[Current Stack: 1 Mythic Chest, 6 Elite Fragments.] [Multiplier: 1.05%] [Vault Pressure: 4%.]
"State your business, surface-dwellers," the Lead Mer-Guard barked. He was eight feet tall, covered in iridescent blue scales, and holding a crackling trident that hummed with hydro-magic.
Yuto stood calmly in front of the ornate toll gate. Behind him, the gilded city of Venice floated on the glowing blue ocean, a paradise of wealth and excess.
"We are climbers," Yuto said. "We wish to enter the city."
The guard sneered, looking at Yuto's cheap, scavenged jacket—a replacement Old Man Jin had given him before they left Floor 13. "The entry tax is fifty thousand Tower Credits, or ten unspent Code Fragments. Pay up, or go back to the slums."
"I don't have it," Yuto lied with a straight face.
Shion, hovering nervously behind him, yanked his collar. "Master, what are you doing?!" she hissed into his ear. "I can literally see the Mythic-Tier Floor Chest sitting in your soul! Just open it! You could buy this entire gate!"
"It's accumulating interest," Yuto whispered back through gritted teeth. "I am not breaking a compounding Mythic Chest to pay a toll."
The guard leveled his trident at Yuto's chest. "Broke? Then you are loiterers. By decree of Senator Cassius, all vagrants are to be drafted into the Leviathan Colosseum to pay off their debt in blood."
Kurenai bared her fangs, her hand gripping her massive nodachi. "Alpha, give the word. I'll turn this overgrown sushi roll into chum."
Ayase fluidly drew her katana an inch from its scabbard, her silver ki chilling the damp air. "I am ready, Kurosawa-dono. We will carve a path through their ranks."
"Stand down," Yuto commanded. He raised his hands in the air, offering his wrists to the guard. "We surrender. Take us to the Colosseum."
Both Kurenai and Ayase froze, staring at him in shock.
He is offering himself as a prisoner? Ayase thought, her eyes widening in profound awe. To infiltrate the enemy's stronghold from within, bypassing their frontal defenses entirely... his tactical genius is terrifying!
He's literally just being cheap! Shion mentally screamed, clutching her head in absolute agony. He is walking us into a death game to save ten dollars! I am bound to a sociopath!
The Mer-Guard laughed cruelly, slapping heavy, mana-suppressing iron cuffs onto Yuto's wrists. "Smart boy. The arena will grind you to dust by sunset."
As the guards herded them away from the glittering city and toward the massive, ominous stone Colosseum sinking into the bay, Yuto opened his interface.
[System Notification: Host has entered a High-Risk Survival Zone.] [Coliseum Rule: All monsters drop pure, unspent Point Tokens instead of fragments. Tokens scale with survival time.]
Yuto smiled. It wasn't the heroic smile of a Transcendent Ash-Lord. It was the greedy, manic grin of a hoarder who had just walked into an all-you-can-eat buffet.