He stared at Nero, but Nero didn’t look back. Instead, he lowered his gaze to observe the strange dark golden patterns on the man’s body.
After a moment, he shifted his gaze to the tubes inserted into Asaga’s body.
The tubes had clearly been inserted roughly, with edges crusted with dried blood.
Compared to human blood, the dried blood appeared significantly thicker, with a faint phosphorescence shining through the dark red.
The Star Pirate merchant, keeping his distance, shouted, “That one’s not for sale. Keep moving forward!”
“Only such high-quality goods can make our trip worthwhile.”
Nero lifted his eyes. “Name a price. How many XI-generation mechas would it take to buy a gladiator like this?”
The Star Pirate merchant shook his head vigorously as soon as he heard this.
“Asaga is not for sale. You can check out the other championship gladiators. We’re looking to clear out stock quickly and if the owner is willing to sell, you might get three for the price of a starship.”
Nero pointed to the cage holding Asaga, “We can negotiate directly with his owner.”
The Star Pirate merchant sighed, “Give it up. He won’t agree. Asaga is the best gladiator our boss has, ever since he got him from his previous owner, who he killed. He’s never lost a fight in the arena. In the first half of this year alone, our boss had him fight over 2,000 matches in just under two months. He won back all the money we lost on Tarka Grass in the northern territory.”
Nero thought for a moment and then used his communicator to touch White Wolf Knight’s palm.
In a swift move, White Wolf Knight transferred another 200,000 credits to the Star Pirate merchant’s account.
The young Emperor hadn’t expected him to act more decisively each time. Under the hood, his red eyes widened in surprise.
All this money came from the imperial treasury, and he began to ponder how to reclaim what was spent today from these Star Pirates’ corpses later.
Nero asked, “Where can we meet him?”
Holding 300,000 credits, the Star Pirate merchant grinned broadly, almost unable to see with his lopsided smile, “Don’t worry. I’ll get you a VIP ticket to the arena where you can definitely talk to our boss.”
He added reluctantly, “But talking to him is one thing. Whether he’s willing to sell Asaga depends on how generous you are… Sigh! I’ve always advised our boss to trade Asaga for a batch of mechas and starships to get out of the northern territory in this dangerous time. Wouldn’t that be great?
“But he’s stubborn. He says he’d rather see Asaga die in his hands than let any other organization have him. He also says if the Imperial Fleet comes to blockade us, the first thing he’ll do is kill all the top gladiators he has, so they can’t be trained as imperial dogs by the Emperor and sent to hunt us down later… Sigh! Our boss might have his flaws, but his loyalty to his brothers is unquestionable…”
Nero listened coldly.
Normal Imperial Asimov Collars don’t have an instant kill function.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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Nero and the Wolf Knights had been lurking on the wasteland planet for three days.
During this time, a transport ship from the Heka Star System arrived on the wasteland planet.
The transport ship, slower than the winged yacht, was loaded with the latest imperial mechas.
Many Star Pirates, intimidated by the massive transport ship, believed that Scorpion Tail was prepared to make a significant purchase, becoming much more respectful towards them.
Some lower-level Star Pirates even secretly invited Nero to see the Omegas held on their starships.
Nero always accepted the invitations, tipping generously and signing purchase agreements promptly.
Behind the excited, hand-rubbing Star Pirates, several Wolf Knights silently blended into the crowd.
On the third night, the Star Pirate merchant who had been showing them around ran to the Wolf Knights’ camp to inform them that tonight the base would hold the regular gladiatorial gambling event, providing an opportunity to negotiate for Asaga.
Nero realized he had underestimated the Star Pirates’ arrogance.
With the northern fleet ahead and Heidrich in pursuit, they still had the mood to hold a gambling event.
But he still tightened his hood and, with the Wolf Knights, headed towards the storm-battered giant gray centipede.
…
“Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!”
Just entering the arena, a tremendous wave of sound hit them like a wall, making Nero’s ears ache. He squinted in discomfort. White Wolf Knight quietly covered the young Emperor’s ears.
A massive mecha staggered backward, falling from the sky towards them, crashing into the arena’s edge shield amidst gasps of surprise.
The shield was clearly high voltage, and when the mecha touched it, it was instantly wrapped in electric light, convulsing uncontrollably.
