The Demonic Games (Disgardium Book #7): LitRPG Series Dan Sugralinov (top 100 books to read .txt) 📖

The girl rolled her eyes. Clearly, the financial side bothered her least of all. Judging by what she did in the Pitfall, Michelle was impulsive and thought more with her heart than her head. She seemed curious like a cat, and I could work with that. Surely I had a laser pen… I went through a few options, then whispered conspiratorially:

“Can you keep a secret, Michelle? The reason I really need the prize from the champion of the Games…”

She glanced to the side where a few miniature camera drones were hovering like dragonflies above a river and filming us.

“They’re not streaming right now, but if you tell it to me here, everyone will know it by tomorrow,” the girl said. “But you know what? I’m curious! Truth be told, I want them to keep you in. I’d like to fight on your side and see what you’re made of… And how well you keep your word. Tonight, after the interviews, in your room? You can tell me that secret of yours. Deal?” She stretched out a hand, and I shook it.

“Sure thing.”

“Okay, Alex,” Michelle nodded, her gaze locked on my face. “I’ll be voting to accept your offer. Meister has made it clear: anyone who refuses must leave the raid. Nobody will do that. On the other hand, if we take a risk, we have a chance of winning the Demonic Games, and for that…”

Purring something to herself under her breath, the girl smiled and withdrew her hand. Only then did I realize that her palm was sweating; Michelle was nervous to be talking to me. She ran back to her own, knocking into Bloomer on the way as he stepped back for a run-up for his throw, but seemed not to notice him. The poet stumbled after bumping into her and sent the ball into the gutter. Or maybe it was just a curse from Roman working its magic.

I didn’t know if it was Michelle’s vote that made the difference, but soon they called me forward and announced that everyone agreed to the alliance. And there were no additional conditions or questions. The old man Rosenthal just announced the group’s verdict and asked:

“So, do we have a deal?”

I nodded, and Meister called for an Arbiter. Not five minutes passed before an unassuming man entered in a gray suit, with sleepy eyes and mousy slicked-back hair.

“Subject of the agreement? Parties?” he asked flatly.

Meister declared the conditions and named the participants: all present and Alex Sheppard. After hearing him out, the prime notary asked:

“A term of one month for Alex Sheppard to fulfill his obligations. Are we counting from when the contract is signed or from the end of the Demonic Games?”

“Start from today!” Joker the gnomish engineer shouted, the one who blew up his own allies the day before at the Aegis.

In life, he was the opposite of his character — a huge, impassive musclehead around six and a half feet tall. People called him by his game nickname in real life so as not to confuse Joker-Joseph with Meister-Joseph.

“No,” Joseph argued. “It’s only fair to start it from the day the Games end.”

“Has the method for increasing the total stats been discussed?”

“I can’t reveal that ahead of time, Sir Arbiter,” I answered.

“Very well, we’ll put down that it’s through any means not contradicting gameplay…”

The prime notary clarified a few more details, declared the final conditions of the deal and even entered the total of all the characters’ stats as of today into the agreement, then declared the deal done and warned us that violating the conditions would carry a penalty — up to and including a demotion in citizenship status.

All this took not much time, fifteen minutes, but still enough that dinner was drawing to a close by the time we made it to the hall of ceremonies.

“See you tonight,” Michelle whispered in my ear as she passed.

Her hot breath raised the hairs on the back of my neck. I smiled in embarrassment — who knew how the viewers would take her words, that is, of course, if they heard them. I watched her go and then found my table, but didn’t sit down. Now that I had the support of Meister’s people, I decided to push my luck and try to talk to Quetzal. It wasn’t that I was hoping for his help — I just wanted to make my interest known.

But Renato didn’t want to talk to me. No sooner did I walk over to his table and open my mouth than he barked:

“We have nothing to talk about, Sheppard! Say goodbye and go away, today’s your last day here!”

Tissa was sitting next to him. She whispered something into Renato’s ear and he nodded to her. Malik just stared at me, chuckling.

“Ask your new girlfriend what I can offer you, Mr. Loyola,” I said before walking away.

I spoke calmly, but anger boiled inside me. I didn’t understand why those two couldn’t just chill out. So they betrayed me. Fine, I could accept that — our paths diverged, it happens. But why keep provoking me? For the first time since day one, I started to have doubts about how honest Tissa and Malik were being…

Deep in thought, I bumped into the chair of one of the contestants. I apologized, then saw who it was. It turned out that the path to my lonely table had taken me through the area occupied by Destiny’s group.

“Looks like you went blind at the bottom of the Pitfall,” a muscle-bound man with a prickly gaze growled. My comm told me this was Ezekiel Crass, better known as Urkish the lopher. Turning to the group leader, he nodded toward me: “You see that, Des? So rude!”

Destiny Windsor sipped her champagne, smiled wickedly and