Gestation by John Gold (love books to read .txt) 📗

stakes, her insurance. There was a way out if things went south.

∞ ∞ ∞

Rachel, Ownie, and Grunt were waiting near the temple. The guys take up their position, ready to lead the chase off away from us if we’re spotted, while Rachel and I walk in.

“Give me the dagger—I’ll cover you.” Rachel holds out her hand.

“It’s my knife. Father gave it to me!”

“I’ll give it back.”

The guys wait on the street. If something goes wrong, they’ll write to us in the group chat.

We get into the temple through the basement windows, one of them coming right out of its frame. Yesterday, we figured out the guards’ patrol schedule, and we know that the high priest and his two assistants are the only ones left inside.

Finding ourselves in a corridor lined with monastic cells and leading down to the basement, one door catches my attention. There’s a wheel and a sickle carved into it. Of course, it doesn’t open. Bernard did say that the book is in the basement though, so we got busy looking for the key. Rachel found it in the lectern prominently displayed in a prayer hall.

We both use stealth to move through the corridor. While I’m heading down into the basement, Rachel stands guard outside. I don’t know what to expect - treasure chests, guards, guard dogs, or something else. In the end, around a turn, I just see a small room. One of the walls is ajar. Pushing it aside, I find a secret room. Thanks to my skills, I notice a hidden candlestick and an unusual rock in one of the walls. Was the room robbed, and they just forgot to close it? Just to make sure, I check to see if anyone’s inside. It’s the temple’s main storeroom, after all and this is Teurus’ main temple. Will the god be mad at me if I take more than just one book? I didn’t anticipate a second chance.

Everything is there: five books on demonology, a grimoire for superior necromancer, and three tomes on Shegel’s ritual magic. This isn’t a temple storeroom. It’s where they hide everything they confiscate! The book I’m looking for is lying on a separate shelf and looks really nice. I wonder what’s forbidden about it.

There isn’t much time left. I grab all the books I find and start back, weighed down by a 90% overload - 40 kilograms, only five of which are clothes. It doesn’t matter in stealth mode, but I won’t be able to run if the guards find me. Ultimately, I have to leave some things there: Rage of the Sun epic ritual daggers and two complete legendary sets of darkness. They stay there on the shelves, looking awfully intriguing. The daggers smell like blood, a scent I’ve become very accustomed to over the past two weeks.

I don’t see Rachel in the corridor, so I pull up the group chat.

“Rachel, where are you? It’s time to go. I found the book.”

“Come over to the other end of the corridor, the door with the sickle and the wheel. You’ll like what I found here.”

Twenty meters later, I find the door and notice that it isn’t completely closed. A white stone floor glistens in the moonlight. Rachel is sitting on it wearing a light dress and diadem, and she whispers to me.

“Come here. Sit down next to me.”

“What are you doing? They’re going to wake up!”

She giggles. “When else are you going to have the chance to sit in such a cool place? Come on, don’t worry.”

Rachel smiles, practically brimming with happiness. In the silver moon rays, she looks surpassingly beautiful. I sit down next to her. It’s strange - the stone is warm, and the light is somehow surreal and hot. Something’s wrong. Just then, Rachel stands up. I want to stand up, too, but her hand stops me.

“Lie down. I want to show you something.” Rachel looks off to the side.

“Why?”

Girls are weird!

“Do you trust me?”

“Yes.”

“Lie down and close your eyes.”

I lie down and feel the warmth wafting through my body. The light even makes its way through my closed eyelids, and I hear a whisper that makes me want to open my eyes and stand up.

∞ ∞ ∞

Damage taken: 423 (ignored: 421)

198/200

“Ow, what are you doing?”

I open my eyes to see two grown men holding me down on the floor as Rachel aims my own knife at me. Bernard steps out from behind her back.

“Rachel, come on. Let me give you a few buffs.”

∞ ∞ ∞

Damage taken: 447 (ignored: 421)

174/200

It takes me just a couple seconds to heal myself, though the situation quickly changes. Rachel starts stabbing me relentlessly. One of the guys holding me asks a question.

“What’s wrong? You have a ritual knife. Why didn’t he die right away?”

“Who the hell knows?” Bernard replies. Rachel slashes away, trying to reach my heart. The knife doesn’t make it very far, as she isn’t that strong.

“Should I help?”

“No, she has to do this herself.” Bernard waves his staff, and Rachel starts striking harder and faster.

“Why-y-y?” I shriek through my tears, more frustrated than in pain. Helpless!

∞ ∞ ∞

Damage taken: 496 (ignored: 421)

8/200

“Sorry, Sagie. You have to die here.”

Her eyes… Her eyes are decisive. She’s going to kill me. Why am I so afraid?

Bernard waves his staff one more time and says something.

∞ ∞ ∞

Damage taken: 551 (ignored: 421)

0/200

∞ ∞ ∞

Eliza scrolled back through the recordings of the most recent tests in which Anji had participated. He’d answered all the questions correctly no matter how hard they were, even finished the course early. The previous two weeks had been spent having one fight after another with his peers. They beat him up over and over again, the supervisor turning a blind eye and writing it off as a problem with the sound system. This too had all started after their conversation in the cafeteria. The girl turned to the recording she’d made with her personal 3D camera.

She’d turned it on when she stepped into the private area. There was Anji cringing when she talked, there he was when