Centuria Books · Hell Took My Dog: An Ecchi Harem LitRPG Adventure
Hell Took My Dog: An Ecchi Harem LitRPG Adventure — Read the First Chapter
Hell murdered Cal Knox’s dog. Then it offered him a class.
Chapter 1 — They Killed the Dog
Biscuit growled at the hall closet twelve seconds before Hell opened inside it.
Cal Knox knew the timing because the game on his television had twelve seconds left on a doomed boss attempt, and some treacherous part of his mind kept counting while his dog backed across the carpet. Biscuit was sixty pounds of scarred muscle, one folded ear, and unreasonable faith in a man currently losing to a tutorial necromancer.
He had never growled at a closet before, not even during the vacuum campaign.
“If this is about the vacuum, it remains defeated,” Cal said, setting the controller aside. “You watched me unplug it.”
He did not look back, and his white-tipped tail stayed low while the fur along his spine rose.
The closet door bulged outward, so Cal crossed before good sense loaded and grabbed Biscuit’s red harness. The dog yielded one step, then braced hard enough to drag his bare feet across the rug when something scratched beyond the door.
Three marks appeared in the painted wood, and each glowed like a stove coil.
The television went black, although the necromancer’s music continued playing. Red letters assembled across the screen, then spread onto the walls, the windows, and the back of Cal’s hand.
INFERNAL INCURSION — LOCAL INSTANCE
The instance detected one living human, one bound companion, and one infernal entity.
Its registered owner was Marquis Varkos; the objective was surviving collection before breach in 00:08.
He stared for one second, which was enough time for the counter to reach seven. “Nope.”
He hauled Biscuit toward the kitchen while the dog fought to keep himself between Cal and the closet. The old harness creaked against his shoulders, and Cal understood the argument only after wasting another second on it.
Biscuit was not trying to reach the door; he was trying to keep Cal behind him.
During the year after Cal found him, the dog had perfected that stubborn position. He used it against loose shepherds, drunks outside the corner store, and one furious goose. Usually, Cal could break the guard with a treat and an order to heel. Now Biscuit ignored both because the danger waited ahead, and protecting Cal mattered more than obedience.
That was the first rule Hell failed to understand.
At four seconds, Cal snatched the chef’s knife from the drying rack. At three, the closet hinges began dripping black metal. At two, every light in the apartment flared gold.
At one, Biscuit barked, and Hell arrived wearing a white suit.
The demon stepped through a doorway much taller than the closet had room to contain, ducking two polished horns beneath a frame of molten iron. He was thin, silver-haired, and almost handsome until he smiled. Too many narrow teeth filled his mouth, each engraved with the name of a dog.
Black kennels stretched behind him beneath a burning sky.
“There you are,” he said, looking past Cal. “Such loyalty in such an ordinary vessel.”
Biscuit lunged, but Cal caught the harness with one hand and slashed with the other. The knife passed through a smoky sleeve, while cold fingers closed around the red harness anyway.
“He is not yours,” Cal said.
The demon glanced at him as if furniture had objected to being moved. “Nothing remains yours after the gate records it.”
Then a yellow prompt appeared above Biscuit’s shoulders.
LOYAL SOUL IDENTIFIED
The loyal soul resisted every command at 100%, making it a crown-grade collection.
Cal drove the knife into the prompt.
The blade bounced away, but the yellow frame cracked. Biscuit twisted inside the demon’s grip and buried his teeth in the white sleeve. Smoke poured from the wound while Varkos’s smile finally disappeared.
“Interesting,” the demon said as his shadow moved before he did.
It crossed the carpet in a single black line, touched Biscuit beneath the ribs, and stopped his heart.
The dog made one surprised sound. Cal felt the harness go slack, then dropped beside him before the knife hit the floor.
No blood spread and no wound opened. His brown eyes found Cal, held him for one impossible moment, and lost their light.
Something golden rose from his chest, shaped like Biscuit and bright as summer sunlight. It kept the folded ear and the wagging tail he had never controlled around strangers. For one confused beat, the soul looked down at its silent body; then it turned toward Cal.
Varkos snapped a chain around its throat.
