"Maxim, hello," a familiar female voice sounded from behind, whose owner was on the poster in front of me. A gentle and velvety voice that had recently made me melt, and now only caused disgust and hatred.
I turned around and glanced at the girl. I fleetingly noted that she looked just as stunning, said nothing, and walked toward the traffic light. I waited for the green signal and, ignoring all her attempts to talk to me, went to the cafe for a shawarma. The desire to try it outweighed even the thought that I had to answer her something. There, I took a super-spicy king-sized portion with jalapeño peppers and ravenously bit into it, staring out the window at the passing cars.
"Maxim, we need to talk! I'll explain everything!" I simply ignored the girl talking in my ear, letting everything go in one ear and out the other, and when she saw that I wasn't paying attention to her, she just fell silent and continued to sit next to me. I finished my meal, drank a cup of coffee, and, getting up, went outside, stretching with satisfaction and paying no attention to the scurrying passers-by.
Nothing special seemed to be happening, but I was free, and a feeling of euphoria took hold of my mind. And even the annoying blonde in a down jacket nearby no longer caused such crazy emotions. No, I still continued to hate her; she almost managed to ruin my life and spoiled a huge number of plans, but at that moment, I just didn't give a damn about her. I threw my head back and caught the falling snowflakes with my mouth, probably looking like a slightly strange guy on drugs from the side.
"Please, give me one chance to explain everything. Maxim, for the sake of everything that was between us," the girl continued to talk, but I raised my hand and stopped her.
"Anna. Go to hell," she shouldn't have mentioned what happened before. I won't let anyone play with my feelings. I put my hands in my jacket pockets, turned away, and headed toward the metro, leaving her standing on the road.
The lazily falling snow also continued to swirl in the air before falling on the road, and people who had already gotten used to the constant snowfall went about their business after the long holidays, some rushing to work, and some returning from it. Pushing my way through the people who had clustered at the entrance to the metro, I went down to the station and, touching my communicator to the turnstile, paid for a single ride.
The gray marble walls at the station immediately reminded me of my abilities. If that zombie jailer were here now, there would be no question of how to deal with him. The solid material would be an excellent basis for creating a skill, and then one, at most two, shots, and it would be done. Even dozens of such opponents would not be a problem, simply providing a large amount of experience with their carcasses.
For a moment, I had a sharp desire to do something stupid and urgently check my abilities. What if something got corrupted in the communicator during the time I was without it, and I would have to live without the wonderful abilities that had firmly entered my life? But with an effort of will, I restrained myself and, moving in the stream of people, got on the arriving train.
A group of young people, who looked like they were still schoolchildren, in the corner of the car were happily discussing a gift for one of them in the form of a new version of Symb from loving parents. I came closer and listened to their conversation.
"Sergey, man. Are you sure this is a good idea, going into this portal?" one of the teenagers spoke up.
"Listen, well, if our old man managed, why am I any worse? I have a blue belt in karate, by the way. I'll take everyone down there with one hand and also learn to fly. Can you imagine how strong a kick would be if you delivered it in flight? And then I'll easily take out Pasha at the competitions."
"Ha-ha-ha. Like in games or something? Dragon kick?"
"What? What dragon? It's called Jump Kick," another one, in round glasses, corrected the speaker.
The children continued to fantasize, unaware of what was actually waiting for them in the portals. At first, I was about to tell them what was happening there, but I stopped myself. There are now hundreds, if not thousands, or even tens of thousands, of such children of any gender all over the planet. And if this one is at least minimally prepared, practicing in a sports club, the others will simply be fodder for the monsters living there.
At the state level, of course, I would have banned the sale of communicators to a certain group of people altogether. First of all, of course, to minors, the mentally ill, and some other categories, such as former convicts and other antisocial personalities. In general, it would be a good idea to regulate their circulation, just like with firearms, if not even more strictly. A certificate from a psychiatrist, a medical commission.
Some skills have more lethality than even an assault rifle. And the ability of the inventory generally opens up a huge space for illegal activity, ranging from smuggling and drug trafficking to terrorism and illegal organ transplantation. Even murder! You can easily hide a corpse in your inventory and then just get rid of it. Either in a portal or in some secluded place, without even leaving traces when carrying it.
Apparently, now when police officers check documents, they will also ask you to open your spatial storage and show that there is nothing forbidden there. Although I can also come up with a way to get around this. Personally, I can just take off my communicator and pretend that I have nothing to do with it.
Thinking about the gradually changing world, I rode the metro and relaxed my soul, listening to the everyday conversations of those around me, until my ear caught a phrase from an elderly woman discussing the latest news with her friend on an old touch-screen phone.
