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

when the Preventers have a bone to pick with me, when the other contestants think I’m taking up someone else’s spot here… But to believe that nearly every viewer wants me out of the Demonic Games? I just won’t do it. So don’t be silent — if you supported me or at least didn’t vote against me…”

“My God, so cliche!” Axel said, facepalming.

Paying no attention to his pantomime, I spoke with even more passion in my voice:

“You are ordinary people, people like me. There are more of us than them! Let’s prove that we, the unchosen, the non-elites, are together! And together, we are strong..!”

After my fiery speech, I answered a bunch of easier questions: What’s going on with you and Michelle Ardi? What did you promise to Joseph Rosenthal? Is it true that Meister’s entire group will get a million each after the Games for supporting you..?

I didn’t go to any effort, just answered briefly:

“Nothing… No comment… That’s not true…”

After the interview, I went to my room to rest, collapsed onto my bed as soon as I walked in. I’d been through a lot in the last year and a half, but the Demonic Games were something else. My body didn’t seem to be able to produce hormones fast enough for me to feel proper emotions, and I’d fallen into dull indifference. I didn’t even have the strength to get up and take a shower.

It was all getting to me. I wanted to go back to November last year, when my biggest problem was a talking-to from Mr. Kovac or teasing from the Dementors. Lessons, movies about space, sitting with Eva on the bench outside the Bubbling Flagon… Suddenly I felt an overwhelming desire to see my parents, hug them and hold them. I wanted mom to stroke my head and dad to tell me cheerfully ‘everything will be okay, son.’

I didn’t feel sorry for myself. I chose this path. It would have been very easy to accept Kiran’s offer, or to not resist when the Alliance was harassing all the noobs in the Darant town hall. I’d solved all my financial problems and achieved my initial goal. Only failing my citizenship tests would stop me going to university now, and I wouldn’t fail them. I was sure there was still enough time to make up for what I’d missed out, and there wasn’t even much to make up for — I could cram the material in a month or two. But the ever increasing uncertainty, the feeling of being always suspended above an abyss, the growing dangers — now not only from the Triad, the Cartel and the Preventers, but from Snowstorm itself… It all took its toll.

That was the mood I was in when I heard a careful knock at the door.

“Contestant Michelle Ardi,” the room’s AI helper reported, projecting a holographic dossier of my guest before me. “Select option: open, report your absence…”

“I’ll deal with it,” I answered, rising from the bed.

As soon as I opened the door, Michelle slipped inside. Looking around, she opened the minibar, pulled out a bottle of red wine and offered it to me. I stood there dumbly for a few seconds, then realized I was expected to open it. I took the bottle and went to look for a corkscrew. Only now did I pay attention to the clothes and dirty socks strewn around the room. Blushing, I kicked them under the bed as I walked past.

“So peaceful and quiet here,” Michelle said. “I flew in with my girlfriends, they put us in three adjoining rooms. Every day’s a party! Why’s it so boring here?”

“Well… You usually need friends to have parties. But I’m not bored, you know. I got so carried away last night that I nearly slept through the Games.”

“Oh yeah? What were you up to?” she drawled playfully. “Watching the adult channel?”

“Drawing,” I answered almost honestly, retreating toward the table covered with sketched sheets of paper.

I hid my diagrams and strategies in a drawer, found a corkscrew and only then realized my mistake: the bottle cap was a screw-type.

Throwing the cap into the trashcan, I held out the bottle to Michelle, saw her amused look of confusion and smiled awkwardly. A glass! I found one, half filled it and handed it to the girl. Then I dug around in the minibar, moved aside a bottle of soda and found a few different beers. And now even my sense of caution didn't resist — I grabbed a can of German lager.

“I’m in no hurry,” Michelle reassured me. “Mind if I smoke?”

I shook my head and she took out a cigarette. They used to kill people at the start of the century, but modern filters made smoking safe, fully absorbing all the tar and toxicity from the smoke. Michelle drew on it with palpable pleasure, breathed out the scent of tobacco mixed with herbs.

We talked. The girl spoke of herself — of how she’d always dreamed of singing, but the vocal tutors said her range was too weak, just one octave, her voice and ears weren’t coordinated, the timbre was a little off. She should take up something else, they said. Only in Dis did things start working out for her. And so well that her songs were played on the radio even in real life. A year ago, Sony Music offered Michelle a contract to write an album, and the singer’s career skyrocketed.

It took more than half an hour for her to tell me all that. Michelle Ardi bounced from subject to subject, recounting funny anecdotes from her life in detail. I didn’t have anything in particular to brag about: a schoolkid in an ordinary school, average grades, then a Threat and legate of the Destroying Plague, then my departure from the faction.

“I can’t tell you anything more,” I sighed.

“I get it,” Michelle