but I am just as lost as you…’ Esen had taken the role of a spectator to be able to analyze everything calmly, but it seemed to be for nothing as she also couldn’t make sense of what had just transpired.

“Let’s go.” Not willing to give the guards time to have an excuse to stop them, Naal called and the group moved on.

Mares had a feeling to look back at the statue of the war god for one last second, but he ignored and went along with them.

…

“Good weapons. Don’t think too much about the price, we are going to recover it soon.”

Madera said after looking through everyone’s new weapons. From what Mares heard she had some involvement with forging and crafting before, so she was the best one to analyze that.

“It is thought provoking why the seller decided to be so bold, usually the stores increase the price a little more, but not so much…” Elaso had a thoughtful expression after hearing what happened. ‘Even if they want to target the boy, aren’t they going a little too far…’

He knew he wouldn’t get an answer and he also wasn’t willing to ask Mares, hence they repeat what happened on the day prior, so he could only let this matter to the side.

“Kid, do you know how to use this spear?” Elaso asked, to which Mares answered with a sign of more or less with his hand.

“What?” The member of the Ficas race didn’t seem to understand though.

‘Some manners and moves from Earth won’t make sense here.’ Esen said, containing her laugh.

‘Oh… makes sense.’

Ignoring the embarrassment, Mares answered.

“Not a lot.”

He was confident in being able to use it in battle, but this didn’t mean he would be proficient with it at first.

“Come with me then. We have some manuals for spears.”

Having his interest catch, Mares went after Elaso, who went down another hallway, the last one Mares didn’t see yet.