The Demonic Games (Disgardium Book #7): LitRPG Series, Dan Sugralinov [the read aloud family TXT] 📗

them, or they’ll throw you down the hole,” I warned the girl. Then, not wanting to interrupt Meister’s eulogy as he listed off each player by name, I whispered to Quetzal: “There’s still time before the day ends. I think I need to go looking for Youlang.”

I couldn’t stop wondering how she got past the demon, and how the spellcaster had ended up on floor 22, exactly where my allies had been waiting. If there was an explanation for the first, then the second was unlikely to be a coincidence.

“Youlang…” Quetzal said thoughtfully, echoing my thoughts. “It’s weird that out of all the floors she could have gone to, she went to the exact one where our raid was holed up…”

“How did she even get past the demon?”

“How do you think?” Hellfish chuckled. “With Blink. She jumped from floor to floor until she reached… Oh, shit!”

It hit me in the same moment. I stood, raised a hand, shouted:

“Hey, everyone!” My allies looked at me. “I’m going to call out some names. If you hear your name, walk over to me…” I went through the raid list, shouting off names: “Anna… Meister… Koba…”

Those named moved to stand next to me and the ones who were with me during Youlang’s attack — Quetzal, Hellfish and Destiny.

Watching my actions in confusion, they exchanged glances, then figured it out.

“You think someone ratted us out?” the titan asked in a whisper.

“We have a mole from Marcus in our midst. There’s no other explanation.”

“He got knocked out!” Destiny exclaimed. “Didn’t he?”

“He did, but one of his people is still with us,” I answered.

“Youlang must have been in a raid with the mole and seen their marker on the map!” Hellfish nodded. “It has to be one of Meister’s people! We know all our guys, but he had over a hundred. Some of them must have been outside the group…”

A quick headcount and a comparison with the current raid list showed that one of those present wasn’t in our raid. It was the tailor Hox, the one who had tried to stab me with the knife.

The gnome rolled up into a ball beneath Quetzal’s harsh gaze. The titan asked in a friendly tone:

“Hey, buddy, how is it that you’re not in the group?”

“Well, uhh…” the tailor floundered. “Wasn’t invited!”

“Sure, sure… And what stopped you piping up to ask for an invite?”

“Don’t kill me! This is a misunderstanding! Send me an invite! I’ll accept it!”

“He’s lying!” Meister said through gritted teeth. “I sent him an invite personally! I just forgot to check the damn list! I’m such an idiot!”

“You couldn’t have known,” Bloomer reassured him.

Those two had only just finished crying over their friend Roman. The curser had been one of the first to fall at Youlang’s hand after attacking her with his legendary “Hope you die!” curse. Now, having found the one responsible for his death, the jeweler and the poet perked up. Meister jumped up and shook his fists:

“Bastard! How could you, Hox?”

“Traitor! Scumbag!” The poet shoved Hox away. “Where’s the shame on your face?”

The tailor stopped trying to act. Realizing he was caught, he blurted out:

“What could I do? Marcus’s clan Warsong is my main customer! They promised not to kill me if I collaborated, they said I’d be at the top of the leaderboard!”

“They had over a hundred people themselves, moron!” Hellfish snapped. “They would never have let you into the top 10%! Hey, what’s that you have there?”

Hox was spinning his rusty shank in his hands. The sniper grabbed it and looked closer.

“This is no simple knife! Now I see why this idiot was trying to cut you, Scyth! Take a look!”

Caustic Shank of Confusion

 

Rare dagger.

 

Damage: 1-2.

 

Each hit dealt by this knife has a very low chance of causing the victim to suffer an attack of confusion, making them perceive friends as foes and foes as friends.

 

+1 agility.

 

+1% chance of causing instant death.

 

Attention! Deals no damage to demons.

 

Only for the Demonic Games!

 

Sell price: 75 demonic gold coins.

 

Chance of loss after death lowered by 50%.

 

Hellfish put the knife away in his inventory, but I extended a demanding hand:

“Give it to me.”

“You don’t trust me?”

“Go ahead and tell me why you need it. I definitely don’t need it, I can take out anyone without it. It doesn’t work against mobs, so what am I supposed to think?”

The werewolf stared at me hard, saying nothing. I tensed, but he flipped the knife over and handed it back to me. I put it straight into my inventory.

Quetzal cut the tension:

“Now that’d be funny!” The titan broke out in laughter. He slapped himself on the knee, bending double. “Ahaha! Everyone tries to kill him and he survives! Ha-ha! They throw him into the Pitfall — he survives! Ha-ha! They throw him in again as a statue — he survives! Ha-ha! They almost kill him dozens of times, but he slips away every time! Then he nearly died to a level 1 tailor with a rusty knife! Hahaha! The great class-A Threat! Level 101! And he could have fallen down dead… Ahahaha!”

The titan was in hysterics, he couldn’t stop.

“The chance was only 1%!”

“Lucky son of a bitch!” Hellfish shouted, also unable to hold back the laughter. “How much luck you got there, kid?”

Listening to them, the others broke out into laughter too. Even Meister cheered up. All at once, they started recalling my apparently random, but suspiciously consistent good luck. There were rational explanations for all the coincidences, but altogether, the only thing that could explain them all was luck!

Distracted, I nearly missed the moment when Joker decided to quietly start killing Hox. At first I noticed the