The Dark Continent (Underdog Book #3): LitRPG Series Read online

  The Dark Continent

  a novel

  by Alexey Osadchuk

  Underdog

  Book#3

  Magic Dome Books

  Underdog

  Book #3: The Dark Continent

  Copyright © Alexey Osadchuk 2020

  Cover Art © Valeria Osadchuk 2020

  Designer Vladimir Manyukhin

  English translation copyright © Andrew Schmitt 2020

  Published by Magic Dome Books, 2020

  All Rights Reserved

  ISBN: 978-80-7619-113-6

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This book is entirely a work of fiction. Any correlation with real people or events is coincidental.

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  Table of Contents:

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  I’VE ALWAYS loved winter. What kid doesn’t love snow, festive markets, or sledding down hills? I’m reminded of times I ran home and warmed myself by the fire after tuckering myself out playing in the yard. Frosty winds raging out the window, I would sit in my dad’s big wide armchair with my feet outstretched toward a crackling log. Slowly savoring every sip of mom’s honey decoction from the ceramic mug warming my hands. Taking in the red and orange little tongues of flame lapping up the walls of the fireplace giving me a sense of tranquility and protection.

  But alas, all that was in another life.

  Over the last few days, my relationship to winter had changed drastically. Cold as a dog, deep snowbanks, wind so biting it chilled the very marrow in my bones – I hated winter.

  Nearer midday, we came down into a valley, then made west through a sparse forest. Every two or three hours I had to call for a break. The snow was over knee-high and the wind was strong, draining my energy supply fairly quickly.

  At our first break I wanted to gulp down some potion of satiety, but I saw my Regeneration at work and concluded my body was coping just fine on its own.

  While I slowly lumbered from tree to tree like an old tortoise, Mee was playing the role of scout atop the harn’s back. Gorgie didn’t even seem to notice the snowdrifts. As I watched him take long leaps and move among the trees, I checked his supply and turned green with envy. All that activity was costing the harn just under fifteen percent of his energy. And his maxed-out animal regeneration fairly quickly made up for the loss.

  The sun was already drooping toward the horizon when Mee brought tidings of an interesting discovery.

  “I found a place to spend the night!” he said when the harn stopped two steps away from me.

  “Is it far?” I asked with hope in my voice.

  “It’s right around the corner,” the gremlin answered and, smiling, added:

  “Chop-chop! You’re gonna like it!”

  What he called “right around the corner” stretched into an over two-hour-long slog. Part of the time, I was just eking by with the last of my strength. Gorgie literally dragged me to the place Mee claimed I was going to like. Really, to be frank, at that very second I didn’t give a crap. All I could think about was finding anywhere I could lie down and shut my eyes. A-hem... The snowfall had given me a clear indication of just how physically weak I was. I have to raise my Strength and Endurance if, of course, I ever get the chance.

  After somehow limping my way to the forest edge I finally caught a glimpse of the place Mee had chosen for us to spend the night. And Bug take me, the gremlin was right! I did like it!

  My icy shivering lips spontaneously spread into a happy smile. Today, for the first time in many days, I’ll be sleeping with a roof over my head.

  * * *

  It was a small log hut around seven paces long and five wide. Short but looked quite spacious. The small doors were tightly barricaded with old boards.

  “Looks like nobody has been here for a long time,” I commented wearily.

  “Hrn,” Gorgie backed me up, using his right paw to tear down the gray boards like sheets of paper

  “Y’know, I wonder who could live in such a lonely spot?” Mee muttered.

  I shook my head.

  “It’s a temporary shelter. Hunters spend the night here when they’re out for game.”

  When the last board had been torn away and the door was open, we went inside. Mee lit a wicker lamp and raised it over his head. It gave off plenty faint light for me to see the insides of the hut.

  Not a single window. A step away from the door, at the right wall, there’s a small stove. A bit farther are a table and two chairs. To the left – a wide ramshackle cot made up with old rags and furs. A few empty shelves on the walls. Clearly, the owner had long since abandoned this hut and taken everything of value. Habitually activating Sixth Sense, I didn’t detect anything magical. Heh... As if there could be any doubt...

  I guess they never settled in for too long. First thing’s first, we got rid of the table and chairs – Gorgie was bigger now and needed more room. While I dragged old rags and half decayed furs outside, wheezing like a centenarian, Mee got a fire started in the little stove. Thankfully the former owner had left a bit of wood stacked against the wall. A deep bow for that.

