Magus: A Supernatural LitRPG Saga (Apocosmos Book 2) by Dimitrios Gkirgkiris (ebook offline reader txt) 📗

As Alexander shuffled closer to the flames, a slender goliath with a flail at her side approached and offered him what looked like a piece of meat hanging from a large bone. He accepted it, though he didn't take a bite immediately, puzzled as to why would someone he didn't know would offer him something as valuable as meat.

"I bet it feels good to be the crowd's favorite, doesn't it, berserker?" Neleth mocked, as he bit into his own piece of bread.

"This is not from the dominus," said the towering woman as she sat next to the shadow strider. "It is not much, but the goliaths of Til thank you for liberating our brother from the dominus's shackles."

"Was he part of your clan?" Alexander realized she was referring to the nameless goliath he had killed in the arena.

The woman nodded.

"In that case, I thank you for your gift and hope his soul will find peace."

"Get your fucking hands away from me!" a voice shouted.

"You know there's no point in resisting," a man ordered. "Don't make this harder than it needs to be."

The large crowd that was sitting around Alexander's campfire all turned to look at the source of the commotion. Three large humans and a minotaur were trying to subdue another minotaur who was doing his best to calm them down.

"Derik, don't do it, man," the defending minotaur said, pleading with his kin. "You've known me for decades. Please, I'll do whatever you ask."

"Boss's order. I'm sorry." His friend looked at Yalfrigg, who simply nodded in agreement.

Derik jumped at his friend, headbutting him in the nose and pinning him down by staking his horns in the ground. The three humans used this chance to bind the disabled minotaur, while a similar scene was initiated a couple hundred feet away.

"Why are they taking them?" Alexander asked the orc.

She pursued her lips, as if she didn't like the answer she had to give. "To balance out yesterday's death toll in the nameless ranks," she said finally.

"You mean they'll kill five people and bring them back to life again and again until they're level zero?" the man asked.

"That's right," she replied coldly. "At least five of them."

"Then it made no difference," Alexander muttered. "The killings and the so-called freeing of their souls. Why did it matter if the bastard up top is just going to take more?"

"It did matter to them," the goliath retorted. "And it matters to all of us. Because we know that no torture is eternal."

"What about their torture?" Alexander asked, his tone significantly calmer now.

"It happened to be them," she replied. "It might have been me or anyone else. We don't choose our fates. Not while we're slaves. But you managed to choose for them, and seal the fates of those unfortunate souls."

The berserker considered her words for a few moments while six people in total were subdued and taken to the dominus, where they would be de-leveled and eventually put into his service as nameless. Yalfrigg commanded the people who took down the ones selected to become mindless servants, and even though he kept up a stern facade, everyone knew he wasn't enjoying his task.

The doctore had trained most of these men since they'd first arrived in the slave camp, beaten and afraid. But this was the way of the ludus and he always did his best so that everything ran smoothly and with no surprises--because no matter how much death and suffering existed in their everyday routines, the occasional surprises were what reminded them of just how much worse their miserable lives could get.

"That was the last of them," a heavily armored elf told Yalfrigg, and he dismissed him with a nod.

"So we get two days of sitting around and watching the sky, is it, Yalfrigg?" Neleth asked as soon as the dwarf approached their bonfire.

Yalfrigg pulled another dwarf up from one of the tree stumps close to Alexander so he could sit down himself. "Two days before the tournament. You should all use this time to rest. I want you in top shape."

"We will be," the elf replied in a mocking tone, "for the glory of our dominus and his historic ludus."

"Say what you will, elf." Yalfrigg dismissed him with a wave of his thick hand. "But we will not be the only ludus taking part in the tournament, and I've heard some of the warriors that will be coming could make quick work of you and your big forked tongue."

"They can come and fucking try," the elf replied, but his voice was drowned out by a multitude of other questions from people that had initially gathered around the fire to hear the berserker continue with his story.

"How are we going to fight them?" asked a male centaur.

"Do they have any spellcasters?" said a female dwarf.

"How many more luduses will be joining?" a male minotaur asked.

"Ludi, not luduses, jackass!" another voice responded, accompanied by a few laughs.

"For fuck's sake, that's the problem you have with this?" the minotaur retorted and the questions ended there, since Yalfrigg rose his hands to calm them down.

"There will be five more camps coming," the doctore explained. "One of them from the fourth layer of hell and another based in the Abyss. None of them have any spellcasters, but that is as much as I know at the moment. They haven't told me how the matches are going to go down, and would not care to answer my questions about it."

"Why now?" asked the ever-suspicious Neleth. "Why would our master bring so many enemies into his ludus?"

"It is not my place to question these decisions, elf," the dwarf snapped at him, "and neither should you. All I know is that there will be part of a celebration and our dominus is confident of his position."

"So there's not much we can do to prepare for the fights then, is there, Yalfrigg?" Yvonne, one of the vampire twins asked.

"If I learn anything more, you'll learn it as well," he replied. "For now, the