He stood at the arena entrance.
About a third of the alcohol remained. This was the amount he could currently digest at once with the Drunken Immortal Method.
"Get in there. Hey! Don't tell me!"
Along with the order to enter, Liscal tried to take the bottle, but Aslan was faster. He entered the arena while simultaneously gulping down the alcohol.
Gulp, gulp.
He drank so hastily that alcohol leaked from the corners of his mouth. The spectators quickly noticed the unusual sight.
All eyes turned to Aslan.
"Is he drinking water?"
"Isn't that alcohol?"
"Drinking alcohol before a match?"
"Is he protesting by not betting on himself?"
"It can't be alcohol."
"Drinking water like that—he must be pretty nervous."
Various comments circulated among the spectators. But it didn't take long to prove it wasn't water but alcohol.
Because Aslan threw the bottle toward the spectator stands.
Crash!
The spectators dodged the flying bottle, and bottle fragments scattered as it hit the stands. A terrible alcohol smell also spread in all directions.
"It's alcohol!"
"That crazy bastard drank alcohol!"
"Can he barely walk properly?"
"He's insane."
He deliberately staggered as he walked. That was because Aslan accurately understood what the spectators wanted.
He already had a good character.
A slave from the crown prince of the Maran Kingdom.
Plus, in his previous match, he'd taken a beating for over 10 minutes before achieving a comeback victory.
And today he planned to achieve victory while completely drunk.
First, it was true that Aslan was drunk.
Intoxication had risen considerably, and all his senses were becoming dulled because of it. But that wasn't the end of it.
When he staggered to the center of the arena, the intoxication had already worn off by about half.
And power was bubbling up throughout his body.
The Drunken Immortal Method was a heat yang technique.
It converted intoxication into heat energy to enhance physical abilities.
Since more than half the intoxication had worn off, his dulled senses recovered. Not only did they recover, but they were becoming even sharper.
'Arranging this kind of match!'
Benjol was furious to the top of his head watching Aslan stagger toward him. His face turned bright red even though he hadn't drunk any alcohol.
'He's really pissed off.'
Getting excited before a fight was proof of insufficient experience. Even if excited, you had to hide it. But showing it so openly meant he was both inexperienced and young.
Benjol was treated as a veteran in the youth division, but that only applied within the youth division.
Benjol, with his reddened face shooting scary looks, spat out a line:
"I'll make you beg for your life."
It was a scary threat, but Aslan paid no attention.
Benjol had extremely long arms.
Optimal conditions for boxing. His arms reached almost to his knees, and with that reach, he could be quite troublesome if he just fought well at distance.
He had a well-conditioned, solid build, and his weight class looked similar to Bebo's.
And his stance.
Unlike Bebo's blank standing position, he had his front foot forward. Having the front foot forward meant he knew how to use footwork.
A straight stance might be convenient for moving left and right, but it made forward and backward movement difficult. In fighting, it's advantageous to move well in all four directions. That's why taking a stance with one foot forward was standard.
'So martial arts do exist here too... I wonder how good they are?'
You could see a lot from combat-ready stances. Seeing him take a stance with his front foot forward and body slightly crouched, unlike Bebo, he wasn't the type who relied solely on physicality to fight.
"No hitting below the waist!"
The referee shouted.
Last time it was a male referee, but this time it was a female. She wore armor, had a sword about 60cm long at her waist, and held a whip in her hand.
The referee who'd given a stern warning shouted loudly:
"Jacques!"
***
Aslan sharply analyzed his opponent while still showing that he couldn't properly control his body.
Seeing this, the spectators began getting excited. Some people in the stands were openly cursing.
"Ah... I bet on that crown prince bastard!"
"Didn't know he'd come in after drinking. Is this how weak he is?"
"I bet too, damn it!"
"This is pissing me off. Should've waited a bit before betting."
"Benjol! Kill him!"
"You never know though. He might reverse it in one shot like last time. The guy who bet on that bastard last time made a killing."
"That's because Bebo was a stupid bastard."
"Right. Benjol's different from Bebo. Benjol properly learned how to punch from Baskun!"
Curses from the spectators could be heard, but Aslan didn't pay much attention. He'd grasped the arena's atmosphere to some extent and knew what they wanted.
Anyway, even the chattering spectators would suddenly quiet down once the match started. It was a bit different from modern sports viewing.
And spectators who quietly enjoyed the match would repay with tremendous cheers and money when it ended.
Most would scatter slans, but among them, there were occasionally people who threw galands.
According to what he'd heard from the odd-eyed girl, there were cases where people threw silver coins beyond galands.
But such things were unlikely to appear in youth division matches like this. Silver coins only occasionally appeared in life-or-death gladiator matches.