  The gremlin figured out how the stove worked fairly quickly. Honestly, he did have to clamber up onto the roof of the hut to clear out the choked-up flue, but soon enough we had a cheery little fire going.

  We ate the remainder of the elk Gorgie hunted for us the day before and finally lay down to sleep. But then I ran into another roadblock. Despite the grueling day and filling dinner, sleep just wouldn’t come. That was a very rare occurrence for me. I may as well have been ready to keel over I was so tired, but my brain refused to shut down.

  In fact, there were many alarming thoughts about the future twirling around in my head. I was thinking about the heavy burden of the debtor’s oath hanging over me. I was worrying about Mee who, alas, could not be hidden with an amulet like Gorgie could. I was mulling over the strange disappearance of my brother and the rest of his troop. You don’t exactly need fifteen points of Mind to see that the whole thing stunk to high heaven. Something’s telling me I’m sure to land myself in hot water if I start looking for him.
<
br />   Mee’s quiet voice distracted me from the dismal thoughts. Seemingly, the Gremlin couldn’t sleep either.

  “Rick? You asleep?”

  “Nope.”

  Mee fell silent for a moment as if gathering his thoughts, then went on:

  “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that portal for the last few days. What do you think happened to the hunters that used to watch over the Tree? Why did whoever buried Err the Cold abandon the fort? After all, shouldn’t they have carried on their fallen comrade’s cause?”

  I gave a slight frown and stroked my chin. To be frank, I wasn’t expecting Mee to start talking about that. Although what was I surprised about? The fourteen Mind points had changed my familiar a good deal. He often touches on complex topics now.

  “Well, y’know, I’m a monster hunter too. But as you can see, I’m not exactly burning with desire to ‘carry on my fallen comrade’s cause.’”

  “Your case is different,” Mee objected. “One might say you were inducted, hmm, not of your own free will. If you stuck around to defend the fort on your own, that would be true folly. And suicide, of course.”

  “Are you hinting at something?” I asked, intrigued.

  “Well, what if whoever buried Err weren’t his friends?”

  “Curious. But what about the nice dedication over the crypt door?”

  “A tribute to a strong enemy,” Mee easily parried. “Or mockery. I’m more inclined to believe they weren’t hunters at all and buried Err alive.”

  Now that really woke me up. I have to admit, such thoughts had also come to my mind but, at the time, I waved them off like bothersome flies. To be frank, I didn’t give a crap about things that had taken place long before my birth and which had no impact on my fate. But given Mee had come to the same conclusion as I had, it was worth listening to what he had to say.

  “As for the burial, I suppose I have to agree,” I answered. “Err must have been interred while still alive. No matter who did it, they couldn’t have simply left a highly valuable artifact behind. And an ephemeral belt obviously has great worth. I wonder how they were able to overcome one of the most powerful mages of his day. After all, the Great System won’t have mentioned some nobody in its achievement messages.”

  “It was probably a mage no weaker than Err, and perhaps a few of them,” the gremlin shared his theory. “And they used some powerful spell Err couldn’t stand up against. Or maybe that crypt was no tomb at all, but instead some elaborate magical cage? That’s actually where my second guess comes from. They didn’t belong to your order.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “They left the armory untouched.”

  “Or do you think they’re maybe so powerful that Blots and Ticks didn’t merit their attention?”

  “Unlikely,” Mee said with doubt in his voice. “After all, I’m sure you understand those elixirs are quite rare and effective. In fact, the whole problem lies in reputation. Or to be more accurate, the lack of it. And the armory didn’t only have Blots...”

  “I agree, a strong mage and hunter having a reputation below five hundred makes no sense,” I said, thoughtfully rubbing my brow. “And the idea they wouldn’t have had the tokens makes no sense either.”

  “Err probably had more than enough,” Mee added.

  “Maybe it was orcs?”

  “Unlikely,” Mee waved it off. “They’re nothing but scavengers. They used the portal without fully understanding what they were dealing with. I remember seeing Sarkhaat run away when you unleashed that spell. And he, as I already said, is one of the most powerful shamans on the steppe. I’m sure Err the Cold could have easily dealt with someone like Sarkhaat. Yeah what am I even saying...? He could have taken down all five Elect, for that matter. No. We’re talking about someone of a higher caliber.”

