Chapter 17

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Have you ever played such a classic, in every sense of the word, game as Pacman? You know, the one with the flying jaws, the eating of the goodies, the view from above, and the fucking ghosts! Pac-Man!

The game is old, tested by time, and hundreds of thousands of nerve cells burned in the flames of a flaming butt. I've never liked it, a product of someone's evil genius. This game always made my eye twitch after half an hour of trying, and if you spend the whole evening with it... The neighbors once heard me yelling and cursing, so they called the responsible person. No, not a doctor - a priest. What can I say? My neighbors were even more fucked up than I was, and that says a lot!

But back to the real world, in which I again had a session of playing the ill-fated flying jaw, only now in 3D and with full immersion in the atmosphere of gaming. The role of the packman was me and three other imbeciles, one of whom also had to be carried. There was a crowd of guards and other murky personalities in the role of evil ghosts eager to claw at our delicate buns.

Of course, it wasn't me they were looking for, it was the imbeciles, but there was nothing I could do about it - as long as I was with them, I was considered as much of a packman as the three fugitives. Fugitives about whom I know nothing at all, except that they are, in fact, in serious trouble with someone very powerful and influential. Because it wouldn't be possible for someone else to raise the entire city guard and put the elite elimination squad I'd met earlier on top of them.

And my tirade about the old game is actually quite serious, because, given my sphere of perception, we are exactly playing hide-and-seek with the enemy. We are all helped by the detailing of my sphere and its continuity, which allows us to track in real-time the movements of all those seeking a meeting with such poor and unfortunate us.

We were saved by the fact that there were no professionals of the level of the squad we'd destroyed. The guy with the search artifact was guarded by two men above level twenty-five, but the guards had no one else of comparable caliber. There were a couple of groups of twenty-plus fighters, but the majority were barely above level fifteen. Or even lower.

And they did not want to look for us, or rather find us. The newfound clairvoyance showed that they knew of the arrival of the eliminators because they came through official channels, as well as of what had happened to them. They had no intention of pushing their way in against the men who had turned an elite unit into a pile of cut-up corpses. Unless, of course, they are patriotic idiots. But even if they were found, there would be very few of them - no one wants to die. And there are very few people who want to die for the interests of others.

I have a suspicion that all this mess with the full-fledged raids and the raising of all the city guards is not as legitimate as it may seem. I can't say for sure that this is clairvoyance and not a guess, but I have a hunch that someone will be held responsible for this situation. Of course, if this company survives its adventures and can make its claims.

Eh, I have the urge to save all the offended by life.

It was ridiculously easy to get us all through the ring of enemies that had been carefully created and blocked all the routes. At first, I tensed more and more, expecting a trap and an ambush at any moment, simply because it couldn't have been that ridiculously easy and unstressful.

I mean, the very first moments were dangerous-we were extremely densely surrounded, there were mobile groups of the enemy roaming around, and some of the guards clearly had some sort of sensory skills. In theory, the fugitives had no chance of escape. Though their strength, even with the wild exhaustion, was enough to quickly destroy the sentinels they encountered, that was the plan. While some were being killed, they were being surrounded, cut off, and taken. The only ones who would be displeased would be the rank and file sentries themselves, whose deaths would serve as a litmus test for the sentries, but who cared about these peasants anyway?

It was my presence alone and, let me praise myself, the lack of professionalism of the pursuers that failed the creators of the plan. The man, if he is not reinforced by a huge number of systemic benefits and did not grind his stats to obscenely high rates, has an extremely limited viewing angle, poor hearing, and lack of intuition.

There were only a few gaps in the rapidly shrinking ring that couldn't be used unless I had a permanent map of the movements of all the objects, displayed directly in real-time. I had one, but they didn't. Even the sensors had to save their energy and let the scanning waves go by at short pauses, just to avoid falling over in the process with severe exhaustion.

That's how we got past the first barrier. I waited for another wave of magical energy, covering barely fifty meters, to pass, then I waited for the same wave from the guardian-finder next to it, and only when they were both discharged and the regulars weren't looking in our direction, I gave the sign to start moving.

The four of us got through the short section in two and a half seconds, and then we dove into a ditch of muddy water. At least they didn't pour sewage in it! For me it's nothing, I had time to wrap myself in a suit of my own shadow (unnoticed by the rescued), but the three had to endure. How the little one survived was a mystery.

Holding our breath, we managed to hide rather neatly under the surface of the muddy water, so that we were not noticed by the guards who passed one step away from us. And the sensor going with them used his skill after leaving us out of its range, because this area had been checked by him earlier, and we ourselves had to be in the building, which was about to be stormed.

