Law of family a litrpg p.., p.1
Law of Family: A Litrpg Portal Adventure (Four Laws Book 2), page 1
Law of Family
License Notes: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this e-book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Law of Family
Copyright © 2022
David Burke
Cover art copyright
David Burke
Contents
Chapter 1 - Dark Alleys
Chapter 2 - Making an Entrance
Chapter 3 - Investigation
Chapter 4 - Four Letters
Chapter 5 - Bath and a Chat
Chapter 6 - Relief
Chapter 7 - Playing House
Interlude 1 - Little Things
Chapter 8 - Gym Time
Chapter 9 - Lunch and New Drama
Chapter 10 - Building Up
Chapter 11 - New Considerations
Chapter 12 - Rules of Alchemy
Chapter 13 - Into the Dark Cauldron
Interlude 2 - Dancing with Ravens
Chapter 14 - Found Out
Chapter 15 - Through the Streets
Chapter 16 - Across the Rooftops
Chapter 17 - Six Feet Under
Chapter 18 - Into the Grave
Interlude 3 - Love’s Grave
Chapter 19 - Reborn from Ash
Interlude 4 - Not Enough Turns
Chapter 20 - Tomorrow Isn’t Promised
Chapter 21 - Everything In Its Season
Chapter 22 - Clearing the Air
Chapter 23 – Doing it Right
Chapter 24 - Making It Hurt
Chapter 25 - Burning Brightly
Interlude 5 - Kissing It Better
Chapter 26 - Interviews & Investigations
Chapter 27 - Moving In
Chapter 28 - Cutting off the Head
Chapter 29 - Magnifying Power
Chapter 30 - The Price of a Daughter
Chapter 31 - Five’s Company
Chapter 32 – Getting Heavy
Chapter 33 - Tailgating
Interlude 6 – Kitty Kitty
Chapter 34 - Good Riddance
Chapter 35 - Going to the Ground
Chapter 36 - Big Fish, Bigger Pond
Chapter 37 – ‘F’ is for Family
Epilogue - Lining Up the Pieces
Index
Chapter 1 - Dark Alleys
I stayed as still as I possibly could. Crouching next to a pile of trash was hardly where I wanted to be tonight. It stunk, yet I couldn’t move. The shop I was hiding behind smelled awful enough that I couldn’t imagine walking through its door, let alone getting its refuse on my boots. I wasn’t sure what the shop was called, but I know they made glue—and judging from the refuse, they made it from an assortment of animal parts.
Yet, this was where I had to be. It was where the low life I had been tailing for the past few hours had gone. My best guess was that he was taking up collections from shop owners as part of a protection racket. I’d really meant to get around to investigating rumors about such rackets, but I was still trying to find the higher ups in the Back Street Boys. The name still made me laugh, but the deeper I dug, the more I learned they weren’t a laughing matter. Their leaders had their fingers in every bit of illicit activity that happened in Yonderton.
My mood was getting sourer by the moment. If it wasn’t for this asshat, I’d be at home in a warm and far-from-empty bed. But here I was, spending my night chasing this guy down. Why couldn’t he be a respectable thug and run his illegal errands during the day? I knew it wasn’t a reasonable request, but the more I thought about what I was missing out on back home, the more I was determined to make him pay for this.
If I had to be left out in the cold, then he was gonna feel my wrath.
It didn’t help that I had been tracking down these leads for the past two weeks. I mean, I couldn’t complain about most of my life. I ate like a king, lived with two drop-dead gorgeous women who were as unique and inspiring as they were sexy. I had plenty of time to exercise, and was making great progress with my stats. Even my alchemy was starting to come along, and I was beginning to think I could trust Rava.
Heck, when I finished patrols early enough, I sometimes stop by for a drink with Mactosh. He was quickly becoming my best friend here in Yonderton—well, other than Lina and Josie, but those had an appeal all their own. Sometimes, though, it was nice to hang out with another guy. Another perk that I hadn’t mentioned to anyone, was that when I went to pick him up at his shop, I generally got to see his daughter, Mursha.
Sure, I had my hands full, but Mactosh was constantly pushing for me to marry his daughter—and I had to say, I thought she’d be quite a catch. The more I was around her, the more relaxed she became around me—although I still had to work to keep her from staring at my boots. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that part of her draw was her gravity magic. I had big plans for that, but the cut off shirts she wore at the forge, showed just how toned her stomach was… and well, I had a weakness for strong women.
Even my business was doing well. The obstacle course had become quite a draw for the city. Twice a week, we held races and had various events there. Different teams had already started to form around town, and soon, I hoped we would be able to start an actual league. It provided a nice stream of revenue for me, which I reinvested in the town. And it provided a much-needed distraction for the citizenry from the still very present problem of crime.