  I remembered Master Chi’s grisly end and a swarm of ants automatically started marching up my spine.

  Mee, as if having guessed what I was thinking, said:

  “You know Rick, I don’t think you should let anyone see your artifacts where we’re going. And you’d better keep quiet about belonging to the order, too. If I think back on everything you told me about the ghost in the caverns, and add our guesses about Err, the hunters must have been fighting more than just monsters from other worlds. They must have had another enemy. And if you consider the fact that nobody has heard anything about that conflict, your order must have lost that war, and a very long time ago at that.”

  I heard the gremlin out and started thinking hard. He’s undoubtedly right. The foxman was the only hunter I’d ever met, and he was a ghost. Sly mentioned a nascent conflict between the order and the political establishment, but that was a long time ago. So long ago that, in those times, the Dead Ocean was called the Lilac Ocean while the Dark Continent was known as the Amberlands.

  I have no doubt that Fort Stout is a later structure, which means the conflict was not quelled. Quite the opposite in fact – it gradually grew into a war and the victors made sure no one would ever find out about the hunters again.

  “By the way,” the gremlin distracted me from the heavy thoughts. “I’ve been meaning to ask. What do you think – did the person who sent you into the caverns know about the ancient city?”

  “Skorx? Unlikely... He’s convinced he’s searching for a temple of the departed. But as for Bardan, his master, he probably has some idea. Heh... At first, I was sure the Marked One was acting alone. Naive. But now I understand that Bardan is in complete control of the search operation. Yeah, what am I even saying...? It’s plain to see that he’s the one who started it.”

  “He’s probably a very dangerous person,” Mee said both affirmatively and inquisitively.

  “And influential,” I added. “We’d better keep our distance.”

  “Then how do you intend to rid yourself of the oath?” Mee asked in surprise.

  “I don’t know,” I answered thoughtfully and added, trying to make my voice sound more confident: “But I’m sure we’ll think of something. The main thing will be getting to Orchus.”

  Chapter 2

  DESPITE MY EXHAUSTION the day before, I awoke before sunup feeling very well rested. The big dinner and good sleep in a warm room plus my Regeneration and the level-six Lair I put up for the night all played their part.

  I checked the remaining active time of the spell. Just under five hours. I compared that to the ability’s description.

  - Gulper’s Lair

  - Level: 1+5 (0/30).

  - Type: Active ability.

  - Rarity: Common.

  - Description:

  - A Gulper can create a temporary shelter in an appropriate location such as a secluded cave or hidden amongst large stones. Using magic, it weaves a web around itself which provides both defense and a kind of alarm system.

  - Effect:

  - Absorbs 2500 units of damage.

  - Creator is alerted to unauthorized entry.

  - +35 life every 10 minutes (while inside).

  - +35 mana every 10 minutes (while inside).

  - +35 energy every 10 minutes (while inside).

  - Requirements:

  - Intellect – 6.

  - Expends 60 mana points.

  - Note:

  - Duration: 11 hours.

  - Radius: 26 feet.

  Ava’s Bracelet works wonders! So that means if we stay here for five more hours, every supply will get a top-off of approximately a thousand points. Honestly, all my supplies, along with the mana crystals, are filled to the brim. I suppose Gorgie and Mee must be looking about the same. By the way, where are they?

  Tearing myself from reading, I lifted my head. There was nobody inside the hut. Looks like they ran out to do some hunting.

  The door opened precisely as I, sitting on the edge of the cot, was pulling on my second shoe. Mee was standing in the doorway. Glancing at his grim countenance, I quickly hopped up.

  “What?”

  “You’re not gonna l
ike it,” the gremlin replied and sighed heavily.

  * * *

  “I thought we got away from them,” I grumbled in annoyance.

  “It’s the Black Foxes,” Mee said quietly, standing next to me. “I didn’t see their yurts with the main warband.”

  “Are you implying that those orcs have been in control of this valley a long time?”

  We were standing on the edge of a glade and watching two steppe dwellers go about their business on a fairly broad meadow a hundred paces away from us. Mee covered all three of us with a dome of invisibility so we could take a look calmly without really having to hide.

  It was a travelling camp consisting of a few tents and yurts. Based on the befoulment of the surrounding area, the ugly bastards set up camp here a long time ago.