"Did you hear that in Germany, they started getting indignant again about our president's decision to ban the sale of these new contraptions abroad? Any day now, they'll start rattling their weapons. We should probably stock up on buckwheat and sugar. Yes, yes…" she began to answer her companion. "Come on, I'll get there now, and we'll meet at the store. Take the bags; we need to hurry before others buy up all the products."
I smirked at first, but then I remembered how we had stocked up ourselves not long ago and were not that different from these women, in fact. Only they traditionally sweep away buckwheat and sugar during any unrest, and we stocked up on canned goods as well.
I opened the news on my communicator and began to monitor the headlines on international portals.
"Aggressors in the Kremlin: Russia violates international law and contractual obligations."
"Russia refuses a compromise: the world is on the brink of conflict."
"Russia's refusal to fulfill its promises: peace talks on the verge of collapse."
"Russia violates contractual obligations: the world demands sanctions and diplomatic pressure."
Yeah... Nothing new. For the sake of interest, I clicked on several links, and in principle, it was the same everywhere. The ban on the sale of communicators abroad and the restriction on obtaining abilities beyond human development stirred up the world that had stagnated recently. Weakly smoldering regional conflicts disappeared from the headlines, and the only thing that interested the whole world now was "superpowers," as the foreign press called them.
Interviews with the few lucky ones who received the first batch of communicators, which had spread across the planet, only increased the interest. Conspiracy theories multiplied, one-day cults appeared, recruiting followers and calling the technologies a devilish temptation. Even the Pope spoke out in condemnation and a call not to give in to provocations and not to strive for quick power, but to remain Christians faithful to God. And surprisingly, the Moscow Patriarch spoke in opposition to him, fully supporting the president. But this, by the way, was expected; in recent years, the government had begun to actively take control of the religious community, including through it, to carry out its policies.
Continuing to read the news, I reached home and, opening the door with my key, went inside. Nothing had changed during the week I was away, except for a slight smell of dampness. Apparently, water had seeped under the floor, and now it would take time for everything to dry out completely. I thought about using Dehydration to dry the surrounding space but stopped myself in time. Who knows if any of the neighbors from below are at home now. What if someone walks by and loses a significant part of the fluid in their head, instantly falling into a coma?
Deciding to deal with the problem later, I undressed and flopped onto the bed, sighing with satisfaction. It was soft and nice. True, the lingering scent of the girl's perfume, which had soaked into the sheets, slightly spoiled the impression, and, gathering my strength, I got up, gathered the bedding, and put it in the wash, deciding to get rid of all the reminders.
While cleaning the apartment, I called my parents to calm their anxiety.
"Mom? Dad? How are you?"
They turned on the holographic display of the surrounding space, and I saw that they were in a green clearing, sitting around a bonfire. Timosha was sleeping next to my brother, with his head on his paw, but when he heard my voice, he lazily opened one eye and perked up his ears. After sniffing and making sure that the familiar smell hadn't appeared, he closed his eyes again and continued to snore.
"My God, son! How are you?" Mom began to walk around my image with concern, looking for damage on it.
"Everything's fine, I was just in a cell until Uncle Valera came. No one hurt me, and I was basically at a resort," I said, anticipating her next questions. "The charges were dropped; it was the investigator's mistake, and everything is fine now."
My dad and brother exchanged glances but understandingly did not pursue the topic, realizing that I was just calming my mother.
"And did you eat?"
"Yes, everything is fine. You better tell me, how are you? I see that you are not at home now?"
"Yeah, we decided to go rabbit hunting," my dad answered for my mom and lifted the carcass lying next to him by the ears. "We have already passed through the portal, but decided to check if the creatures here are edible. We'll fry it now, and then if we feel unwell, we'll immediately go outside."
"Aaah... Then you don't have to worry. While I was relaxing in a 'fashionable hotel,'" I embellished the facts a little, "I hunted boars and tried their meat. As you can see, everything is fine."
"Then it turns out that humanity is not threatened by hunger, since you can replenish supplies in these places. We alone killed about fifty rabbits here. Even if each one yields two kilograms of pure meat, we can take out about a hundred kilograms from here alone. And it's valuable, dietary meat, and if you also skin them..." Dima looked at the gray matted fur and corrected himself. "Although coats made of such fur are unlikely to be popular with girls."
"You have a hundred kilograms, but in my portal, there were boars, each of which weighed more, and the boss was the size of a small house. It's scary to imagine how much food could have been obtained from it."
So, calmly talking to my family, I finished cleaning the apartment, scrubbing it until it was sparkling clean. After ending the conversation, I finally changed the bedding and went to bed, deciding to get some sleep. Especially since I promised my neighbor that I would take him to a portal in the evening, and I needed to rest a little before that.