The observer on the roof, who was clearly a stealth class, could have interfered, but at this very moment, his head was looking in a different direction. It could have been spoiled by another observer (and this one, I think, was one of the Night Guild hired by someone), hiding in the attic of the tallest house, looking through the entire courtyard through the skylight. And, bastard, he didn't take his eyes off the view one bit! But at that very moment, a handful of dust fell on his face from some beam, and bad luck happens. Especially within my shadow sphere.

The assault had just begun, but the main force had already passed us, and the reserves were slowly pulling into the second circle. I couldn't stay underwater for long, because my wards couldn't breathe through a thin shadowy tube. I had to choose a moment and scare away a dozen bats lurking in the same attic, which began aggressively squeaking their bat swears to the intruder in their domain, causing him to be quite distracted, completely forgetting about the supervision of the territory entrusted to him. And the silent man on the roof rushed to his aid, assuming the worst, but not wanting to sound the alarm until he was sure.

There was no reason for alarm, but in the ten seconds, it took the four of us, of which I was the only one who was dry, to get under the wall of the same tall building where the two bat-nest ruiners were huddled. No Batman on them! I had to work hard, though, to cover up the very clear traces of [censored] water and mud that clearly indicated to observers how they had been screwed. Fortunately, the shadow of the building fell directly on the ditch, so there was no need to work too much.

It would be possible to thicken the shadow and throw away the remnants of dirt on another plane, but this is already hammering nails with a microscope and smoking from a flamethrower. So it is also energy-hungry and much more noticeable than simple manipulations of the materialized shadow. Just made the shadow sharply surge, curl up into a roll, and throw all the dirt into the ditch, at the same time calming the water surface. By the time the observers returned to their positions, there was no sign of anything. Only the old bodyguard, who apparently at the last moment remembered such a problem and sensed the hiders with his sensors, looked surprised and even with a kind of disbelief at the perfectly clean ground behind.

Then he looked at the clean me.

Then he looked at the clean ground.

Then he looked at me again.

Then under his feet, where there was already a puddle of water.

And only then did he realize.

The next few minutes were spent scrubbing away the de-masking factor. I personally, after consulting the sphere, opened the shutters of the nearest window with a knife, climbed into the house, and, without disturbing the inhabitants of the house who were hiding in the corners (a raid!), stole some rags and two freshly baked buns. I had to use the Silence in the Hall to get the baking tray out of the oven because the baking had been trivially forgotten for fear of the angry guards outside the window. I left them one silver coin, just out of habit. All the same, if the disappearance will be missed, it is in the evening, and we by that time will be far away. I doubt the owners would complain to the guards. And I doubt they'd listen to them.

The company hastily cleared themselves, as much as was possible in such a hurry and with so little cleansing agent, and then I gestured for them to move out. The old man silently picked up the unhappy-looking boy. Who almost drowned while hiding in a ditch, then almost puked all over from the smell, and seemed to have caught a cold, too. He was unlucky with me, but, to his credit, he held up well and without hysterics, thanks to the elf-like [censored] woman (man, even the word combination made me giggle), who whispered something in his ear. Maybe she promised to teach him something new since the kid was so hungry for exotics.

We moved on.

The second ring was both easier and harder to pass. It was easier because there were fewer guards there, and there was much more room to maneuver. It was harder because there were enough townspeople and gawkers who had no idea what was going on or who they were looking for, but who were interested in what was going on nearby. Crowds are still crowds even in fantasy.

Here we had to walk at a sideways angle, at times cutting through yards or through the buildings themselves, which did not make me or the fugitives feel any better. It would have been reckless to let even a homeless person see us, for we were all so filthy that we were unwittingly attractive in comparison to the neatness of the townspeople. No, if we were in the slums, there would be more "dirty" kids there, but in the relatively decent artisan quarter, things were much worse for us.

Fortunately, most of the likely observers looked the other way, and the class of observers here was much lower. The townspeople, on the other hand, were not seen as anything other than trivialities of life. They weren't looking for us themselves, and they didn't have great levels or stats. The main thing was not to bump into them, otherwise, it would be a shame.

We walked quickly, but that didn't help much, because there were an obscene amount of damn stares. We had to stop for a long time, occasionally going back again and again. The most dangerous moment was when we were all sandwiched between a group of men discussing the price of conifers on one side and a group of drunken workers on the other.

And we hid from their gaze behind a small cart with firewood, almost against the wall of the inn, making my nose irritated now and then by the smell of sour broth. I leaned against the wooden wall of the bad pub and then took out the stolen buns. Out of sheer amusement, I offer one of them as a treat.