“No,” Cal said, but the word came out too small and late against the chain hauling Biscuit backward.
He grabbed it with both hands, and black links burned his palms while the demon pulled him toward the broken closet. Biscuit’s soul planted all four paws, fighting the other direction while the chain brightened between them.
For one second, the demon had to pull against both.
Then he touched Cal’s forehead and appraised the twenty-four-year-old man as negligible, unstable, and untested.
The final notice declined collection as if rejection were a mercy rather than an insult.
Varkos flicked him away, and Cal hit the television hard enough to break the screen. By the time he could breathe, the demon stood inside Hell with Biscuit chained beside him.
The dog looked back through the closing gate.
Varkos raised one hand and let Biscuit’s red collar hang from a finger. “When the Crown wakes, he will lead every faithful creature into my kennels. You may take comfort in his purpose.”
The demon closed his fist.
The gate began to shrink.
Cal pushed himself upright, but two women fell through the ceiling before he reached it.
The first struck the floor in a burst of gold feathers, one armored knee landing between Cal and the closet. She was tall, powerfully built, and covered in bright plate that had lost an argument with several enormous claws. One shoulder remained protected. The other had three straps, a broken golden cup, and faith doing work no engineer would have trusted to fabric.
Wide wings filled half the apartment.
The second woman landed on Cal.
He caught a flash of black feathers and pale thigh before her weight drove him back into the ruined television. She ended up across his lap, one arm around his neck, her dark armor fitted closely enough to turn breathing into a visual event.
A purple halo flickered above her short black hair.
“Alive?” she asked.
He looked at the gate, Biscuit’s body, and the woman sitting on him. “Temporarily confused.”
“Good. Confusion means the skull works.”
She glanced down, noticed where she had landed, and made no attempt to move. Silver eyes met his with open amusement.
“You may put your hands somewhere useful.”
Cal had kept them raised beside her waist like a man being arrested by lingerie. “Define useful.”
“Later,” the golden angel said. “Vesper, get off the mortal.”
“He has a name somewhere.”
The black-winged angel leaned close enough for her hair to brush his cheek. Her screen named her Vesper, an adult Veil Seraph manifested at twenty-five, with one minute and eighteen seconds of unanchored embodiment remaining.
“Cal,” she read. “The useful part may include your name.”
The golden angel grabbed Vesper beneath the arms and lifted her away. Cal received one last deliberate press of warm weight before the space between them returned.
“Aurelia,” the armored woman said. “Angelic Vanguard, manifested age twenty-six, and currently too busy to indulge her. Where is Varkos?”
Cal pointed at the closing gate.
Her gaze found Biscuit on the carpet first. The question left her face.
She knelt, placed two fingers against the dog’s neck, and closed her eyes. Gold moved through her hand, searched, and returned empty.
“His soul was taken intact,” she said. “Not consumed.”
Cal’s hands stopped shaking.
“Can I get him back?”
The gate had narrowed to the width of a door. Beyond it, Varkos walked between kennels while Biscuit’s soul fought the chain with every step.
Aurelia looked at her broken armor, Vesper’s failing halo, and the distance to Hell.
“Yes,” she said. “If we leave now.”
Three red creatures crawled through before they could move.
They were the size of children and built from elbows, teeth, and wet leather. Cal’s new interface labeled them COLLECTION IMPS — LEVEL 2, then helpfully informed him that they preferred grieving targets.
The first leaped at Biscuit’s body.
Cal intercepted it with the controller.
Plastic shattered against a horn, dealing one point of damage and making the imp laugh. He kicked it away before it could land on the dog, then pulled Biscuit’s blanket from the couch and covered him.
The act changed something.
A black menu opened beneath the red incursion panel, low enough that the final line disappeared beyond his wrist. Three class choices waited above it.
EMERGENCY CLASS SELECTION
Mourner preserved one memory from spiritual damage after a recent loss.
Avenger gained 20% damage against the creature responsible for that loss.
Hellbound survived infernal environments for ten minutes, while more options waited below.
An imp sprang at Vesper while she tried to hold the gate open. Aurelia caught it with one wing and smashed it through the coffee table, but the impact tore another golden plate from her side.
