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

“I wouldn’t have,” I heard myself say.

It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate what he’d done for us. On the contrary, he’d done something that I would most probably never be able to repay. Which is why I owed him the truth. I would never put Louie’s life at risk, or risk having him live the rest of his life alone. Not for the sake of saving Rory.

“Ye would, half-Celt,” the dwarf replied, looking me straight in the eye. “Ye don’t know it. Ye might not believe it, but ye would. It’s in yer blood.”

“My Celt blood?”

“Both bloodlines,” he replied and we sat in silence for a couple of moments. “Which reminds me. One of the people that attacked ye wasn’t pure humanfolk.”

“His eyes were serpent-like,” I remembered. “And he looked like he had small horns on his forehead.”

“He smelled all wrong too,” Louie added.

“Looked like he was half-infernal. It seems like we got some tough competition if they’re using hells-people as muscle.”

“There won’t be any competition anymore, Rory,” I stated. “I lost. This shit is too dangerous. I’m not going to put us through it again.”

“Ye really thought the Apocosmos was gonna be easy, lad? Nobody ever got rich easily. It might not be as hard if ye’re clever, and ye are, but it’ll never be easy.”

“Well, I don’t wanna be rich if—”

“Ah, ye’ll come around soon.”

“No! I will not! I’m out.” I stood up. “Thank you for saving us, but this is it for me. Louie, let’s go.”

“What? Why? There’s still bacon,” he said, confused.

“Sit down, lad,” Rory said, but I paid him no heed. “I said, sit the fuck down. If ye go back out there, ye’re as good as dead.”

“I think I’ll take my chances,” I snapped at him. “But I know I’m not staying here, having you try to change my mind because you want to become rich and take back what was stolen from you.”

“I won’t mention it again. If ye want out, ye’re out, but I’d dip my tongue in my brain before talking about things I don’t understand if I were ye.”

If he was expecting an apology, he was sorely mistaken. It was enough of an apology that I hadn’t stormed out of his shithole of a place already.

“Ye can live here for a while. Lay low for a couple of months. Show that ye learned yer lesson. Then we’ll get ye a new place and ye’ll be able to go on with yer life.”

“My life? I can’t go back to my apartment, where all my stuff is, including my tablet by the way, which means they’ve got all my money. And since I can’t go back to work, I’m broke.”

“DEM tablets don’t work like that. The accounts aren’t device-specific. They’re user-specific. Ye can use mine if ye want to, to transfer money somewhere. And all your things are safe.”

“Oh, and you should call Leo,” Louie added. “He said he’d need to go over a few things with you about work.”

“Tomorrow,” I said, tired of it all. “Let’s do it all tomorrow.”

“The potion still giving ye trouble?”

“I guess,” I said, not wanting to continue the discussion. “Where do you sleep?”

“Don’t worry about me. I got my ways.”

“But seriously,” Louie continued the questions I’d wanted to ask. “Where do you work? And where do you go to relieve yourself?”

“I’ve crafted and purchased a few items that make life easier for an old dwarf like meself,” he said and produced a large iron key. “If ye need to go to the bathroom, use this in a wall.”

Item : Key to the Loo

Type : Extra-dimensional item

Durability : 1700/1700

Rarity : E Grade

Weight : 4st.

Description : A specialty item designed and crafted by Rory Battleforge. A key that opens the way to a comfortable, ventilated toilet. The creator of this item advises you to not overstay your welcome and make sure you refill the paper if it runs out.

“Is that really a key to an extra-dimensional toilet?” Louie asked excitedly.

“Damn right! Took me two months to nail down the kinks. Sometimes the door wouldn’t open, sometimes the toilet wouldn’t flush. But now it works perfectly.”

“Thank you, Rory,” I said and sat down on the mattress again.

“Alright, I’ll be just outside then,” he said and moved over to the door. “Ye’re safe here.”

“Louie, are you going to sleep, or will you try killing yourself with more bacon?”

“Oh, such a wonderful way to die,” he said in a mockingly melodic voice. “But no. If I eat any more, I’ll burst.”

I lay down on the mattress, looking at the light above, and realized there was no switch on the walls. Instead, I covered my face with my forearm and rested my other arm on Louie.

How can the dwarf live here? He has so much money. Why would he choose to live in this dump?

“Alex, are you asleep?”

“Not yet. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I’m just happy that you’re okay,” he said, and I felt his tail move a bit. “It was awful seeing you in that state.”

“I’m sorry you had to see that, buddy. But it won’t happen again. We’re stopping everything, okay?”

“Whatever you want,” he said after a few seconds. That was the last I heard of him before he started snoring like the little pig that he was.

My eyes too were feeling heavy, no doubt because of the potion I’d been given. However, my mind kept returning to the dire predicament I was in. A fugitive from my workplace and my own apartment, forced to stop making money off the Apocosmos, and—worst of it all—forced to hide just to stay alive.

How the fuck did I reach this point? Why couldn’t I have just stayed in my boring developer job and steadily built a measly pension instead of going after riches and early retirement?

But I guess nobody ever looked at pension schemes with excitement.

Calculating the money I’d already saved, I figured I would be able to wait this thing