Path of Spirit (Disgardium Book #6): LitRPG Series, Dan Sugralinov [the reader ebook .TXT] 📗

eyes drilled into him, then the man gave him a friendly clap on the shoulder:

“Don’t fret. Solve the Sheppard problem and it’ll all be in the past.”

“And if I don’t solve it?” Kiran dared ask.

Menfil didn’t answer. Just limped back to the hall, whistling all the way.

 

 

Chapter 26. No Joke

“THEY’RE ALL DEAD… All of them! Get up, we have to run!” Maria repeated, then growled, grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled hard…

The world swam, blurred. I screwed up my eyes reflexively…

A cold wind whipped my cheek and I swayed. Hairo stood before me, looking straight at me. Alive. Sergei Yuferov stood nearby, shivering and hopping from foot to foot. I was back on the roof again. I pulled in air, trying to wrap my mind around what had happened. What was that? Divine Revelation? But how? Back on Alaska, it had captured mere seconds of reality, and I’d almost convinced myself that it was just exhaustion, that I’d dreamed up who knows what, but now? No, I needed to corner Behemoth and find out how the hell this was possible!

While I was thinking, my memories of what I’d seen faded, almost disappeared. Now they seemed like a flashing thought, a trick of the imagination. I shook my head to get a grip on reality, suddenly got dizzy and lost my balance. Roj held me up.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, fine. Thanks. It’s all this training of yours!”

“Complaint noted and disregarded,” Hairo chuckled, then frowned. “Anyway, this is the only way we can deal with Furtado, Alex. He stays locked up while we take care of the Cartel problem. You realize we all could have been killed because of him, right? Back on Alaska.”

I felt deja vu. Again.

“This is how they found us!” Morales exclaimed. “The Darant brothels are controlled by…”

“Hairo!” I interrupted, suddenly getting the picture. “Mr. Morales! The brothel where Trixie met Jess is controlled by the Cartel! Diego Aranzabal is flying to meet with his people. If he mentions us, it’s over. That’s what you were about to tell me, right?”

The security officer’s eyes widened in surprise. He nodded silently and I continued:

“Before you decide anything, cancel the operation and don’t even think of flying. Somehow I know that’s exactly what you’re planning, and you’re going to take Roj with you too. You can’t! You’ll all be killed.”

The security officers exchanged glances, then stared at me.

“Mr. Morales, this is no joke, no dumb prank! Remember, this happened back on Alaska too, and back then I was right!”

Hairo sat me down for a formal debriefing to get every last detail of what I’d learned from Divine Revelation this time. Neither he nor Roj understood how it was possible, but they took my story seriously with surprising ease. After learning all he wanted, Hairo clapped me on the shoulder.

“I’m going to keep all this in mind. Go downstairs and stay in your rooms. Roj, go keep an eye on him, make sure the kid doesn’t do anything stupid.”

As I descended from the roof, I remembered that I’d promised Rita a date. Berating myself, I rushed to my apartment and climbed into my capsule. The spot where I’d been training with Oyama was empty, and I didn’t bother staying there — I jumped straight to Mengoza.

I found Irita in the Bone and Fossil. The girl was working: epic and legendary items appeared in her hands, then disappeared. At the next table, Infect was engrossed in digging through a pile of pots and bones from his excavations.

“Bomb’s fishing, Crawler’s asleep. I’m leveling up Archeology. I want to get it done before the Games,” the bard rattled off when he noticed me, then got back to work.

Irita got up to meet me. Her face brightened, she took a step and then stopped, hesitating.

“We’ll need to agree on a more specific time next time, Alex. ‘Tonight’ is too vague,” she smiled.

“Sorry…” I thought for a moment, but decided not to lie. “I was with an Unarmed Combat trainer all day, then I logged out to have dinner, laid down for just a minute and fell asleep. Then we had a kind of emergency.”

I sat down at her table and told her of Trixie’s unfortunate love affair and what his naivety might have led to. I said nothing about Diego Aranzabal and the Cartel; no need to scare her. All I said was that another problem had come up, that it wasn’t solved yet and I had to log out again.

“I understand,” Irita said. “Don’t worry, it’s fine.”

“Believe me, I do want to spend time with you…”

“I know! It’s just that right now you don’t even belong to yourself. Apologies are no use to me, but instead I’ll take…” She made as if she was thinking. “…a kiss.”

“I can do that,” I nodded and, as the few workers left in the tavern after midnight whistled their approval, I pulled the girl toward me…

My brain must have switched off; two hours passed before I came back to reality. Irita and I were lying on a sandy beach on one of the small islands near Kharinza, taking turns to drink wine straight out of the bottle, talking about everything, staring at the starry sky. Storm wheeled high above us, her sparkling silhouette like a moving constellation.

“You know, my brother Chris… Well, he’s a lady’s man, you know? Never lets a skirt pass him by,” Irita said. “He came to Dis because the girls are so accessible. I don’t mean in that way… I just mean that all the senior female students of our district were in the same sandbox, so there was more choice. Do you know why he decided to get into trading with me? Because he could see them all without leaving Tristad!”

“What got you into trading?”

“Oh, it’s my