Tower Climber (A LitRPG Adventure, Book 1) Jakob Tanner (reading comprehension books TXT) 📖

He looked down at Seth, groaning in pain.

In a little over twenty-four hours, the tables had turned.

Landing a good kick into Seth was a fitting conclusion to his life in the outer-rim.

He was a citizen of the tower-zone now.

Samuel Archer stood at the window of his penthouse home in the tower-zone.

His view looked over the whole city. The tower, the tower-zone, and even beyond the wall into the outer-rim.

The sounds of rattling chains echoed behind him, followed by the groans of several monsters.

“Settle down, my pets,” said the man. “I’ll feed you soon enough.”

He was waiting for someone. He didn’t like to be kept waiting.

Then a shadowy figure emerged on his balcony.

Samuel took a step outside onto his penthouse balcony, closing the door behind him.

“Have you found anything out about the newest citizen?”

“Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to gather much, sir,” said the shadowy figure, perched on the very edge of the balcony.

“Do I pay you for no results?”

The figure noticeably shuddered. He was well aware of the type of pain Samuel Archer could inflict on him.

“He was illegally thrown in yesterday. It looks like the climber president and Sakura The Golden Blade are going to let him stay.”

“What is his trait? Does he have one?”

“The Golden Blade destroyed the analyst’s file,” said the shadowy figure. “It will take a bit more work to find out what it is.”

“It must be a powerful trait then,” sighed Samuel. “Sakura wouldn’t go so far as to destroy the analyst’s documents if it were anything else. He must have an uncommon or rare trait then.”

“Do you think his presence will effect our plans?” asked the shadowy figure.

“A puny boy from the outer-rim?” scoffed Samuel. “I doubt he’ll amount to anything, but it is good to be cautious. Keep a close eye on him. If he ends up in our way, we’ll simply remove him.”

11

“Well, I guess you’ll be crashing here tonight,” said Sakura, opening the door to her apartment.

She flipped on the light switch and Max gaped at the messy living room in front of him.

Potato chip bags and instant noodle cups littered the floor, alongside cans of beer.

Sakura looked around her apartment and laughed. “Sorry—I wasn’t expecting any visitors.”

“Oh really? I couldn’t tell,” said Max, trying to be polite but worried he was coming across as sarcastic.

He was surprised by how messy it all was. Sakura was such a powerful fighter and seemed to take her job as a defense climber seriously that he was expecting her apartment to be cleaner.

The woman waltzed in and threw her leather jacket on the floor. She headed to her refrigerator and grabbed a can of beer.

“Help yourself to whatever you’d like,” she said. “What’s mine is yours.”

Max stepped into the apartment, peering around. It was a very large apartment and Max could see that if it were clean, it might actually be quite impressive and maybe even swanky-looking. Beyond the messiness was a tall bookshelf full of paperback novels with cheesy titles like Lovers First, Climbers Second and Love Has No Walls.

He pulled the book out from the shelf.

Sakura’s eyes lit up. “Are you a fan? That one’s my favorite. I love how you think the couple might not end up together, but then they do. So sweet!”

Max laughed and put the book back on the shelf. “I haven’t read it but maybe I’ll give it a try later.

Sakura cracked open her beer and took a long swig and then sighed.

“I’d love to write a book like that one day,” she said, clasping her hands together like an adoring teenaged girl at a boy band concert. “One about star-crossed lovers who battle the odds and end up together in the end.”

She sighed once more as her fantasy floated away from her. “But that will have to wait until I retire from being a climber. As much as it would be nice to pursue, I have the ability to protect others, so I must honor and respect that power.”

Max nodded his head. He got the distinct feeling Sakura may have been speaking more to herself than to him, but he wasn’t going to say anything.

The woman plopped down on her couch and turned to him.

“So,” she said. “I’m realizing I’m doing a terrible job at hosting. Are you hungry? I don’t have much beyond instant noodles. They’re in the cupboard over there.”

Max stepped over the dirty carpet to the small kitchen area. He opened up the cupboards to find an impressive array of Styrofoam instant noodle cups, but not much else.

There was a pack of bacon in the freezer and some leftover eggs in the fridge.

I can work with this, Max thought to himself.

He turned back to Sakura. “Thank you for letting me stay with you. Let me cook us some dinner.”

Fifteen minutes later, he placed a bowl of fried bacon and egg ramen in front of Sakura.

Her eyes widened at the sight of the bowl.

“Amazing,” she said. “You’ll impress a lucky lady one day with such culinary prowess.”

Max nodded awkwardly. He was no romantic expert in any way whatsoever, but he had a pretty strong inclination that instant noodles poured over sizzling bacon and eggs was not the meal to a lady’s heart.

Sakura scarfed down her whole bowl in less than a minute.

“Dee-licious!”

She burped and fell back on the couch and placed her hand on her stomach.

Despite her being quite older than him, Max had no problem admitting Sakura was a very attractive woman. That is, until he stepped into her apartment and met this other Sakura.

“Let’s make a deal,” said Sakura. “You can stay here in my extra bedroom for as long as you want. I won’t take any rent from you, but here are my conditions: you’ll keep this place tidy, cook dinner, and—this is the most important part—three of those meals must be bacon and egg ramen.”

She stared him dead in the eyes. “Do we have a deal?”

Her zealous love for bacon and egg ramen