ARMOR DURABILITY: 31%
Cal saw too much warm skin and not enough time to appreciate it.
“Your menu,” Vesper called. “Choose something violent.”
“It scrolls.”
“Everything scrolls if you threaten it correctly.”
He dragged the class list down, and the hidden choice appeared in black instead of red.
[GRIEFBOUND RAIDER] — FORBIDDEN
The forbidden Griefbound Raider class turned chosen bonds into practical raid strength.
It gained Vengeance from marked infernal damage and doubled gains while protecting bonded allies.
Its starting skills were Pack Mark and Last Treat, but corrupted vengeance could consume the bond that created it.
Would Cal accept the forbidden class and its dangerous failure condition? [YES] [NO]
He pressed YES.
Pain crossed his palms where the chain had burned them, turning each wound into a black ring around his wrist. A red bar appeared beneath his Health.
VENGEANCE: 0/100
The second imp lunged for Aurelia’s exposed side. Cal marked it without needing the tooltip twice.
A red collar snapped around the creature’s throat. Pack Mark tracked party damage for thirty seconds and would reveal phase thresholds after their first shared strike. The normal five-Vengeance cost flashed unavailable, then the class granted one provisional cast.
Her fist hit the marked imp for forty-three damage. Vesper’s black feather entered beneath its jaw for twenty-two more, and a shared red line showed Cal the remaining fifteen Health.
He seized the broken leg of the coffee table and swung as the imp turned toward Vesper.
The wood caught it across the spine.
DAMAGE: 9
Not enough.
The creature raked a claw toward Vesper’s unarmored back. Cal stepped into the path because Biscuit was beneath the blanket, because Vesper was holding the only open route to his soul, and because there was no world in which he watched another living thing fall six feet away.
The claw opened his shirt and scored four hot lines across his chest.
CAL KNOX — HEALTH: 76/100
The Vengeance bar surged to twenty.
He understood before the System explained it. Protecting a pack member paid double, and the class had counted Vesper before either of them had agreed to anything.
“Aurelia,” Cal said. “Hit mine again.”
The angel did not ask why. Her wing drove the imp into his reach, and he brought the table leg down across the red collar.
The shared strike broke its last six Health. The imp burst into hot coins that vanished before touching the rug.
The cleared Mark awarded twenty XP and retained his twenty points of Vengeance.
The remaining two imps hesitated.
That was enough for Aurelia.
She crossed the apartment in two strides, caught one by the horns, and threw it through the gate. Vesper released one hand from the portal long enough to snap her fingers. A false red marker appeared over the last imp, pointing into Hell.
It followed its own aggro arrow through the breach.
“We have thirty seconds,” she said. “Possibly twenty if your building objects to damnation.”
The walls had started bending toward the closet. Cal crouched beside Biscuit, pressed his forehead to the folded ear, and tried to fit everything he had not said into one breath.
The dog still smelled like warm fur, dust, and the peanut-butter treats hidden above the refrigerator.
Last Treat flashed inside Cal’s menu.
LAST TREAT — RANK 1
This skill consumed one carried food item to call the bound companion’s Soul Echo.
The echo could intercept one attack before vanishing after a single action.
Its current companion was Biscuit, whose soul remained alive in death within Hell’s Fifth Ring.
He read the last line until it stopped blurring.
Alive in death was a stupid phrase, but it contained enough alive for him.
He took the bag of treats from the cupboard and looped Biscuit’s spare leash around his wrist. When he stood, Aurelia was watching him with grief she did not turn into pity.
Vesper held out her free hand.
MORTAL ANCHOR REQUIRED
An unanchored angel entering Hell would lose her physical embodiment.
A living mortal could anchor two willing celestials within thirty meters, with a shared channel and reciprocal location sense.
The link granted no ownership, command rights, or private thoughts, and anyone could sever it outside combat.
Would Cal request an anchor with Aurelia and Vesper? [REQUEST] [DECLINE]
“It has the order wrong,” Cal said.
Aurelia’s brows drew together. “The order?”
“You are the ones risking existence. You request. I answer.”