Alexander didn’t stand up. Neither did he remove his swords from their ornate scabbards, for nobody would get the advantage on him simply because his swords were sheathed. Instead, much to the dismay of the doctore, he continued staring at the fire, uninterested in what was taking place.
“Prepare yourself, human,” Yalfrigg snapped at him as an unnatural silence spread around them. “We may be under attack.”
“As if someone would try to conquer this gods-forsaken place,” Alexander replied.
“I’m not talking about people,” the dwarf growled, but soon let the matter go as the elf reappeared between the shadows cast by the tents and the barracks. “What do you know, elf?”
“A human,” the shadow strider said and glanced at Alexander. “He lost it. He started shouting and attacking people.
“Why?” the dwarf asked.
“His husband died in the arena today and they didn’t bring him back.”
“Did they subdue him?”
“They didn’t have to,” Neleth replied and sat on the ground. “He sliced his own wrist.”
“Then get the fuck up and call the healer!” Yalfrigg exclaimed.
“Why?” Neleth retorted. “He chose it. Let the poor fucker rest.”
The doctore took a step forward and kicked the elf’s ankle, bringing him to the ground, face-first, and then proceeded to go down on one knee and speak in his ear.
“No one…” he said slowly. “No one dies unless I say so. I need everyone alive and getting stronger. So get the fuck up and call the healer before I bend your knees the wrong way.”
The person who’d been talking about unity and rebellion only a moment ago had now disappeared. In their stead was someone with the cruel characteristics of a monarch commanding everyone’s attention. Alexander, who now stood up along with everyone else around the bonfire, looked at the furious dwarf with the enchanted greatsword on his back.
Name: Yalfrigg Asulf
Race: Dwarf
Class: Ulfhednar
Level: 53
HP : 5716/5716
MP: 817/817
XP : 43.52%
STR: 39
DEX: 20
CON: 54
INT: 18
WIS: 12
MEN: 27
At that moment, Alexander realized that forcing every slave to show their battle stats didn’t only serve as a precaution against uprisings. It also made the hierarchy among them crystal clear. Yalfrigg looked like a monster among men and his level was testament to it. The only thing he could glean from this information was that the dwarf had already upgraded his class for the second time and that he was a believer of Odin. A deeper probe was needed to understand more about their doctore’s fighting style.
Battle Stats
Max HP: 5716
Max MP: 817
Physical Attack: 543
Physical Defense: 695
Accuracy: 82
Critical: 80
Attack Speed: 328
Magic Attack: 133
Magic Defense: 524
Evasion: 79
Speed: 118
Casting Speed: 226
HP Regen. : 25.6/minute
MP Regen. : 4.9/minute
His HP pool was massive and his attack was high enough to classify him as a tank, though his defense could have been higher. Alexander didn’t know much about greatswords but this one definitely looked like it was close to top B grade and its faint white glow meant it was probably enchanted to +4 or +5. The long and thick blade was engraved with runes and a wolf’s head made of stone adorned the pommel at the end of its leather-bound grip. The dwarf’s armor and jewelry did not glow at all, but this only meant that they were not enchanted more than +4, which was probably unnecessary, considering how insanely strong he was.
“Should we go aid him, Yalfrigg?” the orc asked as everyone else was on their feet, waiting for him to issue orders.
The dwarf sighed, put his gloves on again, and dusted off the knees of his heavy armor.
“No, it’s fine,” he said. “It’s been a long day for everyone. I like Neleth, but sometimes he needs to be reminded of his place. I think I’ll go doff my armor and see to that human too. We lost enough men as it is for today.”
“I guess we’ll call it a night too,” the orc said.
“No!” Yalfrigg almost shouted just before he left the bonfire’s light range. “Ye think it’s important to know why I trust this human. And it’s not only because we’re both berserkir. You’re gonna listen to his story.”
For a moment nobody said anything and simply nodded at the tattooed dwarf. Once he turned his back again and walked away from the group, one by one, the warriors—the slaves sat back down, for all their accomplishments mattered little in the ludus. A naga, an orc, a minotaur, and a pair of vampire twins stretched their tired limbs and looked at Alexander expectedly.
“Continue with this story of yours, mortal,” the male vampire hissed and licked his lips in an intimidating manner.
Alexander, having paid little attention to the vampire’s mind games, produced a small flask of water and took a couple of huge gulps. “As I said, things were about to become bad. Worse than bad. They were about to become bloody. The die for my coming here had been cast.”
8
Money for nothing
A couple of months after I crafted the very first batch of arrows, my job as a developer in the game studio had become more of a front to my actual source of income. The okayish salary—by game development studio standards—I earned there accounted for no more than pocket money compared to what I was making in the Dark Energy Marketplace. As a side-effect, I’d stopped caring about what my department lead had to say about my hair and beard and so I had gone full Viking. And I enjoyed it!
My hospital bills were paid within the first month and after that, I’d started saving to pay off my student loan. Sooner or later, I knew I’d have to find a way to transfer larger amounts of money from the Apocosmos to my normal bank account without alerting the tax authorities, but that was something I’d worry about in the future.