The assassin just gave me a scornful look, the boy turned away, hardly able to resist the urge to empty his stomach (what a gentle boy you are, though!), and the old man suddenly accepted the gift. After that, I was left with only one bun! And I'm sure he didn't want to eat it, but just did it for fun. I got the stupid feeling that I was being subtle pranked.

No, that's ridiculous!

We had to sit through almost half an hour until the inn's kitchen called a break, caused by the sudden dropping of a barrel of water upstairs, which everyone ran to mop up. Me??? What about me? I had to distract them somehow, or the owner of the wagon might soon come and leave us with no cover.

After quickly squeezing through the window - the little one had to be lifted from one side and pulled out from the other - we were inside without being seen by passersby (who had an epidemic of earworms in their eyes). Not too lazy to take some sort of floor cloth and wipe the window frame so as not to leave a mark. Again the flashing clairvoyance asserted that thieves had broken through this window before so that traces of dirt would cause the cooks and cooks to have reasonable suspicions about the integrity of the food supply.

We went straight to them (the food, not the cooks) - straight to the cellar, the entrance to which was in the kitchen, so as not to go far. The looks of the rescued were very suspicious, but apparently, they thought that if I decided to set them up and kill them, then such difficulties would not be required. The guys were pretty freaked out by my abilities. Even though I was demonstrating the bare minimum of my powers, it was not a small minimum, causing legitimate concern for my anonymity.

Tonight is going to be a very busy night, for I will not leave unreliable witnesses behind. Either they don't plan to screw me in the future, after which they survive, or they are assholes, after which they just don't wake up. I won't give them a third option, good or bad.

Their suspicions were understandable - they needed to get out of town, not hide in the food cellar. Especially considering how poorly this place is for laying unnoticed: too often people come here for a new batch of groceries. Quite shitty groceries, I might add, since a fair share of meat and vegetables can be found to be moldy or leathered. This, however, didn't stop the guard and me from taking the more decent-looking provisions with us.

In the meantime, I was busy opening an old and nearly collapsed passageway, long since hidden by a rusted and jammed lock. The images pouring directly into my brain told me that this passage had been built by the very first owner of the building, who had been executed for possession of a large amount of some prohibited herb straight from the swamps (to check on my herbs by the way.). And he never used it, leaving it as a legacy to the next owners of the building.

They never found out about it, but I, thanks to the shadow sphere, probed all the voids in passive mode, and immediately found the forgotten underground passage. If there had been catacombs in the city, I'm sure this would have led to them, but fortunately or unfortunately, there were none.

I almost punched myself in the head with a facepalm, but I still remembered the need to lock the tunnel back up. In the original mechanism, the secret passage slammed itself shut, but that mechanism is long gone. My shadows were able to simulate its functionality without showing my ability to control them. All three of us were quite frightened when we heard the soft creaking of the gradually locking door, but we refrained from commenting on it.

Now we can crawl on with a clear conscience.

I crawled forward silently, at the same time pushing and tamping the earth, gradually pouring from year to year. I thank the woodpeckers that for so many years, this hand-made passage did not collapse to all the demons, but even so it was difficult to move. Dirty, dusty, narrow, and dark as the asshole of a purebred [censored] fed on the most caloric fast food in the universe. If I hadn't created a kind of shadow drill in front of me, with which I squeezed through the worst rubble, we would have starved to death.

Fortunately, the tunnel was not that long, so no one had time to panic or get claustrophobic. However, this did not prevent little Sigismund from whining the entire way, like a goddamn nerd at a survivalist convention. Apparently, he was compensating us all for the restraint we had shown earlier, which was worthy of the highest praise (in his view).

"I am a noble aristocrat." A pause, during which he clearly awaits our answer. But I'm too busy gradually dissolving the earth into concentrated shadow, and his companions are too tired and probably long used to regular whining.

"My father has enough influence to buy this damned city, along with all its inhabitants." The wondrous creature did not relent, diligently grinding the pity-pressure skill.

I crawled forward in silence, trying to abstract myself from everything that was happening, at the same time genuinely amazed at the paranoia of the creators of the secret passage. Two hundred meters we had already crawled, and about the same amount left! I have only two questions for these departed gentlemen. The first would be, 'How did they get this crawlway through a residential neighborhood without anyone noticing?' The second will be much shorter, but it must be pronounced with the same tearfulness, as in a good drama. In short, it's: 'What the fuck?'

