Ch.212212. Professional Sports

After the establishment and commencement of activities by the Imperial Central Bank, also known as the Dawn Bank, the Dawn Empire began to gradually move closer to my ideal nation.

Several months have passed since that early summer, and now it’s early autumn, arguably the best time of year for weather.

The early autumn weather in the southern continent where the Dawn Empire is located is famously clear and bright—so much so that it’s no exaggeration to call it perfect.

The sunlight is bright and warm, yet cool breezes caress the skin, and the air maintains an ideal balance—neither too humid nor too dry.

At this time, seemingly perfect for outdoor activities, the loyal and diligent citizens of the Dawn Empire—

Clang! Claaang!!

“Kill him!! Kill the spearman!!”

“Don’t back down! Fight back!!”

“””””WAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!”””””

Without anyone leading the charge, citizens rushed to the private arenas that had sprung up throughout the city, enthusiastically watching gladiatorial matches while simultaneously engaging in gambling.

In other words, they enjoyed watching people kill or be killed while betting on the outcomes—a rather deranged activity, but…

The current reality made it difficult to simply blame them.

First of all, unlike during the Rom Empire era, these gladiators weren’t slaves forced to fight, but individuals who fought each other with mutual consent and signed agreements, making intervention ambiguous.

Of course, the gambling aspect was clearly illegal and could be regulated, but the administration reached the surprising conclusion that blindly regulating this wasn’t the best approach. Instead, they needed to address the root cause.

And that root cause was none other than the deeply ingrained culture of frugality worship in the Dawn Empire and the resulting lack of entertainment.

The social praise for frugality originated, unexpectedly, from Bjorn Wolfson’s behavioral patterns.

Bjorn, whose nature was closer to that of a warrior than a ruling monarch, and whose middle-class tendencies had strengthened through various incidents, displayed his characteristic preference for practicality over luxury everywhere.

With the excessive luxury of the Rom Empire already being cited as a reason for its downfall, the head of state unintentionally and indirectly fostered this atmosphere.

As a result, “frugality” became a defining element of the Dawn Empire, naturally creating an atmosphere where enjoying various forms of entertainment became difficult.

Theatrical and artistic activities had already been dampened by the emergence of “pleasure,” and crucially, the Dawn Empire lacked the various sports that had continued since the Rom Empire era.

From the most popular life-or-death gladiatorial matches between slave fighters to the chariot races that had amassed enormous fan bases—all had vanished.

While small-scale, simple sports still continued… the empire was boiling over from the deficiency of such grand-scale sports.

To be more precise, the Dawn Empire lacked ways to release vigor.

From the passionate energy characteristic of youth to the wild vitality unique to Beastman races—none of this could be ignored.

With abundant energy but no proper outlets for it…

Naturally, that energy found its way underground…

‘Should I establish some kind of professional sport?’

In the end, my choice was to bring this sport from the shadows into the light by making it official.

In other words, I thought about launching a professional sport in some field.

At first, I was considering ball games like baseball or soccer as safe options… but suddenly, I questioned whether such “mundane” sports would appeal to these people.

Would citizens who become excited watching people stab each other with real weapons truly feel intense stimulation from these modern ball-rolling sports?

No, could the athletes even play these modern sports properly in the first place?

In my opinion, they absolutely would not.

If soccer matches were held, they would likely ignore the ball and start brawling, and in baseball games, they’d be using bats to beat each other—if we were lucky.

Even 2,000 years later, cultures where people throw stones and crack each other’s heads would persist, so it’s impossible in this empire where gladiatorial combat remains the most popular sport.

At least aggressive sports like American football, where people tackle and fight each other, might be somewhat watchable for people of this era…

The problem is that I don’t know much about American football.

Even for soccer and baseball, I can barely recall the rules from physical education textbooks—as a human, I wasn’t particularly connected to sports.

Having never read the rules of American football, there was no way for me to figure them out.

So, reluctantly abandoning American football, I next considered combat sports like wrestling or boxing.

The rules aren’t too complicated, and similar activities already exist in this world, making them easier to implement than any other sport.

Easy-to-understand rules, existing foundations, and enough violence to satisfy people of this era.

Combat sports like MMA have all the right conditions for implementation, but…

There’s one critical problem that arises because this is a fantasy world.

‘…How do I handle the level gap between competitors?’

That’s right.

In this world where magic exists and enhancement through magical power is considered a basic skill, the difference between individual competitors goes beyond mere skill differences.

A 7th-grade warrior with proper equipment can match a bear one-on-one, making the differences too extreme to simply group them together in a lower class.

Considering that even the bears in this world can instinctively handle magical power, making their physical abilities several times higher than in our world…

This is definitely a sensitive issue to approach carelessly.

Another reason I’m hesitant to introduce combat sports is that certain job classes would have too much advantage.

For example, Monk or Barbarian class jobs receive defensive buffs proportional to their stats when not wearing armor.

So while it can’t compare to properly equipped heavy armor, a 7th-grade Barbarian’s skin has roughly the defense of chain mail.

The inequality that would arise if such a Barbarian fought a Warrior without weapons would be too cumbersome to resolve or restrict.

As I was brainstorming various ideas to solve this problem, I suddenly remembered a robot fighting movie I had watched when I was human.

A movie about a former fighter who controls a fighting robot with synchronized movements, advancing to the finals of a fighting competition.

As I was pondering combat sports, this movie suddenly came to mind, and in that moment—a flash of inspiration struck me.

‘Wait… is it possible?’

If, like in that movie, humans could synchronize their movements with inanimate objects to fight, wouldn’t this make not just combat sports but gladiatorial matches entirely possible?

Of course, robots don’t exist here, so they’d need to be replaced with magical constructs, but this would solve most of the problems I’d been considering.

Even if they were destroyed in battle, there would be no human casualties, and using identical constructs would allow for standardization of abilities.

Additionally, inanimate objects fighting to destruction would provide enough intensity to satisfy people’s violent tendencies.

‘This is it!’

Having decided this was the best solution available, I began to consider what kind of inanimate objects to use for these battles.

Golems came to mind first, but they’re expensive and difficult to create.

For the sport to be exciting, the constructs would need to fight until they broke, but that would result in hundreds of gold coins evaporating with each match.

After rejecting golems, I thought of Dolls.

Dolls, classified as constructs like golems or animated armor, are magically created tools that can be remotely controlled in various ways.

Apart from being unable to operate autonomously, dolls and golems are almost identical in terms of hardware.

But why are golems so expensive to create?

It’s because of their artificial consciousness and internal structures like neural circuits. Without these, directly controlled dolls are quite affordable.

Especially for dolls made specifically to be destroyed in this sport, using inexpensive materials like clay or wood rather than metal…

With just a bit of Lunifer infused, they could be mass-produced quite cheaply.