Which brought me right back to why I was squatting in a pile of muck behind a hmm… gluery? Wait, was that even a word? Crap, now it was gonna bother me until I could figure out the correct name for it.
Either way, I was essentially here because, while everything else in my life might be going swimmingly, my police work—the entire reason why a goddess had pulled me to this world in the first place—had stalled, at best. I was the Sheriff of Yonderton. It wasn’t an elected position, though, more like a divinely appointed position. This goddess, Sativa, had supposedly made this world and then realized she had a bunch of delinquents on her hands, and needed to bring in an outsider to stabilize things. It was the whole point of my being here and yet, I felt like I’d made very little progress.
Sure, I could bench press a car now, and after only a month of knowing them, I had the two healthiest relationships with women that I’d ever had. But at the same time, a man still wants to be good at his job. I needed to feel like I was making a difference.
My frustration was growing, had been growing all night now. I knew that police work was like this on any world: boring…, boring…, boring…, BLITZ!
I heard a rumble inside the building. There was the sound of breaking pottery and then a short, staccato grunt of pain. Reflexively, I stood up. I wanted to burst in and crack some heads, but I had to remember, little fish lead to big fish.
A second later, the back door opened wide. I crouched down lower behind the pile of refuse. Then I saw my mark, a foxkin named Lambert, stumble outside. His complexion was pale, and he had a huge lump on the side of his head, with a stream of blood running down the side of his face.
Right on his tail, a broad-shouldered cowkin stepped out, shaking his fist. “And don’t you come back here. You may still be intimidating those others, but there’s a new Sheriff in Yonderton. Sherriff Case will make you eat your own teeth if you keep harassing honest businessmen.”
I shook my head. Talk about making a guy feel bad. Here I had been waiting for this guy to get robbed, without stepping in to stop it. I had judged him and his business by its awful stench, but it turns out he was a big supporter. I sank down even lower behind the refuse pile. I might not want Lambert to see me, but I’d be downright ashamed if this shop owner saw that I’d been here the whole time, and had done nothing to protect him.
Lambert yelled back, “You’re gonna be sorry about this. If your shop suddenly goes up in flames, don’t say I didn’t warn you. No way to know when a fire might start, ya know. And without the Back Street Boys around to protect you… well… it could get bad. That Sheriff ain’t gonna be here forever and when he’s gone, we’ll still be around.”
The shop keep took a threatening step forward while raising his ham sized fist. There was a reason that I tended to think of these guys as minotaurs. Lambert yelped and then started shambling down the street. He was injured now, so it should be easier to follow him. Maybe he would just lead me back to his boss. I could only hope that I’d be so lucky.
I followed from a safe distance. I might not like many things Sativa had done with her world, but the night vision she had gifted me was a god send—literally. For that matter, so was the telepathy I was still learning to master. That reminded me I needed to check in with Josie.
“On the move again. I’ll let you know which direction he goes.”
Then I was following after Lambert, just not too closely. He headed for one of the seedier parts of town. It was where the main gambling hall was, as well as the primary brothel. I still didn’t understand the nee
I had first been told that the town was something like five thousand people, but had learned that wasn’t the case at all. Yonderton held at least ten thousand souls, and continued to grow. I could see how it was hard to determine accurate demographics, though. The greater district was a hundred miles long and more than forty miles wide. And the population was constantly changing, as people moved out here to the frontier to try their hand at making a life for themselves.
Just thinking about the big district I nominally ruled over highlighted another downfall on my part. I had yet to travel more than half a day’s ride from Yonderton. Sure, it held the biggest concentration of people, but there might be as many as forty-thousand souls I was responsible for in the whole district. I was going to need to get out of town to visit some of the ranches and smaller towns.
Such thoughts left my mind, though, as I watched Lambert knock on the back door of a small building attached to the brothel. Figures this is where they’d meet. I didn’t believe for a single moment it was their main headquarters, though. Criminals may be lazy, but usually those at the top were really good about hiding. A slit opened in the door. I focused on my Body Core and spun it faster before sending a small stream of ki into my mind channel—specifically, I focused it on my ears.
In an instant, the night came alive, in a way I had never experienced before gaining this ability. I could hear life all around me, from tiny insects, to birds, to certain other sounds of life coming from within the nearby brothel. I’d been practicing this, but it was still difficult to focus on a single noise. Shaking my head, I forced myself to zoom in on what Lambert was saying.
“I don’t care how hard your head got hit. No pass phrase, no admission. It’s as simple as that,” a gruff voice said from inside the building.
Lambert wobbled a bit more. Just my luck. I was about to get another clue leading me up the ranks of the Back Street Boys, but the guy I was following had a concussion and couldn’t remember the dam password.