"And here I am, crawling through this forsaken place. Dirty, tired, and hungry, and I also stink. If my glorious ancestors saw their offspring, the venerable lords would rise from their graves just to express their disapproval of me." And all this he said in such an itchy, placid tone that it makes my cheekbones tingle.

I would have killed him if I hadn't clearly understood that the boy was now deathly afraid, right down to the bricks that followed his route. And his whining is a kind of defensive reaction of the mind, for this whiner is terrified of the dark. It's understandable, but "able" doesn't mean I have to.

"Wimp," I say in a husky and most threatening way. "If you keep this up, you'll probably have to meet your ancestors to justify yourself to them."

I routinely ignore his tense babysitters, anticipating another pain in the ass and a lot of snot from my nose and foam from my mouth. You know, to pass the boring hours during the long way. The hours of travel are no joke when our speed is, God forbid, three meters per minute. Alas, instead of the foul-mouthed curses typical of a high-schooler offended by life and the Internet, a much calmer response followed.

"You are... you're rude and uncivilized, which would get you kicked out of any decent company. It's just that I... here..." He fell silent, clearly unable to find the "right" words.

Fuck, he's almost a grown man now, he's got the mind and character of a goddamn fifth-grader! His father clearly spent too much time at work (or whatever it was?) and too little time with the kid.

When I was his age, I was much more independent, even though I was an infantile kid myself, just beginning to grow the green skin of a medium-fat network troll.

"Oy-wey! You're afraid of the dark, aren't you? Afraid it's gonna bite you in the ass?" I just can't hold back the flow of words. If only he'd tell Losius the fears that haunt him.The Duelist, not only does he dress in such a way that you might suspect his spiritual counterpart Sergei Zverev, but the monsters in the dark were afraid of him! And what the hell is this? The future great head of the noblest house? Even the whole ninth level? There are no words! I only hope this scumbag is not the only heir to his father, for otherwise, times would be even darker for this family than they first seemed.

Sergey Zverev

"You know, if I were you, I'd be afraid for your own ass." A comment came from the assassin crawling after me. "Or I might accidentally poke you with a knife and stick it really, really deep."

Wow, such a woman! She even knows how to make jokes about ass penetration! Our boards need such chans! I wasn't excited, I just didn't feel any real threatening intent behind her words. It was just an attempt to put me down and make me leave the little thing alone.

"Shush, woman! Can't you hear the men talking?" I pause. "Well, a man and a half... One and three tenths."

I could bet all my possessions that she was about to ask about why I only valued myself at three-tenths of a man, as the subject of the rescue operation became involved in our argument, screwing up all the good intentions of his protector.

"Are you... what is that supposed to mean? I am a man!" The indignation of this victim of selection could be concentrated into pure distillate and sold in test tubes.

"A man afraid of the dark?" I asked cunningly, mentally rubbing my hands together and saying goodbye to boredom.

"You know nothing!" The boy was suddenly angry and resentful, and really resentful, and then he became silent.

And it was as if I saw with my own eyes the heavy closet whose openwork lock had suddenly slammed shut, cutting the little boy off from the big world and the saving light for hours on end. If you're expecting me to feel ashamed, you've got the wrong guy. But here the urge to keep trolling is already gone - a consequence of having experienced the feeling of being a little boy too vividly. It would take some digesting and getting back on topic, but I decided to speak up.

"What I know?" This time my voice sounds uncharacteristically alien and serious as if I'm not even talking, but someone else, not at all like me. "Maybe nothing. Except, the thing is, your life and the lives of your loved ones don't depend on imaginary monsters at all, boy. Creatures that live in the night and in the light, like people who live there, are always far more dangerous than childhood fears. There's a shitload of things to be afraid of in the world, so please, show if not the courage worthy of your glorious ancestors, at least a little personal pride, and don't waste such a resource as your fear on ridiculous childish nightmares."

The only response is an exasperated sniff, which he interprets as a proud silence, but I don't let him pout. I don't know why, but I think it's damn important to get my point across to his stupid head. Once again, I speak before the woman is ready to intervene, continuing to get my point across.

"You have to decide, Sigismund, who you want to be and how you want to live. Do you think I'm going to tell you some platitude about how everyone is afraid, blah-blah-blah, you just have to overcome your fear, blah-blah-blah? Bullshit! There's always some bullsh*t in this world that will scare the hell out of you, no matter what your level is. But if you don't want to see the corpses of your people and hang yourself on some branch, then at least choose the fear worthy of a future victor and lord, not a little f*cker who can't step a step without his mother's skirt."

