Torith: A LitRPG Adventure (System Universe Book 2), page 1
TORITH
©2023 SUNRISECV
This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of the authors.
Aethon Books supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact editor@aethonbooks.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
Aethon Books
www.aethonbooks.com
Typography, interior design by Steve Beaulieu. Print and eBook formatting by Josh Hayes.
Artwork provided by Francell Garrote.
Published by Aethon Books LLC.
Aethon Books is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead is coincidental.
All rights reserved.
CONTENTS
Also in Series
Prologue: Silvi Jacobs
1. Into Torith
2. The Crown Restaurant
3. Business
4. Enigma
5. Gracefall Manor
6. Walter Gracefall
7. Preparations
8. Dinner and Discussion
9. About a Girl
10. Boss
11. Making Plans
12. Room and Board
13. Adventurer’s Guild
14. Hunting
15. Offense
16. Becoming Official
17. Meeting Stella Again
18. Crown Membership
19. The True Value of Void Beasts
20. Alanah
21. Price
22. Joining the Club
23. Inncoming
24. Mission Probable
25. Silvi’s First Day
26. Intense Battle in the Kitchen
27. Clare
28. Fine Dining
29. Waiting Game
30. Hunting
31. One Last Boar
32. Mr. Hunt
33. City Lord
34. Heart to Heart
35. Paying a Visit
36. Derek, Dear…
37. Gerald Torith
38. Preparations Before Departure
39. Fury
40. Overseer
41. I’m Sorry
42. Oathbreaker
43. Rudy
44. I’ll be Back
45. Breaking Through
46. Skill Testing
47. A Noble Hunt
48. Murderbunny
49. Captain Herrett
50. A Noble Death
51. Jacks
52. Time Prison
53. Spreading Word
54. Leaving
55. Surprise
56. Wilmette
Epilogue
Thank you for reading Torith!
Groups
LitRPG
ALSO IN SERIES
System Change
Torith
Savannah
PROLOGUE: SILVI JACOBS
Silvi stared at where her portal used to be. It had closed before Derek could make it out. What could she do? Was he even still alive? Question after question poured through her mind as she stared into the distance.
Derek had saved Allison and Gerard, but he may have sacrificed himself in the process. No, he didn’t sacrifice himself. This was her fault. As Silvi thought of the implications of one of the strongest people on Earth being done in by a portal… by her portal… she shook her head as tears built up in her eyes.
Gerard placed his hand on her shoulder. “Is there anything you can do? Maybe he didn’t actually go inside, and he is still battling on the other side. I would bet money he could take on every one of those invaders and still come out alive.”
“No…” Silvi sniffed. “He made it inside the portal, but it closed just before he came out. He’s stuck there, alone… if he is even alive.”
Silvi stayed in the exact same spot for over half an hour—enough time for her mana pool to regenerate sufficiently to open another portal. She had a vain hope that when she opened it, Derek would be waiting, and he would just hop right out.
Allison hadn’t spoken a word since she came to the realization that John was gone and never coming back. It would have been hard enough for her to lose Andrea, who was one of her best friends in the world, or to lose John, who she had been with since before the system came, but to lose both her best friend and her boyfriend at the same time… Silvi didn’t know if the girl would ever be okay.
Finally, Silvi had enough mana to use Portal and keep it open for a short time. She stood and wiped at the tear marks imprinted on her face before focusing ahead. In the same exact spot she had previously erected a portal, she summoned a new one.
The portal began to take form. Wisps of purple mana exploded out as an inky black interior formed inside the portal. She even connected it to the same place it had been connected to before. Damn the consequences if an invader traveled through it.
Silvi waited but felt nothing. There was no one inside. All the hope she had drained out of her as she realized the truth. Derek Hunt, one of the strongest users on the entire planet, was gone. He was gone, and it was all her fault.
Silvi disconnected her mana from the portal, and it blinked out of existence. She fell back to her knees with her face in her hands, and she cried. After heaven knows how long, Gerard placed his hand on her shoulder once again.
“There is nothing we can do about it. He saved both my life and Ali’s. Our lives may not be worth nearly as much as his was, but we can live so his sacrifice was not in vain. First, we need to go back and report what happened. After that, we will figure it all out.”
