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

standing at the other end of the room holding his bow at the ready. I took a step to the left of the now heavily bleeding thief and jumped at the rogue, activating my skill at the same time.

A blast of cold and sharp air threw me back and interrupted my skill. The cooldown timer started again, even though the skill wasn’t executed properly. I braced myself for the arrow that was inevitably coming my way… and yet it didn’t. I stood up and stretched my hands out in both directions trying to keep everyone at a safe distance away from me when the realization hit.

If he’s such a good shot with the bow and he can see in the dark, why did he come closer to stab me? They’re fucking toying with us!

Louie’s sudden cry snapped me out of it and I desperately tried to move toward him.

“Let him go or I fucking swear I’ll butcher you,” I shouted, but I got no answer and Louie was now quiet as well. “LET HIM GO!”

I heard an object drop onto the carpet and immediately a ball of light appeared over it. The light had a soft red hue to it and was enough to illuminate everything in the room but not too much to actually hurt my eyes. To my horror, I saw the rogue holding Louie, with one hand wrapped around his torso and the other was bleeding as Louie had locked his jaws on his palm. But no matter how much he tried to move his little head to damage his assailant more, the grip was too strong for his small corgi body.

“Such a cute piggy,” the man said, looking at Louie. “Wonder if he’ll taste the same if we roast him…”

I moved toward him but stopped dead as he squeezed Louie, who let out a cry.

“No, no,” the disgusting man said. I thought I could see a small pair of horn-like extrusions on his forehead. “Enough of that. You won’t do any more fighting. Got it?”

The stone pommel of a hilted dagger hit me on my jaw and sent me spinning. I tried not to lose my footing but it was enough to throw me off-balance and make me drop my weapons. Just as I was able to focus again on the man holding Louie, the spellcaster hit me with his staff on the back of my legs, bringing me down to my knees.

I felt my strength abandon me as I realized there was no way we could beat them. And this time, we weren’t being attacked in the middle of a busy street. There was no one else to help us.

“What do you want?” I shouted, my desperation getting the best of me.

“So now he wants to talk,” a voice said from behind me and a hand pulled my hair back before pushing my head forward again.

“I’m sorry for attacking you,” I said, now on all fours on the ground. “Please, take what you want and leave my dog.”

“You think this is because you attacked us?” another voice said.

“If you can even call that attacking,” said the guy holding Louie. “You barely made a dent in our HP bars.”

“Then why? It’s bad enough that you pulled me into this fucking world. What more do you want from me?”

“He’s saying it’s our fault he’s been messing with the boss’s market?” the voice closest behind me said.

“That’s no good,” the other voice said. The speaker had now moved in front of me. The spellcaster grinned. “Not good at all. Boss will be angry if he finds out we’re responsible for him joining the Apocosmos.”

“I’ll stop! I swear!” I pleaded with them. “I’ll never sell another thing. Just tell him I learned my lesson.”

“What do you guys think?” said the voice behind me and took hold of my hands. “No funny business now.”

I tried to resist but as soon as I did, the grip on Louie tightened, so I let the guy behind me tie my hands with what sounded like a zip tie.

“I don’t know, guys,” said the thief, looking at Louie in his arms. “This doesn’t sound like such a good deal for us. What if he doesn’t learn his place in the world and rats us out?”

“I won’t! I swear! You can take all my money too,” I said, desperately searching their faces to see if they were honestly considering it.

They looked at each other and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t read them. Which meant one thing: they weren’t going to let us go.

“Please! At least let my dog go!” I shouted at the top of my lungs.

The man looked like he was thinking about it before he nodded and put Louie down. Poor Louie scurried toward me but the man kicked him back toward the opposite corner of the room.

“You motherfuck—”

A booted push my tied hands down, pinning me to the ground before I was even able to stand up straight.

“What do you guys think?” the man with the bite-marks on his hand asked now. “Should we let the piggy go?”

“No,” said the mage and started to cast a spell.

“Watch,” the man behind me whispered in my ear. He grabbed my hair with one hand and my jaw with the other.

Little Louie, the only sunshine in my miserable life, was pushing himself into the corner of the room with his tail between his legs. He was shaking as the shadows of the two men towered over him. The mage released his spell and the Gale Blast hit Louie’s side. The cry he let out made me feel as if my own nails were clawing into my hands.

How the fuck dare they?

No one hurts my dog!

I WILL FUCKING SLAUGHTER THEM ALL!

I wasn’t sure if the red light from the orb had suddenly become more intense but everything looked as if I was seeing it through red-tinted glass. This was one of two changes I noticed in me. The second was that I wanted