Some intuitive realization matured in my mind that it was these words that somehow had the greatest impact, getting to the very core of the young noble's soul. Not the tales of fearless knights that he, being a coward, did not believe. Not the tales that even the brave had a right to be afraid that his father, his teachers, and his maid had been feeding him, which only irritated him as he could not have the courage to be brave. And it wasn't even the self-defeating nonsense that made him sick to his stomach after so many repetitions of it in different wrappers. No, it was the pressure on his pride, on the fact that he was not just a pathetic coward, which he had inwardly come to terms with, but also afraid of truly pathetic things - that would be the impetus that would break the long-standing childhood trauma. Well, or finally throw him into the abyss of whining and self-pity.

In any case, I did everything I could do, and many times more than I should have done. If he doesn't take up his own development, I don't give a shit about it either.

With exactly the same suddenness with which it came, the strange sense of understanding the other person disappears without a trace, leaving me all alone and desperately uncomprehending.

What.

This.

Fucking.

Was?

The tunnel led into the poor neighborhood, down to a small basement. Apparently, it was an inn, too, but it was a lower-class one. The kind where bedbugs and cockroaches were genuinely surprised that people were trespassing on their property and trying to live there. Fortunately, the basement was, first of all, relatively clean, only very dusty, and, secondly, unused. Judging by the amount of dust and cobwebs collected here, this place had not been visited in years, if anyone knew of its existence at all.

All criminals can be ridiculously paranoid about the way they prepare their escape route. It's a wonder that they ever caught that swamp pot dealer in the first place. Bad luck, I guess.

The rescued men who came out of the aisle looked dirty and miserable, especially the silent Sigismund. My attempt to generate pathos had clearly hurt him, more deeply than he would have liked, so he was sulking at the world and thinking hard about his situation. I have no idea if my heroic attempt at moral reinforcement would work, but at least he shut up.

"We sit here, we rest, we sleep." I'll give a short command. "We move out tomorrow, but before dawn."

My words were met with indifference from the petty and mildly perplexed wariness. They clearly expected to be out of the towns before sunset. The order for a halt was not greeted with hostility but without the slightest joy. I had to explain my thoughts to them, or, rather, to feed them the version I had made up.

"Of course, you can think of me whatever you want, but after the stress of fighting the mercenaries who came after your heads, and then successfully pull your heads out of the shit, even I need a rest. I can still get out of town, but I can't make guarantees about you. So let's rest."

They believed me and even seemed to relax. Apparently, the realization that I did have a limit did a pretty good job of boosting their morale. In fact, I could take them outside the walls even now. There would be more risk, and it would be much easier in the darkness, but the delay had nothing to do with my fatigue. Rest was necessary, of course, but not so much that its absence would be critical.

What I really wanted was a banal dream, and it wasn't mine at all. I couldn't risk leaving them alive without ascertaining their plans for me. And if what I find in their heads I don't like, the three of them just won't wake up. And let the hunters search, as well as possible kin. I am a hero, of course, but not to such an extent!

I thought we'd eat dinner first, but the fatigue of the three of them crossed some critical line, and they passed out without even trying to eat the food stolen from the cellar of the tavern. Or rather, all except the [censored]-haired woman, who was only pretending to be asleep, passed out. I might have been worried - I didn't want to stay awake next to such a dangerous person - but I had a dreamwalking class that could put everyone and everything to sleep.

I couldn't use it in combat, but my modest strength was enough for an assassin who was tired and almost shut down even without my help. After a dozen minutes, all three of them were already sound asleep. I, on the other hand, had work to do instead of sleep. The work was long and tedious, but at the same time necessary and interesting.

He didn't start with the runt or the inadequate lady who liked younger people, but with the sanest person in their company: the bodyguard. And it looked as if he knew more than the others. The boy was hardly interested in anything other than intercourse with his personal sucksassin, and she herself did not give the impression of someone who was at all interested in knowing the background of events. I had no doubt that the old man was the brains of the company.

It was much easier to enter his sleep than it was in Ygra's case, though it was more complicated than for ordinary townspeople. However, I had a lot of help from both my advanced abilities and the increased parameter of Dreams, which made working with other people's subconscious much easier.

After a few minutes, I was already sinking into the anxious and restless dreams of an old servant accustomed to saving his wards, even at the cost of his own life and health.

It wasn't hard to get the entire composition of the drama out of the butler's memory, just to make him relive the events of the past few days without even interfering with the dream itself. And the information that emerged, to be honest, was quite soothing to my frayed nerves.