At the moment, most of my weekly income came from the switch between the low buying prices of the weekend and the high selling prices at the beginning of the week. It initially struck me as odd that the Apocosmos work week was defined in the same way as in most of the countries in our world, but a quick search online—the Apocosmos online that is—revealed that the work week actually originated there and seeped into our world in the early 1900s. As much as I appreciated my workers’ rights as a Cosmos employee, I had no doubt that work never stopped in the Apocosmos. I might only have been selling arrows in the small confines of New York State, but there were thousands of worlds connected to the marketplace. I was doing well, but I was only a small fish in a small pond, or maybe just a puddle next to the ocean.
Having sorted out the issue of the money I owed, I finally managed to return to my old routine. I started visiting the gym six times a week again and even though working out didn’t bring a numerical change to my STR stat, I felt much more energetic compared with the previous weeks when I had completely stopped going. But getting back to it wasn’t as easy as I would have hoped. Up until now, Louie had been used to staying home alone for the couple of hours that I’d be in the gym. And he was still okay with me going to the gym and leaving him alone, but it just didn’t feel right anymore. Not now that I could be there and talk to him. So I started waking up at 4 a.m. so that I could be back home before he woke up.
Louie had actually developed quite a few new habits since he’d acquired his sapience or whatever it should be called. First of all, he loved YouTube. He started binge-watching Critical Role episodes and pretty soon fell in love with Dungeons & Dragons. However, since he couldn’t convince me to take him to join one of Leo’s sessions, he tried playing online a few times. Being a dog who wanted to play D&D with other people meant there were only two possible ways of
doing this: join an online group in the Apocosmos, which was clearly a bad idea since we were trying to steer clear of people in it, or join Cosmos groups that didn’t use cameras.
After his first few attempts, he was pretty discouraged with how “dispassionate” and “vanilla”—his words, not mine—these groups were. What’s more, the people playing were mostly longtime fantasy and video game geeks and many of their references didn’t land for Louie. The last time he’d played with an online group, he made a list of things he didn’t understand while everyone else had laughed at the reference. The most frustrating instance was when his group had failed to save a group of villagers. They had found them impaled outside of the villain’s castle, and one of his teammates asked “Did Sephiroth do this?”
After I explained it to him, without spoiling too much, he decided it was time he started playing some video games. I was more than happy to accommodate him, so I purchased a few controllers that looked like the original Nintendo and Sega ones, though USB-powered, and I set him up with emulators on my desktop computer. This meant that I wouldn’t be able to stream on my PC, so instead I opened up the stream while he played and weirdly gathered a bigger crowd with these old classics than the more recent titles I’d been playing.
Once he was done with older generation JRPGs like Chrono Trigger, and the early Final Fantasy, Tales, and Dragon Quest games, we had to figure out a way for him to play with more complicated controllers. Not having opposable thumbs proved to be a considerable hindrance since after a certain point, controller design centered around multiple simultaneous finger inputs. Video game companies had been targeting humans not dogs after all. Louie’s limb coordination was good enough for him to be able to handle pressing buttons on the simpler consoles, but I had to switch him to a touch surface once he started emulating PlayStation 1 games.
He was having the time of his life and, to be honest, I was a bit jealous of him. He would play his video games and watch his shows until late in the night, and when we’d go to the office, he would sleep through my whole work-day, only to do play and watch again once we returned home. That is, unless it was the weekend, in which case he wouldn’t let me rest unless we stopped by Leonardo’s place for some training.
Leo had what could be best described as an Apocosmos training gym. One of his double-doored closets, in Narnia fashion, led to an open summer field where we could train to our hearts’ content. There were no weights or dumbbells but instead moving targets, obstacles, and a vast open space we could use to fight against each other. Sometimes we would also fight against monsters which were bred there by Leo’s family for the purpose of training and material farming.
Speaking of his family, I could only guess how strong they were by the types of monsters I occasionally saw roaming on the horizon. Just the fact that they had created a small realm of their own was testament to how powerful the DiFiore family was, and it was very kind of Leonardo to share this place with us.
Louie reached level 5, while I was there merely as his bodyguard in case something went wrong. No matter how uninterested I was in leveling up, Louie would keep sending me party invitations so we could level up together, especially since he’d unlocked the first healing spell that could target others on level 5.
Name: Heal
Level: 1
Type: Active
HP Consumed: 0
MP Consumed: 13
Power: 50
Range: 50 feet
Precondition: The caster needs to be able to voice the incantation.
Description : A basic form of healing. The warm light that manifests from the caster’s mana travels to the target and restores skin tissue, muscles, and even bones.
I, however, had still not changed my mind about what I’d said. I wasn’t going to stay in the Apocosmos any longer than I had to. The money was great. Killing and risking being killed, not so much.
I woke up late one Sunday, not having to go to the gym or train with Leo, only to find Louie whimpering above the laptop.
“What’s up buddy?” I asked worriedly, when I realized that I recognized the violin playing from the laptop speakers.
