Alpha Zero (Alpha LitRPG Book 1) by Arthur Stone (top 5 books to read TXT) 📕

I shouldn’t have moved closer to the cliffs. This section of the water was filled with driftwood brought in by the current. And that was just the wood you could see from the surface.

I stepped back to the edge of the rock and pulled, putting all of my weight into it. The maneuver had worked to liberate a lodged spoonbait once before, so it was worth another try.

But it was no use. Though the line grew as taut as a string from some giant’s violin, the tackle just wouldn’t get dislodged.

What happened next caught me completely unprepared. Something on the other end of the line succeeded where I had failed. In other words, it pulled with such force that I lost my balance and went flying off of my isle of rock, submerging fully into the water.

Only yesterday I wondered idly if I knew how to swim. Well, now I could answer with certainty that I could at least float, if not swim. It seemed improper to claim I was swimming when, in fact, I was being pulled by some unseen force on the other end of the line.

So great was the force pulling that I would have thought I’d fished a nuclear submarine. But given that submarines were unknown technology in Rock, this couldn’t be it. It had to be a kote, naturally, only I had expected a far more modest haul, considering the reports that large predators weren’t known to come so close to the island.

Perhaps the locals preferred to understate rather than exaggerate. Weird how their cousins back on Earth did the exact opposite.

What a crazy world.

I could whip out a knife and cut the line, only rummaging in your pockets is rather inconvenient when all your energy is focused on not getting dragged down to the river floor. The kote was dragging me straight toward a tree sticking out of the water. That would be my chance to grab on to something and try to put up a fight.

I wasn’t going to abandon my seemingly only chance to avoid latrine duty.

Twisting like an Olympic gymnast at just the right moment, I grabbed onto a slender bough with both hands. It snapped instantly, plunging me back underwater. But I dove right out to bear-hug a different one with both arms and legs, taking full advantage of the few extra seconds of the line slackening as the fish began to round a large submerged boulder just up ahead.

Now I just needed to hold on. Nothing else, just hold on. I was done riding the monster fish like a jet ski.

Sans the ski.

My only chance was for the kote to exhaust itself and lose vigor. Perhaps then even my meager strength would be enough to drag it ashore. We’d been riding along the riverbank all this time—I needed to swim only a dozen yards before my feet should find bottom.

Breaking out into open water, the fish jerked violently forward, pressing me into the snag so tight, I could feel every bump and crack on the old wood with all of my body. Thankfully, the kote was trying to pull me through a barrier that not even a croc could break easily. Not in a million years would I have hung on with my own strength—it was only my position, securely behind the wide log, that made it possible. But I would take credit for recognizing my one chance and scrambling to take that position.

What is wrong with me? I was patting myself on the back for hanging on to life by a thread in a situation that only an imbecile would get himself into. A situation in which the apex of evolution was being drowned in a cold spring river by a primitive fish.

“Geeeeed!” the voice was coming from ashore.

I turned my head to see Beko, frozen at the edge of the water and staring at me with eyes round with horror.

“What?!” I wheezed, struggling to keep my position against the leg-locked log steady.

“I can’t swim, Ged!”

“Am I asking you to?”

“But Ged! It’s going to eat you!”

“No! We’re going to eat it! Get ready to help me pull it out!”

“Goodbye, Ged!” the ghoul kept spouting his nonsense in between sobs, either ignoring or failing to understand my words. “Do you want me to show you mine, Ged?! Before you die? You’re my friend, Ged, so I think I can show you! You won’t be able to tell anyone, anyway!”

I really was curious to see what it was Beko guarded with such dedication, stealing only occasional furtive glances at his treasure. Alas, the moment wasn’t disposed to curiosity. The fish finally stopped pulling stupidly in one direction; the line slacked again, its subtle movement indicative of the languid current instead of the kote swimming.

So where was it?!

I felt a pang of worry.

A breaker shot up right in front of me. Emerging from behind it, the enormous fish smashed into the tree log dead-on, jaws wide open. Upon impact, it fell back clumsily into its natural element and began to slowly sink, motionless.

It’s stunned, came the realization. The fish must have deemed the dry tree the culprit in its predicament, failing to see the tackle linking to the snag to which I was hanging on for dear life. And now it was dazed.

How long would its condition last? That wasn’t clear. But it was a chance.

Wasting no time, I pushed off the log and hurried toward the shore. What do you know? I can swim! And not all that badly! It took longer than anticipated to reach the bottom, however. It wasn’t until I was mere feet away from Beko that my feet found ground.

Once ashore, I began to hastily reel in the cord. The process was