The Lanorsk (or Lanorsky?) family was powerful enough to afford a lot of things, but not cool enough to take a bite out of the Heroes' summons. Otherwise, I would have eliminated them at once, without a second thought or regret, except that I would have kept the [censored] one for obvious purposes. But fortunately, the House was not involved in such projects. Fortunately for the Lanorsk themselves, of course, not for me.

The essence of the conflict was quite trivial and simple - there were some quite decent deposits of gold found on the land of the family (clan? house?), which could not go unnoticed. The aristocrats themselves did not mind sharing the output for a reasonable reward, but not all were willing to share at all when they could simply take it away. In fact, it was only the family's influence and wealth, as well as a couple of very strong connections at court, that had enabled the house to hold out in the early moments when they were under pressure on all fronts.

Then came the covert struggle, which old Frederick Lanorsky (or was it Lanorsk?) was slowly winning. The experienced and well-connected man managed to find enough adequate patrons, able both to cover the mining of the gold mine and to protect the family from encroachment. And most importantly, to take the owners of the land as a share, not just to buy the land for a token price, if not to take it away under plausible pretext.

Detractors had enough strength to compete with Frederick's new patrons. And a rich gold mine, of which there are not many in the kingdom, was not a bad excuse for a quarrel. But they wished to avoid a full-fledged conflict by striking at the Lanorsk family instead.

The father did not hesitate long to send his only male heir, who had survived for many years (fuck the family!), away with a strong detachment of loyal men. Longtime allies of the Lanorsks, the House of Lorays, with whose representative young Sigismund was engaged to be married, became a guarantor of his safety. Quite a sensible option, especially because the family castle of the Lanorsks had recently been living under martial law.

Only the allies were not very reliable, so they tried to destroy the unit that accompanied the boy even before they came to visit their old friends. Destroyed on every level! First, there was an attack by "outlaws," for some reason equipped and developed at the level of professional military units, and when that failed (a happy accident, no more), they were outlawed altogether.

Literally.

They were allowed into the town, checked into one of the inns, and then caught up with the guards and nearly strangled right there, very quietly and unnoticed. Poison in the food for the remaining escort soldiers, vials of gas, some illusion that concealed what was happening from most of the audience, and the attacking innkeepers, who were replaced by members of the Assassins' Guild.

But they escaped!

They lost almost the entire entourage (including another bodyguard with advanced level and status recognition abilities) but survived. Thank you should be grateful to Father of Sigismund, who equipped the group with a considerable number of family treasures, some of which were intended as a gift and dowry for "friends". And the little one, who was almost forced to equip and activate the necessary artifacts, did not fail.

Then a trump card was sent for them all: one of the royal elimination squads. How hard it was to rent it and set it against, in general, quite law-abiding and highborn guys, the guard himself, whose dream I was reading, could not even imagine. On the other hand, gold mining remains gold mining. There's no sense in saving money here. This group had a clear order to kill all but the petty ones and to capture him and send him off to negotiate further with his kin.

After my actions, the leader of the operation evidently saw the gallows noose for his whole family, relatives, friends, mistress, and his neighbor's dog, so he went all in. The old man was sure that after this fellow had lost a group of eliminators, and had also brought up (read: published what was going on) the whole city guard, he would be finished even if he succeeded. He would just be nailed as a loose end, that's it.

Although the organizers of the entire operation may not care about the claims and consequences of a "quiet" kidnapping, but after such a high-profile action... Let's put it this way - it is still not fatal, but there is no praise for this. It wasn't some peasant who had been tried to kill in secret, but a full-fledged nobleman who had, most importantly, a patron.

So the one in charge of the capture of Sigismund simply caught the death spree, deciding, apparently, to die beautifully. Although it would have been smarter just to let them escape from the town, and then set up another ambush. But that would have been a different story.

As I browsed through the dreams that told me about the events that had preceded this moment, I moved on to more personal questions and concerns. The dreams obediently shifted, letting me look at the gut of the old servant, looking for the details I needed.

The old man was a servant, both at heart and by vocation. His whole life had been spent first in training and then in service to the clan that had sheltered and raised him. The mentality of a high-ranking bodyguard was very strange, but I could be sure that he would not betray his ward for any good in the world.

He treated me the same way he treated everyone else - as another possible danger to his object of protection. He wouldn't attack me first, but if I were a threat, he wouldn't hesitate. He would try to dissuade his master from doing anything rash, though, if he chose to attack me.

On a personal level, this grandfather was not a bad man, a good joker, stoically calm in any situation, and a lover of literature, having read almost all of the open part of the clan library and a good deal of the closed part. Seriously, in his dreams, the image of a room with bookshelves was far more vivid than his own home!

