“Just make sure you kill as many as you can before they bring you down,” said a new voice that belonged to a towering elephantaur who had replaced the naga in the circle around the fire.
“I will honor them,” Alexander replied, “and end them. All of them.”
“Don’t get cocky now, newcomer,” said the elephant-man but Gardun, who was sitting to his right, nudged him with her elbow to make him stop.
Alexander didn’t reply immediately but rested his eyes on the flames once again. “Your friends will know peace.”
A soft trumpet escaped the elephantaur’s trunk along with a nod of acknowledgment at what Alexander had said. They all continued staring at the bonfire, the sky above them now clear, the moon having visibly changed from its previous crescent shape into an almost-full blood moon.
“How long till his match?” the male vampire asked, breaking the silence around the crackling fire.
“A couple of hours, I reckon,” the orc replied.
“Go on then,” the vampire said, now looking at Alexander. “Finish your story before you get killed.”
“My story doesn’t end anytime soon. Neither will my life.”
“Yes, yes,” the vampire replied mockingly, “you’re absolutely the first person ever to say that.”
“You said it was the first time you almost got murdered?” the orc prompted him to continue.
“It’s pure luck I’m still alive.”
12
Child in time
The wooden door of my apartment exploded into a dozen pieces. The biggest one hit me straight in the chest, which was quite lucky since it probably would have knocked me out cold if it had hit my head instead. That wasn’t to say that it didn’t hurt. However, the pain registered with a slight delay as my whole and undivided attention was brought to the fact I couldn’t breathe. The strength with which I was hit forced the air out of my lungs and I wasn’t able to replenish it for a few moments.
Louie’s barks were suddenly replaced by incantations and before I managed to pick myself up from the floor, I felt the familiar warmth of his healing spell wash over me. I launched myself up and glanced at our aggressors to get their stats before running away from them, further into the apartment.
Name: ???
Race: Human
Class: Mage
Level: 11
Name: ???
Race: Human/???
Class: Rogue
Level: 12
Name: ???
Race: Human
Class: Thief
Level: 9
It was the same fuckers that had stepped on Louie and attacked me three months ago. The ones who were responsible for the twenty-thousand-dollar bill at the hospital and for dragging me into the Apocosmos.
“In the bedroom, Louie!” I shouted and somersaulted over the coffee table, trying to avoid another Gale Blast.
Holding a tablet in my hand and wearing the bare minimum of clothing didn’t help with my attack and defense stats at all, and of course that was all that mattered in the Apocosmos. Being part of the Apocosmos might have the advantage of making me practically bulletproof when attacked by weapons made in the Cosmos but the Dark Energy wouldn’t protect me at all from people who lurked in the other world. I hadn’t thought much of it when I stored all of our equipment in the bedroom we never used, but at this moment I regretted not considering how inconvenient that would be in the case of an attack like this. Always a bit too fucking late.
“Well, if it isn’t the tough boy from the pizza place,” I heard a voice say, and with it Louie’s porcelain water bowl was smashed on the wall. “And his little bitch.”
Above all, I had to control my temper. He was goading me, but replying to him now would only earn me a blade in my guts. Louie scurried toward the bedroom’s closed door. To my surprise, he muttered an incantation and the handle turned, opening the door enough for him to push through. So that was what he had been practicing: a way around his small height and lack of opposable thumbs.
I hurried into the bedroom myself and Louie shut the door loudly, locking it with the same cantrip while I threw my leather vest on. There were a couple of metallic thumps on the other side of the door. If the apartment door couldn’t handle the force of their spell, there was no reason why this one would.
“Get behind me,” I said to Louie as I slid into my leather pants.
There was no time to put on any of the helms or boots Leo had lent me, but Louie had just enough time to nudge his wizard’s hat onto his head. When he bought the thing, I’d made fun of how cliché it looked, all blue with yellow stars, but the joke never really landed as he couldn’t grasp the meaning of the word cliché. Now though, I was thankful he had the protection of at least one piece of equipment that would work against Apocosmos attacks.
“We know you’re in there!” someone shouted outside of the room and I pulled both of my swords out of the scabbards resting on the bed.
“Louie, the streaming lights,” I said, and he stepped further back.
When Leo had gifted me the ultimate streaming setup, he had bought me a bright set of three-point lighting so that I could deliver the best content on Twitch. Of course, I’d never used it, because I never asked for it. Even the camera had never been turned on. Now, it turned out that this had been the perfect place to store them. I swiftly turned all three light boxes to face the door while Louie telekinetically plugged them into the outlet and turned their brightness dials up to the maximum.
“Suit yourself, you bastard,” was the last thing I heard before another burst of condensed, mana-infused air blasted through the door and landed on the hilts of my crossed swords.
“Light them up, boy!” I shouted and pushed myself forward.
Two things happened at once. First, the lights threw my shadow onto three people who flinched to cover their eyes. Second, a line of blood was painted on my pristine cream bedroom carpet as I slashed the mage from shoulder to hip. Sending him first was a big mistake on their part, but I bet they hadn’t expected me to fight back. At least not with swords.
Not wanting to lose any of my momentum, I brought my second sword forward and pierced him through the shoulder. It wasn’t enough to bring him down but would sure make him fall back. Before the other two recovered from their momentarily stunned condition, I triggered Mighty Slash and landed it with both swords on the lower-level human. At that instant, I felt a gentle breeze, building in pressure, coming from behind me and I jumped back just in time for Louie’s Gale Blast to hit the thief I had just attacked.
