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

“Nah, I can’t,” Kerry answered, her voice more sober now. “You can’t talk to the outside world, Alex.”

“Damn, shame…”

I found Hellfish in the media center. One of the leaders of the Travelers was telling the reporters that the group made their decision to help me the previous day. Supposedly neither Horvac nor Hinterleaf had given any such instructions. After all, despite the alliance of their clans and the Awoken, there could still only be one winner, and helping Scyth could threaten Hellfish’s group.

“That’s all for now,” someone said quietly behind me. I turned and saw Kara. The mage who had protected me with Iceblock shrugged: “Sorry, but you’re on your own from here. We have to get as high as we can on the leaderboard, that’s our orders from the top. The Games give a serious boost to the clan rankings. If we babysit you, we’ll be cut out. There are too few of us. Our progress is going to slow down tomorrow as it is. They’re not going to forgive us so easy. No hard feelings, right?”

“Every man for himself, and the demon take the hindmost,” I said, repeating something I’d heard Uncle Nick say once. “Thanks for today.”

I’d celebrated too soon… Kerry didn’t give me time to finish the thought before dragging me off for question time. That said, the journalists tortured me only for a few minutes, mostly asking what I felt when I was unexpectedly saved.

After the interview, we went up to my room.

“Can I use your bathroom, Alex?” Kerry asked. “I’m bursting!”

“Sure…”

Before I knew what was happening, she grabbed me and pulled me after her.

“Who do you want to contact? What do you need to know? Need to send a message? Tell me quick!”

I gave her the contact details Yoshi had given me. Our techie had made me learn it by heart — an untrackable proxy comm that would redirect the caller to our base.

“Talk to Ed Rodriguez and Hung Lee.”

“Friends of yours?” Kerry asked.

“I really hope so. Best if you talk to Ed, if you can, it’s his subject. We need a list of legendaries and artifacts for jewelers that we have in the clan or the ASS!”

“In the ass?” Kerry giggled. “Oh, the goblins, got it. Consider it done. Now step outside, I really do need to pee. Or stay if you want, I don’t care…”

I fled the bathroom, spurred on by her laughter.

Once my assistant left, I started reading the top comments of the day online. The very first one made me smile:

Bosun | +17.32m | 2 hours ago

Congratulations to everyone who supported my ultimatum yesterday! We won, guys! Snowstorm backed off! Now is the perfect time to give Scyth a chance. How about we vote him the best player of the day? No matter how he plays tomorrow, let’s vote for him to reward his sick performance so far! Well, who’s with me?

Scyth, son, if you’re reading this, mom says hi!

The other comments centered more around what Quetzal had done, the split between him and Marcus, the perspectives of Hellfish’s group… But the demon came to dominate all discussions. A multitude of mythology buffs and satanists came to the fore, advancing their opinions on which high demon we were dealing with. Diablo? Lucius? Belial? It definitely wasn’t Azmodan; his arm simply wouldn’t have fit through the gap in the gates.

I didn’t waste any time on empty guesswork. I took out a few sheets of paper and a pen and started drawing. The path of the solo player is tortuous, but Behemoth taught me that the best allies are made from old enemies. The kind that know what you’re capable of, and respect you for it. But first of all, I had to figure out who wasn’t my enemy.

I opened the day’s highlight reel on Disgardium Daily. It was commentated by Dariush Kovalski, whose voice I remembered from the Arena final. Then I started to match up the shields that had been placed on me with the classes of the contestants, using Occam’s razor to discard the impossible options.

An hour later I had a list of potential allies.

Once done with that, I started writing down rosters of the groups that had formed. I traced the lines, and if I couldn’t remember something, I checked the holorecordings. In the end, all arrows pointed to five contestants that had influence on the others. Destiny was out. Quetzal and Hellfish weren’t my enemies. The only ones left were Marcus Jansson and Joseph Rosenthal, Marcus and Meister…

The hardest thing is to convince enemies that they’re better off being your friends. My persuasion skills might not have been the best in real life, but a certain gangster from the last century used to say that a kind word and a good gun worked better than just a kind word.

I could find words, and interesting artifacts, and I already had a ‘gun.’ Several, even: Sharkon, the Montosaurus, Storm and a few powerful abilities like Wheel of Fortune.

Incidentally, it seemed the AI who had described the stats to me was right. Luck didn’t seem to do a damn thing here.

Chapter 13. Under The Dome

IN THE MORNING, I nearly overslept and missed the start of the game session in the Cursed Chasm. And all because I put my hopes in Kerry and didn’t set an alarm in my room. Actually, the alarm was set, but I switched it off because I’d stayed up all night until morning working on my plans. Kerry didn’t come to get me up after I nodded off.

The night before, after leaving me in my room, she let slip that she was planning to celebrate her winnings with some girlfriends. Guess she had a good time, I thought, cleaning my teeth furiously. There