The Gene of the Ancients (Rogue Merchant Book #2): LitRPG Series by Roman Prokofiev (top books to read TXT) 📕

don’t feed him! He’s already too fat! He doesn’t even want to catch mice!” Weldy objected.

I once again filled the glasses with thick, almost black liquid and looked at the fire through the wine. It glowed French red, tickling my palate with an unknown aroma.

“Hmm, a black cat living with a young girl in a magic shop,” I said, changing the topic. “Seems suspicious. Could you be a witch?”

“Me? Of course not. Frederic’s actually quite old. I inherited him from my grandma. Now she really was a witch. All Ardat was afraid of her.”

“That’s an interesting story. You’ve never told it before. Great wine, by the way.”

“Of course it is,” Weldy said with a cute smile. “I poured something in it, a potion brewed using an old recipe, my grandma’s, actually.”

“What kind of potion? Hope it’s not poison.”

“Oh, not at all. I’m drinking from the same pitcher as you. No, it’s something else. Let’s see how it works on you...” She smiled as she coyly bent her head.

The wine was intoxicating, as was the whole scene, with the flickering melting candles and the cozy glow of the fireplace. Weldy’s eyes shined across the table, her shoulders white in the dark. In a second, the girl was in my arms, fluttering like a butterfly caught in a web. The glasses on the table thrummed, falling down and splashing the remains of the wine, and the candles flashed. Effortlessly, I pushed back the hands resting against my chest — her resistance was more for show.

The fervor with which Weldy answered my kisses surprised and even scared me a little. Apparently, her cute face hid a passionate nature. Her breath smelled of wine, and I got a whiff of lavender from her hair as her hot hands twined around my neck.

“Your potion’s working,” I whispered. Weldy laughed, blew out the candles, and easily slid off my lap. She took my hand and beckoned me to the staircase that led to the attic and her room.

“I’m embarrassed with Frederic watching...” she whispered, pressing her finger against my lips. “Will you lead me upstairs?”

* * *

 

“What’s that?” Weldy’s pink nail outlined a scar on my collarbone. Her head propped on her elbow, she studied my chest.

“Third day in your world. A werewolf’s bite. He was an elf.”

“An elven werewolf? How curious! Was it far from Eyre? Will you tell me sometime?”

“Absolutely. There were two of them. They were siblings.”

“Exiles from Im Enoi, I guess,” Weldy sighed. “And what’s this?”

Her gentle fingers stopped at a round scar mark right on the solar plexus. I frowned. The memory of Svoy the snakeman sacrificing me to his God of Darkness with a ritual dagger was far from a pleasant one.

“Death,” I said brusquely.

“Death? I’m sorry. Was it painful? Have you died many times?”

“At least twenty,” I said. “What about you?”

Weldy shivered and cuddled against me, resting her head on my chest. Her blond hair tickled my chin.

“Never,” she confessed. “I’m really scared of that. It probably involves a lot of pain.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty nasty,” I agreed. Come to think of it, even with my standard 70% pain filter, dying was no walk in the park, but what about NPCs? They probably had 100% sensation by default, so they felt pain just as we would in real life. The developers had made that world awfully realistic, maybe even too realistic — while I was there, I didn’t see any difference from reality. It was a bit scary, as the thing that had just happened between me and Weldy felt as real as ever. I tried to notice some discrepancy, but there was none.

The girl lying next to me was alive, warm, not artificial in the least. I couldn’t continue associating her with a program. Was I lying to myself, or had Balabanov been right, and they accidentally created a new dimension in their own image and likeness? It was starting to get more and more confusing.

“Now, you don’t have to be afraid of anything,” I snickered. “Because I’m here.”

“You’ll protect me?” the girl asked fondly. Then she touched my lips with hers and whispered, “I’m so happy that it all worked out. From our very first meeting, I wanted to be with you. When I saw you with the flowers at the doorstep of the shop, my heart told me, he’s the one. That’s the truth. Do you believe me?”

“I do. I felt it.”

Weldy wistfully traced the lines of my huge Leadership tattoo, following all the curves. The mark covered my entire hand, from the wrist and up to the shoulder, ending just below the neck. It was a gorgeous pattern, but in real life, I would never dare to get something like that. Tattoos are only useful when ID-ing bodies, my father always said. After playing Sphere, I could argue with him. They added a certain aesthetic appeal, a measure of eroticism, personality. Almost everyone had them in that world — even Weldy, as it turned out.

“It’s pretty, just like a knight’s pauldron,” she concluded after a thorough examination.

“And really, why are you studying me? I want to learn where such a good girl got a tattoo, too!” With a slight push, I made our bodies switch places, and Weldy’s thigh came right into my view. There was a small tattoo, no larger than a fingernail. It reminded me of a rune or a cuneiform character. I had seen a similar image before, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

“You’ve already manage to study it? What a rascal. It’s a symbol of our lineage. It was painted when I was a baby,” Weldy confessed. “All Nialits have it.”

Got it! I opened my character’s profile and checked it. There it was. The girl’s tattoo was the spitting image of the icon of one of