Just as I started believing that the bastards had gotten more than they’d bargained for, I realized Louie’s spell hadn’t carried nearly the same kind of power the thug’s spell had. Being level 11, the mage must have upgraded his Gale Blast so its power was greater, plus he was also carrying a short staff that further improved his stats. Louie, on the other hand, had no weapon meaning that his Magic Attack was way lower. Perhaps I should have listened to him when he was pleading to go XPing. I never stopped going to the gym, but being able to do pull-ups hardly mattered right now.
The thief stepped in front of the mage who was already healing himself and darted toward me menacingly. I brought my swords forward, pointing one at his chest and keeping the second just above my head, ready for whatever attack he might dish out with his dagger. The rogue, who had now taken out a short bow, fired an arrow but his aim was so bad that I didn’t even have to move to avoid it. The moment the cooldown timer of my Mighty Slash skill was about to reset, I was surprised by a puffing sound followed by a yelp from Louie.
It turned out that the rogue’s aim was far from bad, and the arrows had struck the base of one of the light boxes, making it burst into a small cloud of smoke. What’s worse, the arrowheads had created a short-circuit and killed the lights in the whole apartment.
I swiped my swords left and right in the dark, just in case one of them tried to make a move at that exact moment and I felt
the desperation of how stupid and incompetent of a fighter I was. At the same time, I felt Louie touch my ankle gently, letting me know he was next to me so that I wouldn’t have to worry about accidentally injuring him.
“We’re sorry about the door,” said a voice from the other end of the room.
“Fuck off,” I said and immediately ducked, realizing what he was trying to do.
Sure enough, I heard a dagger stick into the door of the wardrobe behind me. The darkness must have been much more of an advantage for me than it was for them. I knew the room. I knew where each piece of furniture and heavy object was. I might not be able to see in the dark, but trying to bait me into giving my location away implied that they couldn’t either, and I could use this to my advantage. I just needed to…
“Gotcha.” There was a whisper just in front of my face, the breath hot and smelling of sulfur.
A pair of red serpent eyes flashed briefly before me as a weird feeling of pressure in my stomach overtook me. I struck out with my sword but the voice’s owner had already stepped back. I glanced at the red and blue bars in the corner of my vision.
HP : 97/183
MP: 41/59
The bastard had brought me down to half of my HP and I was sure, even though I couldn’t feel the pain at the moment, that if the lights went up I would be able to see things inside my body that I shouldn’t be able to. He had most probably triggered the Mortal Stab dagger skill that I also had. The rogue had another race in his stats window when I examined him. Could it be that he could see in the dark? If that was the case, I had only one option left. Create light and attack him.
“Heal me, buddy,” I said and readied myself to launch an attack followed by my only offensive skill.
“But the light—”
“Exactly. Do it!” I shouted and stepped forward, my left foot still touching Louie so he’d know where to target me.
“Come on, bitch,” hissed the spellcaster.
The light enveloped me and I felt a slight tingle as the warmth was concentrated around the area where I had been stabbed. I watched my HP bar be fully replenished as I brought down my swords on the thief. I had no trouble finding my target since he was fully illuminated by the healing light that showered me. He tried moving out of the way but with the change of light, he’d only managed to redirect my second sword. The first one cut his arm from shoulder to elbow.
The one I was looking for, however—the night-vision rogue—was 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 to cut, break, and smash. I wanted blood.
Still on my knees, I pul
led my head forward, bringing the guy holding my hair with me. Then I snapped my head swiftly back, the hind part of my skull landing straight on his nose. There was a horrible cracking sound as his nose was smashed and I enjoyed it. But he wasn’t my target. The one who hurt my Louie was. I planted my right foot on the ground and launched myself forward, headfirst, toward the mage who had just started casting another spell. Since my hands were still tied behind my back, I did what any rabid being would do to somebody who hurt their loved ones. I put my mouth on his fucking neck and clenched my jaw as hard as I could.
“He bit me!” the man cried out as I spat out the piece of flesh in my mouth. “The fucker bit me!”
His first reaction was to push me away and put his hands on his neck, trying to stop the blood that was spraying everywhere. I wasn’t going to let him have it though. The bonds on my hands weren’t as tight anymore, and I flexed my wrists to snap them. Again, I went after him, my hands pressing on his throat, the blood coming quicker, spraying with even greater force.
“Die! Die!” I shouted as I briefly took my right hand off his throat only to smash it into his face, clenched and with all the strength I had.
However, before my second punch an arrow lodged itself into my palm. Not that this would stop me. Instinctively, I slapped the man with that hand, dragging the arrowhead across his cheek, piercing it through. As I was about to pull the arrow out of my hand, a kick threw me off the mage and down next to where Louie was cowering seconds ago. But Louie was now standing at the door, looking at me as he cast a healing spell.
“Run!” I shouted as another kick pushed me to the wall and out of Louie’s sight.
His spell wouldn’t land if he had no physical or eye contact with me. And they knew it. Another kick. And a punch. No, not a punch. Something heavier, on the back of my head.
Berserker: A LitRPG Urban Fantasy Adventure (Apocosmos Book 1) Page 19
