The colossal gates of the Colosseum City loomed like the jaws of some ancient beast, eternally frozen mid-roar. Towering statues of champions long forgotten lined the stone path, fists raised high in dramatic poses that screamed "We punch first, ask questions never."
The hero party stood at the threshold, eyes wide, mouths slightly agape.
"Holy mother of flex…" Thorne breathed, his voice hushed with admiration. "This place has vibes."
"More like protein shakes." Cael muttered, adjusting the strap of his bag. "Why does every statue here have abs that could bench press a minotaur?"
"I mean, if I lived here, I'd definitely get swole too," Renna added, elbowing Alaric. "Imagine all the gym bros walking around asking if you lift."
"I do lift," Alaric said, slightly offended. "Emotionally, and physically."
Lys tilted her head as they walked past a mural etched into the stone wall, depicting a dramatic battle between a man in flaming armor and a chimera the size of a tavern. "So… this is the place we're supposed to try our 'stuff,' huh?"
Cael nodded. "According to the old priest, this Colosseum isn't just a big arena. It's a test site. For strength. Strategy. Even weird magic anomalies. Apparently, it changes depending on who steps into the ring."
Thorne's eyes sparkled. "So, like a magical battle royale arena with mystery mechanics?"
"I'm gonna get disqualified for breaking the environment, aren't I…" Lys sighed.
The city itself was a chaotic harmony of sound—street performers juggling flaming torches, blacksmiths hammering at strange glowy metals, and merchants screaming about their unbeatable prices for "potion-flavored energy drinks."
As they wandered deeper into the city, an old man passed by with a dog wearing full chainmail armor.
"I want to live here," Alaric declared.
"You say that until the dog beats you in a sparring match," Cael muttered.
Eventually, they reached the plaza, where the enormous Colosseum stood like a god made of brick and muscle. Its shadow swallowed entire blocks.
A sign near the entrance read in bold letters.
"Welcome to Slamtown – Please Sign a Waiver Before Being Suplexed."
Thorne cracked his knuckles. "Boys, girls, and goblins—we've made it."
Renna pulled a dramatic anime pose. "Time to unleash some chaotic good on this overly dramatic pit of testosterone."
Lys just stared up at the enormous arena with a calm but curious expression. "Let's see what kind of bravery this city demands."
The gates of Colosseum City had barely stopped creaking open before the hero party surged through like a stampede of unsupervised teenagers at a midnight buffet.
"Wait—do we need to sign anything? Register? Fill in soul-bonded liability waivers or something?" Cael asked, pausing with an anxious glance at a very-much-unmanned booth labeled "ENTRY REGISTRATION."
Lys peeked over his shoulder. The ledger on the table was blank. The pen next to it had moss growing on it. The booth had cobwebs. A spider inside was knitting a little scarf.
"No one's even watching this," she said flatly. "I think we just… walk in."
"I LOVE THIS PLACE," Thorne howled, already halfway down the cobbled street with his hands up like he just scored a touchdown. "NO FORMS, NO WAITING, JUST PURE VIBES!"
Alaric was spinning in a circle, taking in the energy of the city with his arms stretched out. "Compared to the adventurer's guild in Koneu where they made us sign our names like seven times, and Renna drew a cat every time—this place is heaven!"
"I still stand by that cat," Renna sniffed proudly. "It had character."
The city's entrance plaza buzzed with activity, and yet not a single soul batted an eye as the group poured in without any official welcome. A trio of minotaurs were playing hacky sack with a cannonball. A sorcerer was selling enchantments out of a hotdog stand. A small crowd nearby was cheering over an impromptu slap-fight between two dwarves balanced on barrels.
No guards. No scrolls. No over-explaining NPCs holding tutorial signs.
Thorne peeked into a nearby alley and returned with two mugs of something frothy. "People just give you drinks here. No questions asked."
"...Where did you get that?" Cael asked, alarmed.
Thorne shrugged. "An old lady threw them at me and yelled, 'FOR GLORY!'"
"This city is cursed," Cael muttered, sipping one anyway.
The city may have been cursed, but so were they—by divine weapons, poor impulse control, and the absolute inability to act like normal people in public.
As they ventured deeper into the vibrant, lawless sprawl of Colosseum City, it became very clear that this place wasn't just used to chaos. It thrived on it. And the hero party? They fit in like gasoline in a bonfire.
"WE ARE LOST!" Thorne declared triumphantly from atop a fruit cart that did not belong to him.
"You climbed up there five minutes ago and haven't moved," Lys pointed out, deadpan. "How do you expect to find directions if you're standing on someone's apples yelling like a feral rooster?"
"I'm asserting dominance," Thorne replied, arms crossed.
The fruit vendor sobbed in the background.
Meanwhile, Alaric had stopped by a forge that was doubling as a tattoo parlor. He was halfway through an argument with the blacksmith-tattooist about whether it was technically possible to engrave flames onto his summoned sword without it catching fire and turning into a glorified kebab stick.
"I'm just saying," Alaric insisted, "if you tattoo the sword, I'd basically be wielding a flaming personality."
"That's not how metal works!" the smith barked.
"But what about emotional metal?"
Renna was trying to convince a local theatre group that she was a world-class actor.
"I once pretended to be a guy so well I believed it myself," she said, twirling her dagger in one hand and dramatically reciting lines from a play that didn't exist. "To be or not to be a dude in an isekai world..."
They gave her a job on the spot.
Cael, ever the anxious nucleus of the group, had taken it upon himself to read every city rule he could find on public walls, despite most of them being outdated, cryptic, or possibly written during a drunken goblin poetry night.
