I Enslaved The Goddess Who Summoned Me

Chapter 762: Mysterious Shiina

“You can call me Shiina.”

Nathan kept his eyes on the woman as she smiled at him.

No, it was not a false impression. He was certain of that now.

She was strong.

Not simply skilled, not simply confident, but genuinely dangerous. His instincts had reacted to her before his mind could sort through it, and they were not the sort that mistook charm for threat. There was something tightly controlled beneath her easy expression, something calm and heavy that did not belong to an ordinary fighter waiting in a crowded preparation hall.

That left only one question.

Who exactly was she, and what was she doing here?

For a moment Nathan wondered if she had approached him on purpose, if perhaps she knew who he was or had been sent to test him. But the more he studied her face, the less likely that seemed. There was no sign of recognition in her eyes, no hidden edge behind her smile that suggested she was playing at ignorance.

No, she did not seem to know him.

But that did not mean her approach was random.

Just as he had noticed at once that she was not normal, she had probably sensed the same thing from him. People like that noticed each other. It was inevitable.

His caution remained, but curiosity had begun to settle in beside it.

Nathan turned away from her and looked back over the buckets filled with wooden swords. He reached in and chose one that felt closest to the kind of blade he preferred, straight and solid rather than curved like a katana. He had grown far better with the katana than he once was, but a more conventional sword still sat more naturally in his hand.

Not that it mattered much.

Wood was wood.

“Are you new here?” Shiina asked.

Nathan glanced at her without fully turning. “You are from here.”

It was not really an answer, but it was enough.

If she was from Minami Kyoto, her question made sense. A man like Nathan would stand out here, especially among the usual mix of local fighters, reckless drifters, and glory seekers.

Shiina nodded easily. “I am.”

There was no pride in the answer, only confirmation.

Then she looked at the wooden sword in his hand and asked, “So are you here for the reward? Is that why you entered?”

Nathan paused.

The reward.

He searched his memory and found nothing.

He had not paid attention to that part at all. He remembered reading the announcement, skimming past the usual promises of prestige and prize money, and focusing only on what mattered. Norihiro would be present when the victor was acknowledged. That was the only line he had cared about.

“What is the reward?” he asked.

Shiina stared at him for a second.

Then she laughed.

It was not a delicate laugh, nor a mocking one. It came out full and bright, surprising enough that a few nearby fighters glanced in their direction.

“You entered without even knowing that?” she asked.

“I did not read that part.”

“That is somehow worse,” she said, still amused. “Then what? Did you come only because you felt like beating people?”

Nathan adjusted his grip on the wooden sword and answered without much expression. “Maybe I just wanted to train while surrounded by enemies.”

Shiina blinked once, then smiled wider.

“You know,” she said, touching her chin as if considering it seriously, “that is actually a very good reason.”

Nathan looked at her.

“I was not especially interested in the prize either,” she went on. “But if I think of it as training, this suddenly becomes much more appealing.”

With that, she stepped over to the weapons and picked out a wooden sword shaped like a katana. The moment it settled into her hand, something about her posture changed. Not dramatically, not enough for anyone inattentive to notice, but Nathan saw it. Her body aligned around the weapon with effortless familiarity, as if the wooden blade were not an imitation at all, but an extension of her arm.

She gave it a few test swings.

Smooth.

Light.

Precise.

There was no wasted motion in them.

Nathan watched from the corner of his eye, paying closer attention than before. He wanted to see more. He wanted some clearer measure of what exactly she could do.

That was when a large man came lumbering over from behind.

He was built like a slab of meat wrapped in skin, broad across the shoulders and chest, with bulging arms left mostly bare by the little clothing he wore. His expression already carried the sort of smirk Nathan disliked on sight, the smug look of a man who mistook size for permission.

Shiina turned as he approached, her face shifting into mild surprise rather than concern.

“Hey, woman,” the man said. “This is no place for you.”

Shiina raised one brow. “Hm?”

He took her lack of alarm for encouragement and grinned wider.

“There is still time before this starts,” he said. “Why do we not go enjoy ourselves first?”

As he spoke, he reached out and grabbed her by the arm, his thick hand wrapping around her slender wrist with ugly ease.

Nathan, still watching from the side, narrowed his eyes.

Part of him was curious.

A woman like Shiina did not need saving from a fool like this. If anything, Nathan had been interested to see what she would do. Whether she would laugh, break the man’s hand, or put him on the floor before he understood what had happened.

He did not get the chance to find out.

Another hand clamped down on Nathan’s shoulder from behind.

“Move, boy.”

The voice came with a shove, rough and impatient.

Nathan had been so focused on Shiina that he had not bothered paying attention to the idiot coming up behind him. A second large brute had apparently decided that if his companion was harassing the woman, he could do the same to whoever stood in his way.

Nathan ignored the first tug.

Then the man stepped around just enough to plant himself in Nathan’s line of sight, glaring straight into his face with all the confidence of someone too stupid to recognize danger.

Nathan’s irritation flared at once.

Without thinking, he lifted one hand and shoved him aside.

That was all.

Just a push.

But he forgot, for one careless moment, to hold back.

The huge man left the ground as if struck by a charging beast.

“Ghaaargh!”

His body flew across the hall and slammed directly into the even larger man still gripping Shiina. The impact ripped Shiina’s arm free at once. The two brutes crashed together in a tangled mess of limbs, then hit the floor hard enough to rattle the nearby weapon racks.

“Ughh!”

Wood clattered. Voices cut off. The entire area seemed to freeze.

A heavy silence spread through the hall.

Fighters turned to stare. Attendants stopped what they were doing. Even the men who had been arguing at the far end of the room fell quiet as heads swiveled toward Nathan.