Whoosh!
For someone who'd supposedly learned proper punching, there were clumsy aspects. It wasn't at Bebo's completely wild level, but there were many unrefined parts.
The first thing to do in a boxing match was to measure the distance between yourself and your opponent.
Despite having long reach, Benjol didn't attempt to measure distance. If you didn't properly measure distance, it was naturally difficult to utilize long reach.
On the other hand, he was doing weight transfer accurately. That way, he could deliver his full weight to his opponent and deal proper damage.
But the problem was that his movements were too big. So much strength was put in that you could tell where attacks were coming just from shoulder movements.
This made him very easy to deal with.
Thunk! Thunk!
There was no need to move as much as when fighting Bebo. He just had to stagger while pretending to be drunk and take hits.
Boxing in this world was fought with bare hands without any protective equipment.
Bare-handed fighting was very brutal. It was very different from when wearing gloves. It meant skin tore very easily.
Skin and bones took impacts, but since the brain rarely shook enough to lose consciousness, matches usually dragged on with fighters covered in blood.
So even in youth division matches, if they were fought fiercely, cases where fighters' faces got messed up were common.
Benjol showed such traces too. You could see signs of his nose being smashed and reassembled, and he only had a few teeth left.
But Aslan's face was very clean.
It didn't look like the face of someone who'd been beaten for 10 minutes in his previous match.
It was the same now.
Benjol's attacks were sharper than Bebo's, but were actually dealing less damage.
That was because Aslan's condition had improved much more than when fighting Bebo.
Though weak, since he'd created a dantian, his body could move freely. It meant he could minimize impact with just slight movements.
'One-two straight...'
An attack where you throw a jab with the front hand and finish with the back hand.
If it connected properly, it was a technique that could end the match right there. But Benjol's one-two had too much tension in the shoulders.
When you threw punches in a stiff state, movements naturally became big.
It needed to burst out very smoothly without preparatory movements, but that wasn't the case.
Naturally, Aslan read it and accordingly slipped his head back slightly.
Tap!
While doing so, he drove a palm strike into the abdomen as a counter.
It was only about a light touch level, but there would be a heavy feeling. When fighting Bebo, no internal energy was involved, but now it was different.
It was a palm strike with internal energy, though small. The power had to be different.
'Why is this so heavy? It was just a light touch with his hand?'
Benjol's expression stiffened slightly. But he stopped being suspicious there. Aslan in front of him was still staggering.
And that wasn't all.
He could feel the impact of his fist.
It wasn't like there was no sensation from his punches at all. Though not completely clean, there was definitely a feeling of having hit. Benjol ignored the pain coming to his abdomen and started pounding Aslan harder.
***
Regular youth division matches usually ended within a few minutes, but this match had been going on for over 20 minutes.
Benjol's stamina was still remaining. Aslan recalled what the spectators had said about that.
'They said he properly learned punching from Baskun?'
The biggest difference from Bebo wasn't that he knew how to use one-two straights.
It was that he controlled tempo. While Bebo swung wildly without thinking about stamina, Benjol was moderately controlling his breathing.
So even though 20 minutes had passed, he still seemed to have energy left to move.
But that too was reaching its limit soon.
To spectators, Aslan had just been taking hits one-sidedly for 20 minutes, but if you looked closely inside, he hadn't just been taking hits.
He'd cleverly dealt sufficient damage to the abdomen.
Benjol also knew that the abdominal pain was becoming increasingly hard to ignore.
So he tried to avoid the hands touching his abdomen as much as possible, but he couldn't avoid them. Whenever he attempted attacks, counterattacks would definitely come to his abdomen.
'Is this bastard really drunk? He smells like alcohol... but the attacks are connecting properly...'
By the time Benjol noticed something was strange, it was already too late.
After about 25 minutes passed, even the spectators noticed something was off.
"That crown prince guy is really tough, isn't he?"
"He's not just tough, he's amazing. He's still moving after taking all that."
"That's what I'm saying. Was Benjol always this weak a puncher?"
"Benjol's punch power isn't bad. He even beat a barbarian bigger than himself in his last match."
"Beating Bebo wasn't entirely luck after all."
"He just has good endurance."
"He looks like he'd blow over, but he's holding up well. When he holds up that well, you end up rooting for him."
"So what? He can't land a proper hit!"
"Who knows? Maybe he'll reverse it in one shot like with Bebo!"
"You think that's easy? If he does that, I'll throw a galand this time!"
As soon as those words ended, the situation began to change. Finally, Benjol's movements started visibly slowing down.
The time he'd been waiting for had come.
Aslan began preparing his counterattack.
To unfold the reversal drama as he'd intended.