After the bodyguard, I passed into the dream of his companion, slowly sinking into someone else's past. If the old guard's dreams were as calm and measured as the sleeper himself, she was far more anxious, overwhelmed with worry, and carefully concealed fears.

Her opinion of what was happening was not much different from the guard's, but it was much more emotional. Except that she reasonably feared that some nasty thing might happen at home, too, while they were roaming around. She also hated anyone who might threaten her, her ward, and his family. So much so, in fact, that she wanted to destroy them, despite all their influence and power.

By the way, she would gladly kill me, too, for the way I behaved with her master, but she won't attack me without his order. But afterward, with pleasure.

I was not too lazy to delve deeper into her essence to understand the reason for such devotion, balancing with madness. And I nearly drowned in the images of long-standing nightmares that filled me with pain, bitterness, and despair so vile that I could hang myself, even though the dream had no ropes and no neck.

The woman was really old. Very old, for a human, since a drop of Elvish blood had allowed her to win at genetic roulette, giving her true longevity. Even half-breeds usually age, slowly, but those with a little blood in them... They're almost indistinguishable from humans!

She was different, though, which did not add to her joy. Or rather, she cursed her longevity and survivability, which prevented her from dying despite her wishes.

She had many masters - a beautiful, trained, exotic-looking slave was a prize that passed from hand to hand. Whether through a trivial bargain or a dice game or as a trophy. She lived a shitty but tolerable life, of course, until, after another fight in her native Savannah, she was taken as a trophy by one particular man.

This [censored] mgwana possessed a very rare, almost epic class, combining the roles of healer, trainer, and torturer. Which he gladly practiced on his slaves and slave girls. This radically [censored] overlord had some sort of ability, or even a title, that allowed him to sense clearly the edge of pain beyond which the madness and disintegration of personality went. So his victims did not die or go mad, but they were not happy about it.

Even now she does not know how long she was in his grasp. To this day she cannot know whether he enjoyed his activity, or whether he treated her as if she were a training log for punching. All that mattered was that he broke her, not just once, but several times.

One of the richest slave traders in the county, he was good at raising obedient pets out of even the most recalcitrant and indestructible. He had done the same with her. Time after time it was as if he had forged her anew, turning her into an elite courtesan, a battered and dutiful coward, or a half-intelligent dog that couldn't even speak (or rather was afraid that the first coherent word would be followed by pain).

It was Frederic Lanorsk who stopped this nightmare. He stopped it completely by accident, not even intending to play hero or anything like that. It's just that, as they say, someone has run into a brick wall.

He was still very young, even younger than his son now, and had traveled quite a lot, while at the same time carrying out government assignments. Or rather, the son was attached by his father to some expedition, giving them a normal guard and escort in return. Only with one requirement - to treat the capricious asshole like a precious treasure and show him the world.

It worked well - all of the arrogant aristo's quirks were relatively tolerable (only the sleeper's own guess, for I think somewhat differently), and the gold donated to science and the doors opened by the highborn's presence helped, and helped in a tangible way.

And then the little moron (it seems to be hereditary) went for a walk in the night city, populated by evil Alurean [censored], for whom "stranger" and "food" are often synonymous. It seems that Sigismund isn't the only one with mental problems, but the whole family. This, however, is not so important. What's more important to our story is that the loner walking alone ran into the son of a rich Mgwana (who, incidentally, was some kind of the local equivalent of the aristocracy), whose company kicked the poor bastard, only miraculously not killing him.

He was found, treated, and debriefed.

And then this proud lion cub wiped bloody snot, remembered that the expedition security consists of ninety percent of the units of a very high level loyal to his family personally, and then gave the order. The "hooligan" who had beaten him did not hide his name, so it did not take him long to find it.

By nightfall, the slave camp was ablaze with blue flames (there was one mage with an interesting class in the squad), the men were counting their trophies and assessing their chances of escape if the rest of the city population attacked them, and the boy was fully practicing aiming vomiting at the range, having estimated the interior decorations of the slave trader's tent.

As much of an asshole as he was, the mess he discovered inside got even him, quite indifferent to the lives of peasants. The miraculously surviving maiden, who had been given another session of post-torture healing just before the arrival of the evil avengers, was found and questioned. After which they somehow wanted to master resurrection and kill the goat again. As badass as the inhabitants of Alurey was, the methods of the mad trainer were quite over the top.

Frederick was a racist, not recognizing as normal human beings anyone other than human beings, and only white people. But he couldn't bring himself to throw the poor creature out, either. Personally, I don't think he had time to become completely degenerate yet. He did, however, get a faithful servant girl with sex-slave skills and good characteristics, albeit at a low level.