"So according to Rule 47-B, we can't juggle weapons in public," he muttered, eye twitching.
"Good thing we're bad at juggling," Thorne yelled, flinging his lance at a passing banner for no reason.
The banner exploded.
And Lys? Lys found a street artist singing for coins with a rusted spoon and a tambourine made out of bottlecaps, and before anyone could stop her, she joined in with her bow held like a mic.
Her voice carried. People gathered. A crowd formed.
Until a fish slapped someone in the face from a nearby fishmonger stand.
"WHO THREW THE FISH?!" someone screamed.
"Performance art!" Renna yelled, pointing at Lys.
By the time the sun began to sink behind the jagged stone towers of Colosseum City, the group had:
Accidentally become minor street celebrities
Acquired a bounty of zero gold but three fake moustaches
Broken what might've been a statue or someone's grandmother
Been challenged to a dance battle by a centaur gang (Renna won)
And found themselves inexplicably signed up for something called "The Hero's Gauntlet: Death Edition (With Snacks!)". Who could have thought it was Thorne who signed it for the whole crew.
Cael stayed hunched over the barrel, fingers rubbing at his temples like he was trying to massage the chaos out of his skull. Thorne flopped next to him with all the grace of a cat kicked out of heaven—loud, lazy, and weirdly at peace.
There was a moment of quiet. Just the murmuring of the city's unrest in the background—street performers yelling, someone getting chased by a goose, a very confused man proposing to a statue.
Then Thorne exhaled and said, "Y'know, I think I actually love it here."
Cael peeked at him from between his fingers. "Seriously?"
Thorne leaned back on his elbows, eyes following the patterns of banners fluttering above them. "Yeah. It's messy. No one gives a damn about how you're supposed to act. Like, back home—man, my parents wouldn't let me do anything. Everything had to be scheduled, quiet, respectful. No loud music, no staying out late, no speaking unless I had a perfect argument ready."
Cael straightened up a little. "That… sounds rough."
Thorne let out a laugh, but there wasn't much humor in it. "They were the 'we raised you to be better' type. Strict. Traditional. My dad used to get visibly disappointed if I didn't finish a sentence with 'sir.' Like I was in some boot camp of life."
Cael blinked, trying to imagine Thorne—current chaos incarnate—being boxed in like that.
"I used to fail their expectations just to see if I still felt alive," Thorne continued. "Skipped curfews. Switched majors three times just to spite them. Got piercings. Joined underground LAN parties instead of clubs. They hated every second of it."
Cael said nothing at first. He could hear something deeper underneath Thorne's usual bravado, something that didn't crack jokes for once. So he waited.
"I moved out the second I could," Thorne finally said, voice lower. "Thought it'd be some big 'eff you,' y'know? And for a while, it was. But… I dunno. Being here, in this world where no one tells you what you have to be? It feels like I can breathe for once. Like, this madness? This—" He gestured at a passing goblin doing cartwheels in a tutu. "—This is my element."
Cael smiled faintly. "You… really are a goblin at heart."
Thorne grinned back, but his eyes held a flicker of something old. "Maybe. But I'm a free goblin now."
Cael looked out toward the city lights. "We're all kind of running from something, huh?"
Thorne snorted. "Please. You run like a broken penguin."
They both laughed—softly, without the need for anything outrageous. It wasn't a punchline kind of moment. Just two guys from another world.
The party stood in front of a grand, empty building—its spires reaching high, its doors chained shut, and its sign weathered with dust. Above it, carved in stone letters: "The Church of Coe – Sanctuary for the Seeking."
"Welp," Renna muttered, squinting at the sign, "guess nobody's been seeking anything here for a while."
Alaric knocked on the massive door just in case. It let out a hollow thoom like a coffin being politely reminded of its duties.
"No services. No tea. No old lady giving us moral quests," Cael noted. "This city's spiritual guidance is officially bankrupt."
Lys sighed. "I was actually looking forward to a bed that wasn't owned by capitalism."
"Same," said Alaric. "Guess we're sleeping on gold leaf tonight."
Renna clapped her hands dramatically. "Well, darlings, it is time we put that dungeon jackpot to use."
Thorne's eyes sparkled. "Are we gonna blow money like anime villains at a casino?!"
"Better," Renna smirked. "We're staying at The White Chrysanthemum. Five stars. Zero shame."
Moments later, they were standing at the entrance of a palace disguised as an inn. Marble pillars, rose-petal fountains, an actual harp player in the lobby. The moment the staff saw their shiny bag of coin—specifically the one Thorne had dubbed the "dungeon drip satchel"—they were treated like royalty.
Their rooms were so fancy they had tiny chandeliers in the bathroom.
Thorne rolled across his 8-pillow bed and laughed. "This mattress has better emotional support than my therapist."
"I have no frame of reference for what expensive smells like," Alaric said, sniffing a hand towel, "but this towel smells like old money and scented regret."
"I didn't even know there were gold-leaf soaps," Lys murmured, holding one like it was about to whisper ancient secrets to her.
Cael stared out the window at the glowing city and added, "Guys, this place has a view. Like, a real one. That's worth at least 80 Golds right there."
Renna plopped onto her couch like an heiress who just bought a minor country. "You poor things. Thorne and I are used to this level of excess, aren't we?"
Thorne was already wearing a fluffy robe and sipping something fizzy. "Born into it. Despised it. But man, does it hit differently when it's dungeon-funded."
They all kicked back, surrounded by glittering chandeliers, complimentary chocolate fountains, and silken robes far too soft for their chaotic souls.
They had no church, no holy quest today.
Just luxury, chaos money, and the rich, irreverent laughter of people who never expected to live long enough to become high-end degenerates.