The Demonic Games (Disgardium Book #7): LitRPG Series by Dan Sugralinov (iphone ebook reader TXT) 📗

a fake smile and slipping past the journalists, who felt no strong urge to follow her, the girl reached her room.

“Gray, I’m resting. Do-not-disturb mode! Sleep mode!”

The AI she had called Gray darkened the windows, dimmed the light to the minimum and sent a standard message to her helpers’ comms in her name: “Don’t bother me, I’m resting.” She had five people in her retinue: a stylist, a PR consultant, a makeup artist, a dietologist and a personal trainer. She didn’t want to see any of them, although May, the PR girl, was bursting to talk to her to ‘discuss a communication strategy in light of recent events.’

Destiny began her stream in the half-darkness and answered questions from fans for half an hour, pretending as if everything was fine, that the viewers’ choice hadn’t upset her at all, that… Well, plenty else. All those envious losers that dreamed of living her life for just one day supported their favorite and swore that tomorrow they’d bury ‘that upstart Scyth’ with downvotes. Together they were a force to be reckoned with — her two hundred million subscribers could furnish anyone with a comfortable life through their donations, but not Destiny. Her bar for a comfortable life was somewhere in the clouds.

“Don’t despair, dear Des! We all love you so much!” a fangirl connected to the stream prattled on. “When Scyth attacked you, I couldn’t even watch, I had to turn away!”

Destiny smiled warmly:

“Thank you, sweetie! Your support means so much to me!”

When she was finished, she threw her comm away in disgust, dove beneath a blanket and shut her eyes. She didn’t want to sleep, but she didn’t want to do anything else either. Most of all she just wanted to hide away from everyone and somehow survive tomorrow. Who knew what debuff she would get? She hoped it wasn’t as bad as the ones Scyth had gotten. Most of all, Destiny feared winding up in an awkward situation and turning into a laughing stock. Exactly that had happened today, and tomorrow could be worse, given how much stronger Scyth had become.

The promise she had given to Marcus deepened her bad mood. That gorilla had been drooling over her since opening day, clumsily offering his help in the Games. Destiny had just wrinkled her nose in disgust and ignored his unsavory compliments, but Marcus was persistent. There were all kinds of rumors about the man, whose name was associated with the United Cartel, but for the world at large, Marcus was first of all an orc bruiser and vice-champion of the Arena.

On the second day of the Games, Bella learned from Jansson’s friends that he was simply obsessed with the idea of getting Destiny into bed and ‘breaking in that well-bred mare.’ Apparently the village boy turned social demigod had a particular fetish for Windsor royal blood. Jansson had plenty of ordinary girls, a group which, for Destiny, included film stars, top models and all the other aspirational social climbers.

The workings of Marcus’s depraved heart and mind didn’t interest her. A silver ranger by class, in the Games she saw herself as an arrowhead aimed at a singularly important target. Yes, she dreamed of victory in the Games, but she knew it was unlikely — she was the wrong class for it. But the rest of her life depended on whether she would be in the top 10% of the contestants.

Ever since her birth, Destiny’s parents hoped that even if their daughter didn’t follow in their footsteps, then she would at least occupy a worthy position in society, enjoying the privileges of high citizenship not by right of birth, but through her own services. And they had given her an incredible start, investing in both gene therapy and the best teachers for their only daughter. Until she went to Cambridge, everyone called her Alissa. Once she broke free of her parents, the first thing the girl did was start to introduce herself as Destiny. She liked this third name and the meaning it held. Destiny… One whose presence changes the fate of everyone she meets. It was poetic.

That was when Destiny began to sample the temptations of a life independent from her parents. She had nothing to strive for, because she already had everything she needed and then some. She was, after all, the sole heir to her father’s gigantic corporation. And when you have all you need, the only way not to lose your lust for life is to constantly try out new things. She changed sexual partners like gloves, went wild at lunar resorts, dove in search of lost treasure on the ocean floor, tried every extreme sport she could, anything that got her heart pumping and kept her from getting bored.

By her twenty-third year, the girl had sampled all she could on the planet Earth and its satellite. Only Dis remained. Other virtual worlds, most of them small and for specific tastes — nightmarish, erotic, extreme, — she had already explored. She had considered Dis the opiate of the masses.

Then she had an affair with Richard, son of Joshua and Vivian Gallagher, founders of the Children of Kratos. The boy got her into Disgardium.

She broke up with Richard a year later, but couldn’t say goodbye to Dis. The game gave her purpose, inspired passion within her. Destiny delved only deeper into the fantasy world. Her father tolerated his daughter’s new hobby at first, but each year his view of it darkened further. Things reached a head when she missed Christmas. That was unheard of — to miss a holiday, a time when the family should be together!

“You will quit that game,” her father had declared in a tone that brooked no argument, after bursting into her room and pulling off her blanket. “You have a great future, you will be the head of my company, and you must start learning now! Alissa!”

She