I slept surprisingly well, so I didn't even want to get up, but I had to fulfill the obligations I had taken on.
"Hello, Uncle Valera?"
"Yes, hi, Maxim. I'm done for today, so I can come over wherever you say. Do I need to bring anything with me? Because, of course, they gave us guidebooks, but you clearly have more experience."
"What's in them? Can you send it to me? I'll take a look and call you back in a couple of minutes."
"No, I'll show it to you now so that I don't have to send it; it's an official document, after all, and we won't take any risks."
He took out a small laminated red book with a golden coat of arms of the Russian Federation and a large inscription in the center: "Brief Guide for Employees on Interacting with Portals" with the stamp "For Official Use Only" in the upper right corner.
I carefully studied the text on the pages he was turning and noted that for the first passage, it was recommended to use standard-issue weapons, for which it was necessary to get a large supply of ammunition, make a mandatory note about leaving and arriving, and it also contained a description of a minimal first-aid kit with a list of provisions. Everything looked very logical, and if I had had such supplies in my passages, everything would have been much easier.
"Yes, surprisingly well-written. Nothing superfluous, everything can be useful in theory, especially the food and water. Take everything on the list, and we'll go."
We agreed to meet at my house with the colonel. He hadn't had time to receive an official apartment yet and planned to live in his office for the first few days. And I didn't have any particular desire to return to Butyrka, and he was understanding about my temporary phobia.
There was a knock on the door, and I opened it, meeting my neighbor, this time for a change, equipped with a bulletproof vest and holding a protective helmet in his hand.
"Well, you look like you're going to war," I commented on his appearance.
"Well, where are we going? We're going to have to kill someone now," the adult man was slightly nervous. "Just in case, I took ten loaded magazines and another two hundred loose rounds."
"Looks solid. Maybe some tea and we can sit down for the road?"
"Let's do it..." my neighbor took off his shoes, went into the kitchen, and put his pistol on the table in front of him.
"Can I take a look?" I asked.
He deftly pulled out the loaded magazine, checked that there was no round in the barrel, and spun it across the table, sending it toward me.
"Glock 17? Austrian? I thought that police officers only had Makarov pistols in their arsenal."
"A common misconception. Our list of standard-issue weapons consists of more than thirty items. And these little babies," he lovingly stroked the blued steel of the pistol, "were purchased more than twenty years ago by special order, with stocks periodically replenished under a state contract, and are issued to special units and high-ranking police officials. And I, as you know, stand quite high in the hierarchy. Look, if I prove myself well here, I'll even get a general's rank. Well..." he slapped the table. "Let's not get sidetracked. Shall we go?"
"One minute. Of course, I trust you, but I'll ask you not to tell anyone about what is about to happen," I took gloves, a dagger, and boots from my inventory, changed, and, after waiting for my neighbor to get equipped, slashed the air with the dagger, opening the surface of the portal.
"Yes, of course. You're like a son to me," he replied.
[Portal to level 6 location. Spider's Lair.]
"Damn... That doesn't sound very pleasant. Of course, I have a universal remedy for them in the form of a flamethrower, but... I just don't like spiders."
"So what's the problem? We'll take a newspaper and go," Uncle Valera suggested, not quite understanding the level of danger.
"The problem is that the spiders can be the size of a small cottage."
He shuddered, and I could literally see that he already wanted to give up on all this and return to his quiet and cozy office.
"Alright... There's no point in dragging our feet. You go first," and I pushed him toward the portal.
"Wait a second," the colonel took a flat flask from his pocket, shook it, then unscrewed the cap, smelled it, took a large gulp, and, putting it back, took the pistol in his hands, gripping it tightly. "Whew. Well, I'm going," and he stepped inside.
Not making him wait, I immediately followed him. A second of disorientation during the transition, and we found ourselves in another cave, light piercing into it from narrow cracks in the ceiling. It was very strange, by the way, because caves are usually located inside mountains, and there is simply no source of light there. But I had already stopped being surprised by the oddities of the locations.
Uncle Valera stood in a shooting stance, with his hand extended with the pistol, and looked around, looking for a target.
"Everything's fine!" I hastened to reassure him. "It's usually safe at the entrance. At least I haven't been attacked here yet. I'll go first, and you stay a little behind. The monsters here are at least level six, and it can be dangerous for you."
The cobwebs hanging on the walls of the cave made us move forward carefully, fearing an attack from above. And it didn't look capable of supporting the weight of anything larger than a palm. And then either there were only small spiders here, or something more serious was waiting for us ahead, and this could be considered just the setting of the location.