The opposing mecha with the Black Eagle insignia pressed the attack, drawing a chainsaw sword from its back, pinning the mecha’s head to the shield.
The psychic-type mecha was neurologically connected to its pilot, so the pain was naturally synchronized to a certain percentage.
With the terrifying electric crackling, the pinned mecha struggled violently, the sound of its metal joints grinding almost like a dying wail.
After a brief struggle, the mecha with the Red Python insignia could no longer move.
The Black Eagle’s mecha withdrew the chainsaw sword and, with a backhand slash, decapitated the defeated mecha, sending its head flying.
“Good! Good! Good! Good! Good!”
The audience erupted in frenzied applause and cheers, their stomping and clapping almost lifting the arena’s dome.
Nero made his way up through the crowded stands.
With his VIP pass, a robot soon arrived to guide him to the higher, more spacious VIP seats.
“Master, that’s Donovan,” White Wolf Knight whispered in his ear.
Nero looked up and saw a red-haired, muscular man in the upper right box of his seat, shouting angrily.
Archie Donovan, the Red Python’s boss and the current Asaga’s owner.
Nero glanced at him briefly and then took his seat.
Tonight’s gladiatorial gambling had clearly been unkind to the Red Python, with Donovan’s curses continuing from the moment Nero sat down.
Another pair of gladiators were pushed into their mechas, and after nearly thirty minutes of intense combat, the mecha with Red Python insignia had its neck energy conduit severed once again.
“Goddammit!!” Donovan roared, “Useless trash!!”
With the battle over, the arena’s shield began to lower.
The mecha with Red Python insignia, with its severed neck, still had a barely alive gladiator inside, struggling to crawl out through the cockpit gap, driven by sheer survival instinct, towards the light outside the mecha.
But in the next moment, the gladiator’s head, along with the Asimov Collar, disappeared in a burst of blood mist.
Nero was stunned and looked back at the box.
Donovan had just turned off his control screen, still seething with anger: “Damn it. A defeated dog, and you still want to come back and eat for free?”
However, the following matches did not go much better for him.
The territory that originally belonged to the Red Python used to be in possession of a lord of a star system that surrendered at the outset of the war. As a result, most of the population, slaves, and gladiators were taken by Heidrich’s army.
Attempting to use gambling to recover, they were far from their former underground gladiatorial arena dominance, instead being heavily defeated by other groups.
Donovan paced back and forth in his box, finally saying in a low, ominous voice, “…Bring up that mad dog.”
A few minutes later, two flying vehicles carrying an iron cage slowly entered the arena.
The audience, initially restless and cursing, erupted in cheers when they recognized the gladiator inside the cage: “—Asaga!!!”
“Asaga! Asaga! Asaga!”
The flying vehicles’ claws released, and the cage fell from five meters, tumbling and rolling several times with its occupant inside.
The latches clicked open.
The front row of the audience retreated significantly.
The arena shield began to descend.
This was the only match tonight where the shield was lowered before the gladiator, still not in a mech, had entered the field.
Inside the tumbling, spread-open cage, the naked, brown-skinned man remained in a kneeling position with his hands bound behind his back, like a lifeless corpse.
Donovan’s voice roared through the comms from behind: “Get up!!”
The metal cuffs on Asaga’s wrists clinked open.
He planted his hands on the ground, slowly rising, his thick curls falling from his broad, firm shoulders.
In a brief moment, his murderous golden eyes seemed to focus slightly.
Nero was peering through a photon telescope at that moment.
He clearly saw a small iron-eating mouse emerge from the hot, granular sand near Asaga’s knee, holding a piece of iron.
This seemed to be a unique species of the planet. The small, round mouse had no eyes and, once emerging from the soil, aimlessly poked its proboscis-like nose into the air.
The man quietly watched it.
After a moment, he discreetly nudged it with his hand.
The little mouse, holding its iron piece, rolled and tumbled out of the battle zone just before the shield fully descended, burrowing back into the sand.
thank you for the updates!
thanks for the update ❤️❤️❤️ love the story and the many chapters you post
Thank you for the updates~ Ehh I wonder how they’re gonna remove or bypass the modified collar!
Awwwww