He stood where he was, one hand still half raised, already aware he had put far too much force into that single motion.

Shiina looked down at her arm for a brief second, as though noting the grip that had vanished before it could become annoying. Then she lifted her eyes to Nathan.

Nathan clicked his tongue softly and looked away, inwardly cursing himself.

He had ruined it.

He had been one breath away from seeing perhaps something from her.

Now the whole hall was staring, the two idiots were groaning in a heap on the floor, and whatever quiet observation he had hoped for was gone.

When he finally glanced back at her, Shiina was still watching him.

Only now, her smile had changed.

It had become smaller.

Sharper.

More interested.

Nathan chose to ignore the look Shiina gave him.

He would find out soon enough what kind of fighter she was. There was no need to chase answers now. Once the battle began, the truth would reveal itself on its own.

Still, he could not deny that things had taken a turn he had not expected.

He had come here with a simple goal in mind. Enter the battle royale, crush whoever stood in front of him, claim the victory, and force Norihiro to acknowledge him. It should have been straightforward. Instead, before the match had even started, he had stumbled across a woman who made his instincts sharpen in caution, and whose presence in a place like this made far less sense than the rest of the rabble filling the hall.

After choosing his weapon, Nathan moved away from the racks and stood by himself near one side of the chamber. He preferred distance. The hall was already crowded enough with restless bodies, nervous bravado, and the stale heat of too many men waiting for violence. Some tried to stretch the tension out of their limbs. Others boasted loudly to hide their unease. A few had gone quiet, their faces set and grim as they stared at the floor or at nothing at all.

Nathan let the noise pass around him without listening.

Not far away, Shiina had also settled on her own.

She sat with an ease that looked almost absurd in a place like this, one knee slightly raised, the wooden sword resting loosely by her side as though she had all the time in the world. Every now and then, when Nathan happened to glance in her direction, he found her already looking at him. Each time, she smiled as if she were enjoying some private joke.

She looked strangely out of place among the rest.

Not weak. Not fragile.

Just separate.

The hall was full of rough men, scarred men, drunken fools pretending to be warriors, and hardened fighters who treated every stranger like a rival. In the middle of all that, Shiina stood apart without making any effort to do so. And though men had been shameless enough to bother her earlier, no one approached her now.

Nathan noticed that.

Perhaps it was because of the scene from before. Perhaps the sight of two large fools crashing to the floor had reminded everyone to mind their own business. Or perhaps there was something about Shiina herself that warned others away, even if they could not have put it into words.

Whatever the reason, the space around her remained undisturbed.

Time dragged.

The waiting lasted close to half an hour, long enough for the hall to settle into a heavier silence. The loudest voices had faded. Excitement had thinned into concentration. Even the fools who had entered smiling now wore tighter expressions, their eyes shifting more often toward the exits and the armed attendants moving along the walls.

Then at last, soldiers entered the chamber.

Their arrival cut through the room at once.

Conversation died. Bodies straightened. The scrape of sandals across the floor sounded suddenly loud in the hush that followed. One of the soldiers raised his voice and announced that the battle royale was about to begin.

That was enough.

Every participant rose.

Nathan pushed himself off the wall and adjusted his grip on the wooden sword. Around him, men picked up their chosen weapons, rolled their shoulders, and drew long breaths through flared nostrils. The air changed in an instant. What had been impatience became tension. What had been posturing became readiness.

No one needed to be reminded what this was.

A battle royale meant that the moment they stepped into the arena, everyone around them became an enemy.

The soldiers began leading them out in groups. Nathan moved forward with the rest, the hall emptying into a broad stone passage that sloped gently ahead. The tunnel was dimmer than the preparation chamber, lit only by lanterns fixed high along the walls. Their flames trembled in the draft, casting shifting shadows across the faces of the fighters.

The further they walked, the louder the noise became.

At first it was only a distant murmur, like the sea beating against rocks far away. Then it grew into something fuller, larger, until the tunnel itself seemed to vibrate with it. The roar of the crowd spilled inward in waves, mixed with sharp bursts of cheering, laughter, and the booming voice of someone speaking to the arena.

Nathan caught fragments of it as they drew closer.

There was a presenter outside, some loud mouthed fool entertaining the spectators and stirring them up before the fighting began. His voice carried unnaturally well, too clear and too far reaching to be ordinary. Some kind of magical tool, Nathan guessed. It did not matter.

The tunnel finally opened into a waiting point before a massive gate.

Everyone stopped.

The fighters gathered there in a tense cluster, shoulder to shoulder now, close enough to feel each other breathing. No one spoke. The silence between them felt sharper than any noise. Nathan stood still among them, wooden sword in hand, his gaze fixed on the gate ahead.

He could hear the public clearly now.

Thousands of voices.

A living wall of sound.

The presenter shouted something else and the crowd answered with a thunderous cheer that rolled over the entrance like a storm. Beside Nathan, someone shifted their footing. Another man swallowed hard. Somewhere to the left, wood creaked under the strain of a too tight grip.

Then the gate began to rise.

Slowly, heavily, it lifted upward and light spilled through the widening gap. The brightness cut across the dim tunnel floor in a broad golden band. Dust stirred in the light. The roar of the crowd rushed in all at once, no longer muffled, but immense and overwhelming.

Nathan tightened his hand around the sword.

That was enough waiting.

He stepped forward with the others as the gate opened fully, his expression hard and unreadable. He had not come here for glory, or money, or the thrill of a public spectacle. He had come to finish this competition as quickly as possible, claim his victory, and put himself directly in Norihiro’s path.

Everything else was noise.