In the end, that's what happened. A huge shaggy spider, hanging motionless in the middle of the passage, blocked our way. With a gesture, I stopped the police officer following me, aimed my hand, and released a five-meter jet of fire, deciding to slightly singe the multi-legged monster and at the same time reduce its maneuverability by burning the cobwebs.
The fiery torch, rushing forward, set fire to the white veil hanging everywhere and, hitting the shaggy creature, singed its hairy body and knocked it down. I moved the fire lower to the spider, deciding not to give the arthropod a chance to show its agility. If small spiders could jump huge distances, then it was unclear what to expect from their older counterparts. It would be unpleasant if such a carcass, weighing more than ten kilograms offhand, jumped in my face.
The monster, having tucked its paws, lay on the stones, and the fire, meanwhile, began to spread briskly along the cobwebs, burning them without a trace and illuminating the winding passage in the cave that was running away into the distance.
"So... I haven't received any experience notifications, so I think this creature is alive. You can try to shoot it," I passed my turn.
My neighbor, still moving with the pistol tightly clenched in his hand, aimed it at the target and fired a shot. The nine-millimeter bullet made a neat hole in the spider's belly; it twitched slightly but remained lying on the stones.
"Still nothing, no messages," the colonel, who was beginning to feel better, reported briskly.
"Well, then a couple more shots."
The three shots that followed rang out with a deafening sound throughout the cave. The first bullet, which again hit the belly, also didn't produce much effect, just causing the hole to ooze with a whitish liquid. The second and third hit the cephalothorax, causing the creature to start and convulse, unclenching its paws.
"Until I hit it in the head, I didn't get any experience notifications. Apparently, its belly is not so important for its survival," Uncle Valera concluded. "Received twelve experience points."
"And I was given two points, apparently for the fire and the damage I dealt to it."
I came closer and examined the dead creature. My flame not only singed it but also burned all its eyes, and apparently, because of this, it did not resist, having fallen into thermal shock.
"Maxim. That was damn unexpected," Uncle Valera suddenly said. "I'm talking about your fire from your hands. Will I be able to do that later too?"
"I don't know, to be honest. Everyone has their own abilities; you might have something completely different. We'll take down eight more of these creatures, you'll get the first level, learn your inventory, and in twelve hours, you'll find out what you got."
We walked in silence for a minute, and then the police officer added:
"In general, it's good that spiders are afraid of fire, otherwise, I don't even know how we would move here. To be honest, I still have goosebumps running down my skin from the sight of this abomination, and because of those goosebumps, I think that small spiders are running on me."
I shuddered at his words but tried to get them out of my head. All I needed was to get arachnophobia.
A volley of fire saved us from one problem, destroying all the cobwebs, which no longer got in my face. And the next spider we met was sitting on the stones, with two broken legs tucked under it, sticking out at an angle. Apparently, the fire caught it by surprise, and it fell down, getting injured. But for us, this was good news, making the passage easier.
I nodded invitingly to my neighbor, and he, understanding the hint, raised his pistol and aimed at the spider that had raised its feet in a threatening manner. The bullet flew past and ricocheted further into the cave. The arthropod, which perceived us as a threat, awkwardly crawled toward us, tucking its broken legs under itself. I glanced at the pistol shaking in the policeman's hands, ready to back him up at any second, but he coped with the jitters and, after firing three more times, finally hit the spider in the head, killing it instantly.
This time I didn't get a single experience point; apparently, indirect effects, such as burning cobwebs and dropping the spider from a height, were not counted by the system, even if they dealt damage. The idea with traps, which I periodically thought about, suddenly lost its priority. Apparently, only direct damage-dealing effects could be converted into experience.
I looked at my neighbor, who was examining the spider with morbid curiosity, and wondered whether it was worth it to pull off the standard initiation bypass with him, as I had with my parents. With almost a hundred percent probability, he, like them then, would get a system skill in the form of a personal weapon that would get stronger with his growth. But despite the fact that I had known my neighbor since childhood, he was still a stranger. And while I was ready to vouch for my family, I couldn't know what was going on in his head. And his profession would, in any case, leave its mark, and he might not be able to resist and tell others what he got in the portal, thereby opening up a hunt for me. And not for any reason, but simply out of a sense of duty. After all, life within a system with a clearly structured vertical of power leaves its mark on a person's life and thoughts.
In general, the logical arguments outweighed the feeling of gratitude, and I, having made a decision, stepped forward, deciding to quickly go through the location, destroy all the spiders, and get out faster. Moreover, it was already night there, and I needed to get some sleep, and the next day I had to go to Syntech to figure out the story with my dismissal.