Gerard was right, of course. They couldn’t bring Derek back, but they could grow stronger so something like this never happened again. Silvi wiped fresh tears off her face and stood. She turned and looked in the direction of the city. Gerard bent down and picked the unconscious Allison up off the ground.
Silvi looked over at Gerard. He was her protector before the system came, and even now, after the rest of her family was gone and he was no longer being paid to do so, he stayed. She relied too much on the man, she knew, but she couldn’t help it. She gave him a sad smile. “Let’s go.” With that, the broken team made their silent journey back to the city, back to report what had happened, what she had done.
Nothing went as planned for Silvi and her broken team. Once the rumors spread, nobody would allow her to join their team. She was considered bad luck, and nobody would have her. Gerard stayed by her side, never wavering, not even when tempted with fantastic offers.
Allison never recovered from the loss of John and Andrea. Not long after they got back, she vanished without a word. Both Gerard and Silvi did everything they could to find her, but they couldn’t. She was gone without trace.
Eventually, an entire year after Derek’s disappearance, Silvi came to terms with her reality. Both she and Gerard had been ostracized by all other adventuring teams and couldn’t even make a small team with enough people to take on a mission. They even moved cities in the hope that they wouldn’t be recognized, but the rumors had spread far and wide.
They couldn’t take on missions, and they weren’t confident enough to level safely with just the two of them. Eventually, they went back to Charlotte.
Silvi spent much of her time researching Portal, the skill that had been the undoing of Derek Hunt. When she discovered the disaster, the Void Beast, that the skill could cause, she almost fainted. If she had done the research before, she would have never picked the skill, and none of the terrible things would have ever happened.
She once again fell into a depressive spiral. Everyone in the entire city was lucky to be alive. She had almost gotten an untold number of people killed, all because she didn’t read the instructions. Instructions that were provided at an extremely low cost through the system store.
Finally, she gave up. There was no joy left in her life. She couldn’t hunt, and she couldn’t do missions. She was a useless person. She tried time and time again to send Gerard on his way, but he would still not leave her. She was a rotting limb that he refused to amputate.
Eventually, she came across an old, closed-down bar and gathered what scrap she could. Using her remaining system credits, she bought the place and turned it into one of the most mediocre bars in the city.
There, she spent her days like a robot, mechanically repeating the same actions over and over. Serve drink, wipe counter, clean glass… Over and over, the days passed. This was her punishment. Infini
She wondered when she would end up out on the street. But at least she still had Gerard.
1 INTO TORITH
Derek looked around the city as they strolled down the street. It was big. Not as big as some of the pre-system cities in his world, but it was definitely up there in size. Bronson had explained the layout of the city to Derek on the way there.
It was really basic, and according to Bronson, it was the preferred style of city layout. It was a giant city within circular walls. Of course, he had also seen some small huts and houses surrounding the city before they entered. There was not much protection from enemies, but maybe those people would be let inside in the case of an enemy attack, or perhaps the guards and Adventurer’s Guild protected them somewhat. Derek was curious, but not enough to ask Bronson if that was the case.
Once inside the city, you were on the main street. Both sides of the street had different establishments. There were various shops, crafting workplaces, inns, and taverns. Apparently, the farther you walked on the main road, the better the establishments you could find. If one was just entering the city, they would find restaurants selling delicacies such as rat on a stick for pennies, but farther into the city, one would find restaurants costing you actual gold to dine in.
The living arrangements worked the same. The slums were located immediately after entering the city. If one took the first intersection or alleyway they saw on either side of the street, they would stumble on the poorest area of Torith. The farther in, the richer the people. Just before the end of the street was situated the Adventurer’s Guild.
Finally, at the end of the main street was another wall and gate. This gate separated the lower class from the middle class—though, some that could afford to live in the middle-class area chose to live in the richer part of the lower-class area instead. According to Bronson, the cost difference between the two areas was staggering. Many merchants chose the upper-lower class area to save greatly on living expenses and put what they saved back into their business.
There were far fewer establishments in the middle-class area, but the quality of businesses was multiple times better than in the lower section. The smithy that crafted the weapons and armor of the city guard was located there.
