Berserker: A LitRPG Urban Fantasy Adventure (Apocosmos Book 1) by Dimitrios Gkirgkiris (phonics readers .txt) 📕

Read Message Ignore Message Block Sender

I tapped on Read Message and a smile formed on my face as I read it.

Let’s get rich, half-Celt.

Happy to see more arrows being moved by the second, I typed my answer.

Why do you need the money anyway, old man?

And why do you keep calling me half-Celt? I’m half-Greek too, you know.

His answer arrived before I’d even put the tablet back down on the kitchen counter. I took a sip from my cold coffee and tapped on the screen to read it.

It’s none of your business, but since I’m in a good mood, I’ll tell you this much. I need to take back something that was stolen from me. And I need money to hire mercenaries.

And I’m calling you half-Celt because that’s the part of you I like. No offense to you and yours, but your gods have always caused me trouble.

My gods? Did he mean the ancient Greek pantheon? So Zeus and his gang were still around?

I wasn’t sure if it was the thrill of the moment but I realized my view on the whole Apocosmos thing had started to change. I was becoming more interested, and even though my ultimate goal would only ever be to create a nice retirement sum, I didn’t think it would hurt to look into whether these gods existed somewhere. Perhaps just buy a book or two.

I looked at the tablet with the intention of ordering a couple of books but never got there. The incoming messages screen was still open and my eyes were drawn to the only other incoming message I had: the old one from Abrathion. I was sure Louie would have advised me against it, but what did he know about competition anyway. I tapped on the message, gave it a quick read, and then tapped on reply.

This is a free market.

How you like me now, bitch?

11

Equilibrium

Another month passed and I had become king of the arrow market in the state of New York. Those were not my words, but those of Apocosmos bloggers. As a matter of fact, I couldn’t have cared less about titles and praises from good-for-nothing keyboard-warriors. As long as the money flowed into my account, I was content. And flow it certainly did.

In the short period of three months since I’d been introduced to the Apocosmos, I had managed to grow my savings account by over $200,000. I still hadn’t researched how I would be able to transfer these amounts to the Cosmos, but I was nowhere close to my goal yet, so I didn’t worry too much about it.

Building my savings was a very recent undertaking since the most important thing in my business model thus far had been to have enough cash to keep Rory occupied at his maximum capacity. At any given time, we had between one thousand to ten thousand steel arrow batches for sale on the DEM. We quickly realized that Mondays and Tuesdays put the most strain on our reserves so we made sure that we built our stock numbers over the weekend. Earlier this week, however, Rory had told me that he wanted to talk about production at the weekend. I’d woken up early this Sunday so that I could get my workout done before we had the call.

I prepared a fresh cup of ice-cold coffee and took a few sips as I changed into my workout gear. Coming back to the living room, I almost spat the coffee back out when I saw Louie had taken my place on the couch, lying with his belly up and snoring loudly. The day before, he’d finally gathered enough money with his allowance to purchase a minor spellbook he’d wanted for quite some time and was very secretive about. Apart from our Saturday run, I’d barely seem him the whole day, as he was locked in the bedroom.

The skill books and spellbooks sold in the DEM weren’t class-specific, which meant anyone could learn them. They weren’t powerful by any means, but were rather good for making one’s life easier, as long as you had the money to purchase them and fulfilled some basic requirements. For example, most spellbooks—even those for minor cantrips such as creating weak light—required an intelligence score I didn’t possess since I wasn’t a spellcaster.

Louie on the other hand had enough INT, and so he had spent most of his day yesterday practicing, hence why he was now so exhausted. Of course, even when he wasn’t practicing new skills, half past four in the morning had never been his favorite time of the day. On the off chance that he was awake, it would normally be because he was still slaving away on the laptop, leveling his characters in Suikoden or Breath of Fire, his two new favorite JRPG series.

“Buddy, I’m going to the gym,” I said and rubbed his belly gently before leaving.

“Bring me bacon,” was all he said, and he sounded a bit annoyed that I’d woken him up.

“Really?”

“Bacoooon,” he howled softly and turned to the side without even opening his eyes.

I smiled and rubbed the back of his neck before grabbing my keys and leaving the apartment. I made a mental note to give him some bacon once I returned. Then I put on my headphones.

What do I feel like today? Something to wake me the fuck up. Something strong and fast.

I scrolled down my playlist until I found the song that would set today’s mood. I ran down the stairs as “Fury of the Storm” by Dragonforce blasted into my ears. I activated noise cancellation once I was outside of the building and began running toward the gym.

The sun hadn’t yet made its appearance, but the sky wasn’t completely dark either. The first dark-orange hues of sunrise, the music in my ears, and the soft summer breeze all indicated that this would be a great