The darkness receded like the tide.
Before Zhang Heng opened his eyes, he heard deafening cheers and screams. The sound came from above, mixed with the roar of a beast. However, the roar was very close to him, probably less than a meter away.
Even Zhang Heng, who had always been calm, was taken aback.
For ferocious beasts like lions and tigers, a meter was nothing more than a pounce. If Zhang Heng was prepared, he might be able to dodge the attack. However, considering that he did not know the specific location of the beast, and as the countdown of five seconds ended, it would take some time for Zhang Heng's eyes to recover his vision. Although it was not much time, any delay at this time could be fatal.
If the situation was as he imagined, this could be regarded as an open door kill with an infinitely high mortality rate.
Logically speaking, a dungeon, especially an ordinary one, should not have such a dangerous opening even if it was about survival.
The next moment, Zhang Heng regained his vision.
The first thing that came into view was the lion in front of him. The previous cheers seemed to have stimulated it, causing it to stand up and growl. It seemed that it wanted to attack Zhang Heng, but it could not get out of the cage.
Zhang Heng breathed a sigh of relief when he saw it. He then found himself standing in a dark room full of stench.
The cheers continued to come from above him, and there was another man beside him, holding a pottery bowl filled with raw meat, looking at the lion in the cage in fear.
Judging from the way he dressed, he should be a slave, wearing a short-sleeved shirt and a pair of slippers.
Zhang Heng found that he was dressed in a similar way.
Before Zhang Heng could say hello to the man next to him, a man with a whip rushed in from outside, waving the whip in his hand while shouting something.
Zhang Heng was glad that he spent a long time learning languages in the Black Sail quest, and Latin was one of them. The official lingua franca of ancient Rome was Latin.
Of course, after all, there were more than a thousand years in between. There were still many differences in pronunciation and intonation. For example, the ancient Romans would pronounce a and e separately. When they pronounced c, it sounded like k, and they would add a lot of cadence.
Zhang Heng felt like he was listening to a dialect. Basically, he had to guess that the other party was asking why they hadn't finished feeding Kunta.
Needless to say, Kunta was the name of the lion in the cage. After that, Zhang Heng took the bowl of meat from his companion and poured it into the cage for Kunta.
The lion named Kunta finally stopped roaring after eating the meat.
However, the supervisor did not seem satisfied. He yelled again and looked like he was going to beat someone up. Zhang Heng's companion immediately shrunk his head and ran out of the house in a hurry. Zhang Heng followed behind him, and after he left the supervisor, he took the initiative to ask, "Hey, what's your name?"
The other party did not seem to understand, so Zhang Heng repeated it again.
"You speak Latin?" This time, the guy finally understood, and a look of surprise appeared on his face. "I'm Varro. What about you?"
"My name is Zhang Heng." Zhang Heng also made a simple self-introduction, paused, and said, "Please slow down when you speak. My Latin is not very good."
"Okay, okay … Zhang Heng, it's nice to meet you. No, it should be said that it's unfortunate to meet you here." Varro smiled bitterly.
"We are in the arena now?"
"Yes, to be more precise, we are now under the arena."
"Oh, no wonder I can hear these cheers. What are the people cheering for?"
"Don't you know? They are executing the prisoners on death row. I used to sit there and cheer with them." Varro could not help but look sad when he talked about the past. "But now …"
"Do the Romans execute the prisoners on death row in the arena?" Zhang Heng asked.
"Yes, this is a tradition. They will sentence the prisoners to the beasts, and the unlucky ones will be brought here. By the way, let's talk as we walk. Pattita asked us to clean up the mess. If we delay the gladiator performance later, we will be whipped again."
Zhang Heng noticed a flash of fear in Varro's eyes when he talked about the gladiator performance. However, now was not the time to ask about such things. Zhang Heng still followed behind Varro, and the two quickly passed through the tunnel lit with oil lamps and came to the surface.
The arena they were in was not too big. Obviously, it was not the famous Roman Colosseum in the future.
However, there were several levels of stands, and there were about six to seven thousand seats. Basically, there were no empty seats. This was also the source of the cheers and screams earlier. The audience was shouting "Kill him! Kill him!!! " Everyone's face was filled with excitement as if they were watching a big show.
One of the two protagonists of this show had his throat bitten off. The cheetah even opened his stomach with its claws and began to tear his internal organs. Blood gathered into a stream under his body, and his entire face was a bloody mess. His nose and eyes were gone, and his facial bones were clearly visible.
Although the other death row inmate was still alive, he was completely scared out of his wits after witnessing this scene.
He was sitting paralyzed on the other side of the arena. It was obvious that he had lived a good life before he was caught. All the fat on his body trembled together as he watched the cheetah eat in horror. The arena deliberately didn't feed the cheetah for a period of time before the execution to increase the cheetah's aggression and make the performance more entertaining.
Although the audience in the stands had just witnessed the death of a man, they were obviously not satisfied. That was because the fat man on the other side was still alive. So, they began to urge the trainers. When the two trainers saw this, they poked the cheetah with long poles, interrupting its feeding and forcing it to the other death row prisoner.
When the fat man saw this, he wanted to get up and run, but his legs were probably weak. After trying twice, he failed to stand up from the ground. Instead, it caused a burst of laughter, and the stands were filled with a happy atmosphere.
Finally, the fat man stood up. Unfortunately, the cheetah was not far from him at this time. The fat man turned around and began to run away. However, the speed of the two parties was not comparable at all. The fat man's escape stimulated the cheetah, and the latter jumped on the fat man's back. Zhang Heng felt that there was no point in watching what happened next.
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