The Fighting arena was large, two sets of ten men could easily have single battles all at once without getting in each other's way. The man and the child looked at one another, the glint in the man's eye was disgusting, the child meanwhile was overcome with shock when he tried to lift his arms, and realized that the heavy cuffs weren't actually hindering his movement nearly as bad as they had only a few moments ago.
When they had first been strapped on they felt like a load of bricks on each arm with an extra load strapped to his neck. But the longer they were on him the less he felt hindered by them, Almost like his body was forcing itself to become stronger to deal with the sudden weight.
In this world, things such as skills exist but ironically he didn't have the skills necessary to look at his or others' skills, and since there was no magical disembodied voice to tell him when or if he got a new skill or resistance, weather because it just didn't exist or because the collar blocked it was a mystery, he had no way of knowing why the cuffs felt lighter.
"Skills don't count as magic so I guess these cuffs wouldn't block them out, did I just get a skill to help deal with the weight? Or did the cuffs just become attuned to my level of magic and strength and magically become lighter?" Since he was wearing 'anti' magic cuffs he felt the latter option was unlikely. "Maybe it's a racial trait?" His ruminations on why his weighted burdens had lessened were interrupted when a sword slashed at him lazily, ripping his shirt but masterfully avoiding any cuts.
"Eye's on me kid," his opponent said, having cleared the distance and swung to get his attention "Don't worry I won't kill you in one hit, I get more points the more times I hit you while you're still moving," He swung again, and the unnamed child moved out of the way as fast as he could, "There we go, run little rat run,"
The man laughed, the crowd jeered, and the man ran, thankful for the weight reduction, it had reduced so much now that he was somehow running faster than he had been capable of before having strapped them on.
That increase in speed was a moot point however as he was still very much trapped in the arena with a man who wanted to kill him slowly.
"Don't worry about your little friend," The man called out, "I got permission from the boss of the place, he'll make sure to give your mutilated corpse to her, along with telling her I'll be coming back for her next week, think I might even keep her, I always wanted a concubine, and I hear them elves live a long time so I could probably pass her down to my son like a family heirloom or something," the unnamed child felt nothing short of disgust at how jovial the man's tone was.
"Please, oh sadistic god or demon who sent me to this world, if nothing else, let me at least kill this one guy," He made his wish but was confident he was far too small and frail for such a thing, not to mention the man had a sword and leather armor versus his bare hands and a burlap sack that was already falling apart before the cut.
Knowing he would die he intended to make this fight last as long as he physically could and threw a rock at the man from afar, he was shocked when he actually managed to hit the man who was easily thirteen or fourteen yards away from him.
"Cute," The man snickered as he increased his speed, the intent in his eyes was obvious, he was about to make his first attack with full intentions of hitting his quarry.
He wanted to run but was shown just how outpaced he was instantly, having only been able to outrun the man because he was being toyed with.
A steel-toed shoe slammed into his leg to keep him from moving out of the way as the sword slashed at his face. The force of the slash alone sent him sprawling to the side, the crowd cheered for blood, but the cheers began dying.
There was no blood. The elf put a hand to his face as he sat up, he felt completely fine, his leg wasn't even sore, and while he couldn't see it his face didn't even have so much as a light marking to show that a sword had run across it, but the men's steel toed shoe looked slightly dented, and his sword had a chip in it.
Both of them stared at one another dumbfounded. A murmur ran through the crowd, in danger of losing them the man screamed and ran at the elf he swung his sword into his body with all his might.
A horrible sound filled the air, not that of a body being run though, it was more akin to scrapping metal against a rock.
The sword was decimated beyond repair, the child had been thrown off balance and only just managed to stay to his feet, his burlap sack was destroyed down the middle, but the exposed skin beneath was perfectly fine.
As the man stared dumbfounded at his crumbling sword while the elf turned to a rock, the arena was filled with hard pack dirt, rocks of varying size, and old rusty shards of broken weapons and armor pieces coated the outer ring like a deadly barrier keeping the combatants from trying to climb out.
In the lower layer of the Colosseum, the unnamed child had punched rocks to train his punches, they had shattered with ease and he assumed they had simply been some piss-poor rocks from the looks of them.
The rock in front of him, however, sat proudly in the upper left-hand part of the arena that the challenger had caught him in, since such a large rock would never survive here if it could crumble beneath the might of the meager, he decided to try punching it instead.
A crunch hit his ears, but he didn't feel any pain, he looked at his hand and found it fine, but the crunching sound continued and upon looking to where he had hit it he found the rock easily twice his size crumbled around where his fist had stuck it.
He looked at the rock, he looked at his hand, he looked back to the rock, back to his hand, once more at the rock, over to the challenger, back at his hand.
He smiled.