She smirked as she polished a wine glass.

“More chattel coming through, huh?” said the woman. “You gotta speak to the manager. You’re looking for a skinny old geezer in a purple pinstriped suit. He’ll be wearing an old hat and sunglasses. He’s hard to miss. He runs this place.”

Max nodded and thanked the lady for her help. He then started moving through the crowd to find the man she spoke of.

More chattel coming through, huh?

The woman’s words stuck with him. He guessed the other students had enquired about signing up to the woman as well. But why call them chattel? It made him uneasy.

He walked on the outer limits of the arena where he found the old man in the purple pinstriped suit, leaning against the wall with a cigar hanging out of his mouth.

“Excuse me, sir,” said Max, approaching the man. “I hear you’re the person to talk to about signing up to fight in the arena.”

The man stood up straight. He had a wide Cheshire cat smile with yellow stained teeth.

“You think you got what it takes to fight in the arena, do you?”

Max nodded.

“What rank are you, kid?”

“Unranked,” said Max. “Does it matter?”

The man chuckled. “Of course, it matters, kid. We’re here to make money, take bets, and put on a show. I can’t put on an unranked kid in the center of the arena, but don’t worry, we have special rings just for chattel like you.”

There it was again.

Chattel.

“Follow me, kid,” said the man.

The man led the way entering a new chamber with a smaller arena.

The fighter below wore a copper badge on his shirt, so Max could tell the fighter was E-rank.

He was up against a giant serpent.

But unlike the metal man who’d dominated the firebreathing lion, the E-rank fighter was getting devoured by the fangs of the large serpent.

He was bleeding out on the floor.

“Is anyone going to help him?” asked Max as he followed behind the purple suited man.

“Like I said before, kid: we’re putting on a show here. If you can’t satisfy the crowd’s bloodlust by killing the monster, well, in that case, we let the monster kill you.”

Max shivered.

He wondered to himself: was any of this legal?

They went past a few more smaller arenas until they were at the very back.

“Wait here,” said the man who went and spoke to another arena worker.

The purple suited man came back a few minutes later.

“So here’s how it works, kid,” said the man. “This is the lowest stage we got. This is where you start as an unranked fighter. We’ll start you off with something close to your level and if you win your battles we’ll let you fight monsters as high as two ranks above your own.”