Lambert said, “Okay, I think I got it. Try it one more time.”
There was a sigh from inside the building but then the voice asked, “Did you decide which type of meal you want?”
Lambert rubbed the side of his head. I swear, I was gonna kill him if he had forgotten the countersign again. But he came through, “I want it that way.”
There was the scraping sound of a heavy bar being lifted from inside the door and then it swung inward. A pair of large hands grabbed Lambert by his shirt, pulling him inside, and the door slammed shut behind him. Now, I knew where to go.
I even knew the pass phrase to get inside, but that wasn’t my problem. No, my problem was the same as always—there was no way I could go undercover. I was the only human here in Yonderton. I had reason to believe there might be other humans here, in what was supposedly the more populated East, but I didn’t have a particular desire to find them. I could try wearing a hood to get in, but that trick was only gonna work a limited number of times. I had to make sure that when I used it, that I made sure it counted.
I needed to recruit someone to knock on the door for me. Then it occurred to me just what I had to do. I scrambled back into an alley behind the brothel. There were a number of drunks back there. I looked around until I found the one I was looking for.
He was a drunk, but one of the better-behaved drunks.
I walked up to the elderly monkeykin on my toes. When I’d had to chase him down once, I’d learned he was still quite agile—drunk or sober. We had come to an understanding, Jackie and me. He wasn’t a bad guy; he just couldn’t seem to shake his addiction to the hard stuff.
I toed Jackie gently with my boot. I didn’t want to reach down and touch him, mostly because I didn’t want to get a whiff of his breath. I just had to hope he was sober enough to do what I needed him to do.
“Jackie? C’mon man, I know it’s too early for you to be asleep. What’s the matter, run out of the good stuff already?”
The old monkeykin looked up at me with bleary eyes, then pulled the thin blanket he had back up over his head. I toed him again and he groaned.
“Go away. Unless you’re a whore with a freebie for my birthday, or a merchant with too much booze on his hands, get lost.”
“You know who I am, Jackie. Get up. I need you to do a favor for me. There’s a bottle in it for you, if you can do it right.”
That got him to peek out from under the blanket. “Keep talking.”
“I need you to knock on a door and say a few words for me, then I’ll get you a bottle of whatever you want,” I said.
“And you won’t drag me down to your office?”
“You know me, I don’t believe in jail for no reason. If a swift kick to your backside won’t make you turn over a new leaf, then I either ignore you or I kill you, depending on what your crime is.”
“Yeah, how fair of you,” he mumbled. “I’ll do it for two bottles.”
“One bottle and I agree not to put you on the back of my stone horse and send it running out into the desert.” Then I waited a moment before adding, “Deal?”
Chapter 2 - Making an Entrance
It took a few minutes for me to make sure Jackie was sober enough to deliver the passcode. After the sixth time that he messed it up when trying to repeat it back to me, I thought about just going with plan B. I mean that door couldn’t be all that thick. With a little bit of ki enhancement, I should be able to bust it down.
The thing was, that while my telepathy skill was still only at level ten, I identified that there were more than four minds inside that room. Including Lambert, even if one of them was the boss, that meant there were at least three guards. Criminal guards, especially those who feel secure, are not exactly known for their vigilance but that didn’t mean they couldn’t react to the door exploding inward.
People tend to let down their guard even more when mundane things happen. Someone with the passcode was likely to put them at ease. My hope was that would buy me the extra couple of seconds I might need to disable the guards inside. I had a couple of alchemical surprises for them but needed time to deploy them, and since I didn’t know for sure who the important people were, I didn’t want to indiscriminately kill.
As I took up position outside the door while Jackie prepared to knock, Josie spoke into my mind. “I still think I should be the one to go in.”
I smiled. “I want someone we can question, but if I need a room sliced and diced or flambeed, then I’ll let you go first.”
Her mental growl reminded me of other times she growled for me. Having Josie as both my deputy and lover complicated our supervisor/employee association, but was so totally worth it. Besides, we were still finding our feet in this relationship.
“You’re more important than any piece of information we could obtain. I don’t like you taking these risks.”
“I don’t like it when you put your pants back on in the morning, but you don’t hear me complaining.”
“Be serious. And you do complain—every morning.”
“Okay, hush now, I’ve gotta focus. He is at the door. If things go bad, you have my permission to come in and burn it all down.”
The sense of contentment that she sent back at that statement was both exciting and a bit scary. Josie was one hell of a fire mage and there weren’t many—if any at all in town—who could stand up to her in a one on one, no holds barred fight. But I had to focus, instead of being distracted by our budding relationship. I crossed my fingers that Jackie wouldn’t screw this up.