The living areas were also much better. Each house had land and at least one open courtyard. Thinking back, Derek commended the villagers for at least giving all the families some space. From what he saw in the lower section of the city, it was very overcrowded.
Finally, there was the noble section. The upper section of the city consisted only of noble houses, big and small. Even if the noble house was in a dire situation financially, they were still able to live in the noble section unless they relinquished their nobility for money, which did tend to happen with some families.
There was only one restaurant and two inns in the noble section. For all their other needs, the nobles would send servants down to the middle-class area to obtain goods. Because of this, and the small number of nobles, the residences of the nobles were grandiose.
Then, at the very top of the city, was the city lord’s Manor. According to Bronson, it was almost like a mini castle. It was so extravagant that it could be seen from beyond the walls. He would have to take a look for himself once he arrived.
About halfway through the lower part of the city, Silvi, who had taken to sitting on the top of Thomas’s head, told Derek to stop. Curious, he halted the party to find out what was wrong.
‘That smell. So good. I want. Get me. Now.’
Of course, that’s what it is. She just wants food. There was a rather delicious aroma coming from one of the street vendors. Derek walked over, with Thomas following with Silvi. Looking at the cart, he was surprised to find steaming hot shish kabobs with some kind of meat and vegetables.
It looked good, smelled good, and if it could keep Silvi occupied while they trekked through the city, it would be well worth the cost. Derek walked up to the vendor and then turned to Bronson. “You want some?”
Bronson scrunched his nose a bit. “No, I’ll wait until I get home to eat. We’re not far now. You never know what kind of meat they sell down here.”
He’s a bit spoiled, I guess. Derek turned back around to the vendor, whose face’s shade had changed from regular to having a red hue, most likely from the words Bronson spoke. “Well, give me six.”
“Y-yes, sir,” the young man stuttered, surprised. “That will be twelve copper.”
Derek fished twelve copper coins from his bracelet and placed them on the cart. “Here you go.”
The man, seeing the copper appear out of nowhere, became even more nervous. “A-are you s-sure someone like yourself wants to eat something like this?” he asked.
“Come on, kid. I already paid,” Derek pushed.
“O-okay.” The young man picked up six kabobs and handed them over. Then he reached for the money and tried to give it back. “S-sir, it’s on me, please.”
Derek rolled his eyes and walked away without taking the money back. He put three of the sticks in his bracelet and handed Thomas the other two. Thomas looked at him oddly. Derek smiled. “Silvi can’t very well hold one and walk at the same time.”
Thomas, realizing that Derek meant for him to feed the bunny on his head while walking, frowned.
Derek turned to Bronson. “The way that kid acted, you would think I beat him. Do you guys really treat them that bad down here?”
“Some do,” Bronson confirmed. “Most nobles won’t even come to the lower city, preferring to leave through the side gate in the middle section. But those who choose to be a part of the Adventurer’s Guild usually come through this way. Many are young adults who are… spoiled.”
Derek scoffed. “Yeah… spoiled.” He shook his head and continued walking.
At least there was some entertainment for him on the way. Seeing Thomas holding one kabob over his head for Silvi and trying to eat his own at the same time was hilarious, especially with the juice dripping from Silvi’s down onto his face. Even Bronson let a chuckle escape at the scene.
Twenty or so minutes later, the group was finally at the next gate. Normally, Derek and Thomas would be stopped at this gate as they didn’t have the identification to make it through. Of course, if Derek showed even a little of his strength, it would be reported, and he would likely be welcomed.
They did not have to worry about any of this because of Bronson. So far, every city guard they passed had recognized the man at a glance. Just like what happened at the entrance to the city, the gate to the middle section was opened, and they were let through without any issue.
If I’m going to be here for a while, I’m going to have to figure out how to move freely through the city areas. Until then, I can just mooch off Bronson. Derek looked at Bronson with a smile that would send a shiver down anybody’s back.
After going through the gates, Derek focused more on his surroundings. The difference between the two sections was like night and day. They walked by a bakery, and Derek instantly regretted eating the kabobs. The previous smells of the city were all gone as the fresh scents of steaming pastries wafted through the air into the noses of passersby.