The price of freedom.
I had seen him start playing Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core and could now understand why he was crying. He was at that part of the game.
“Why?” he asked pleadingly. “Games are games. Games are supposed to be fun. Why would a game make me sad?”
“I cried too,” I said as I wrapped my arms around him and placed my head on his back. “It may not feel like it right now, but when you look back on playing this game, it will be a very fond memory.”
“Well, now I know,” he said and stood up on all fours, making me stir as well. “Games can also make you sad, so now I’ll be expecting it and won’t be sad again.”
Just wait till you reach the end of Final Fantasy XV, I thought, but decided to keep the spoilers to myself.
“Are you done with setting up your orders?” Louie asked, changing his demeanor as if nothing had happened. “Are we rich yet?”
“Not yet,” I replied and scratched him behind his ears as I stood up. “We’re getting there though. Last night I put on a large buying order for arrow materials at a very low price. Let me check real quick.”
I picked up the DEM tablet from the kitchen counter and scrolled to the purchases tab.
You have purchased Wooden Stem (Birch) x 200 for a total of $2,000.00
You have purchased Bone Grain x 200 for a total of $6,000.00
A grand total of $8,000.00 has been removed from your account.
Your new account balance is : $19,350.00
The next step of the Dark Energy Marketplace free crafting program will create: Bone Arrows (20pcs) x 200
Would you like to commence?YesNo
“The order was fulfilled,” I said as I tapped yes. “The arrows will be crafted and become available soon. If we’re lucky, by the time we go to work tomorrow, these will all be sold and we should have thirty thousand more into our account.”
“Great,” Louie said, not really excited about the number, since he didn’t have a good grasp on money yet.
“We’re doing really well, buddy,” I added, trying to pique his interest.
“Well, if it’s so easy, everyone must be doing it,” he said nonchalantly, “so it’s no big deal, right?”
“Some people do, but not too many. Each state has its own market for these low-level products and the amounts we’re earning are nothing in the grand scale of the Apocosmos market.”
“But it’s good by the Cosmos standards?”
“Buddy, thirty thousand dollars is roughly six thousand pounds of bacon,” I said and he immediately pricked up his ears.
“Bacon?” he asked, suddenly revitalized. “How much is a pound?”
“Around twenty—” was all I managed to say.
“Holy macaroni, Alex!” he said and was now jumping around the living room. “We’re rich, we’re so rich. Let’s go out. Let’s celebrate. Let’s live life with bacoooon.”
He ended his sentence with a long excited howl.
“Wanna go for a walk?” I asked him in the same way that had got him pumped up every day for the past three years.
“Heck yeah!” he said and turned around, waiting for me to put the harness on him.
Another thing that had changed a lot since Louie and I had started communicating was our runs. For starters, he was much sassier whenever I outran him or pushed him too hard. He couldn’t talk, of course, while other people were around but he wouldn’t hesitate to bark at me until we took a break. What’s more, I could no longer listen to my metal music with my headphones in. No, no, no. Louie wouldn’t have that. We had to carry around a small Bluetooth speaker that played his favorite kind of music, because of course he’d developed a keen taste in music. And of all the genres ever created in the world, his favorite was surfer rock.
We must have been a very weird sight, perhaps even worthy of m
eme status if someone recorded and uploaded us onto YouTube. A dude in shorts and a sleeveless shirt running around with a corgi harnessed to his waist, carrying a little backpack of its own with a speaker blasting out “Surfin’ Hootenanny”. Actually, the more I thought about it, the more it sounded like an intro to a “Crazy people in public” compilation video. But I couldn’t have cared less what others might think, as long as I got my cardio and Louie was enjoying himself. Worst case scenario, I would be deemed eccentric by a bunch of people swimming in the bliss of their own ignorance about the world. As if I gave a fuck what they thought of me.
We returned home roughly an hour later and immediately split into different rooms. Louie went straight to the couch, practically falling unconscious from his exhaustion. He didn’t even put on a video before falling asleep as he had been doing over the past days. I, on the other hand, got straight in the shower to wash the sweat and fatigue away. Only after I got out, seeing Louie sleeping on his back and dream-running with his little paws, did I notice the notification light blinking on the DEM tablet. I wrapped a towel around my hair and tapped the screen, curious to see what had triggered it.
Your items (Bone Arrow (Birch, 20pcs) x200) have been sold to Abrathion Halciu.
Your listing is now inactive.
Your selling price was $24,000.00
The Dark Energy Marketplace’s fee accounts to $3,600.00
A grand total of $20,400.00 has been added to your account.
Your new account balance is: $39,750.00
That was amazing. This guy had single-handedly bought my whole stock. On a Sunday! Usually I would get a notification when my sale order was fully carried out on Mondays and there would be a breakdown with the names of the different buyers and the number of batches they’d bought. My price being high as it was, I was making money from many people buying small quantities. Never all at once.
Berserker: A LitRPG Urban Fantasy Adventure (Apocosmos Book 1) Page 12