He didn't want to use her in bed. It would have been bestiality for his worldview, but he didn't chase her away either. During the expedition, she'd taken the tenth level, gotten a rare class, learned to play some stringed instrument, and befriended, if I may say so, an arrogant minor enough that he wouldn't send her away, taking her with him to his ancestral home, where he put her to work.

She repaid it by giving all of herself to the service, paying back for the days when she breathed in the dry wind, danced in the blazing sun, and couldn't shiver at every rustle, waiting for the slightly limping master to come back into her cage, ready to do a good job with the nameless hunk of meat.

The nightmares are long gone.

The kid had long since grown old, having lost what was left of his youthful zeal and foolishness.

But her loyalty remained unshaken, despite all the levels taken, the passing of time, and many very tempting offers from enemies of the family.

She did not like Sigismund, for that matter, but she was entirely loyal to him and would die for him. And also, noticing that the boy was far from being as xenophobic as his father, she quite deliberately undertook to educate the young man so that he would not embarrass himself on his first wedding night with his bride. It was not love, but a kind of canine fidelity that cannot be explained in words, but which is as indestructible as the strongest steel.

To be honest, I thought she had been brainwashed in some way, but no. It turned out that she had been brainwashed enough herself to do without the additional indoctrination of fidelity. Fun past, though.

I left Sigismund for dessert, simply because I didn't need much energy to enter his dream, and he didn't decide anything in this group. And I could think about the long term later.

What else can I say?

I realized a few important things. Starting with the fact that this guy was furious with my words. And most of all, that my words were true. Spoiled, pampered, cowardly, used to hiding behind his father and his men, with no special talents, all he could do was burn through his youth. He was unfit even for the typical amusements of the local rich folk, for he was afraid of blood, of danger, of loud noises... and of everything! Including even socializing with his peers, which made it impossible for him to properly fit in with the company of the golden youth. The latter, however, was more of a positive result than a problem.

And he had a nightmare.

He often had nightmares. That's why he was firmly on the expensive and therefore harmless sedatives that allowed him to sleep well. But now there was no sedative, but there were memories of death that had passed him by several times, of blood and dead men, and of the darkness of a locked closet from which he could not get out, as if something was holding him back, grabbing his arms, dragging him back into the darkness.

The nightmare reeked of hopelessness and strange, alien power, reminiscent of the one in the lame old man's nightmare. Only this one was stronger and more alive and... ...more intelligent, was it?

It was as if this thing had managed to train itself in a long time of contemplating nightmares, firmly clinging to its creator and unwilling to let him go, slowly but surely breaking him to the ground.

The boy crouched in the fetal position, his hands over his ears, trying not to look into the seemingly living darkness before his eyes, not to look at the blood on the floor and the bodies of dead friends and relatives. And the darkness stared back, whispering about how weak he was and promising to take everything away from him. Everything at all.

Interesting...

I wonder if it is the nightmares that torment him because he is neurasthenic, or vice versa - he became neurasthenic because of his nightmares?

For some reason, any attempt to interrupt the effects of the nightmare resulted in tangible resistance and a kind of aggression, or what? Kind of like trying to take a bone from a dog. The unwillingness to give it back and the promise of strong teeth if you do try.

I don't want to destroy it myself, though I know I can if I attack it properly. But it seems important that the boy should be the one to deal with this thing.

Since I still don't have a body in the dreams, I create a kind of doll that looks like his dead maid and reading teacher. The old woman was one of the few people who evoked extremely positive feelings in the boy's dreams, so I decided to use her image. At the same time, I erased her dead body from the plot, which was nearly cut in two.

"And how long will you weep, young master?" I spoke politely, but with an uncharacteristic harshness, noting with irritation that the doll's voice sounded too coarse, as if I were speaking behind the old woman's calm tone.

The question makes the poor boy raise his head and stare in disbelief at the image leaning over him, seemingly all too real in the blurry, light-eating darkness.

"Auntie Maclean, is that you? Are you alive?" And how much hope there is in those words! It's embarrassing to destroy it, but it must be done if you're going to save someone's psyche.

"Of course not," I answer through a formed image. "I am as dead as everyone else around."

"I..." The boy squeaks lost, getting hysterical again, which I don't want at all.

The doll grabs the boy's face and turns him toward itself, forcing him to look only at its face, which, exposed to the swirling darkness, began to pale and thin, becoming more and more frightening. I can also feel the discontent in the matter of the surrounding dream. Something was clearly not happy that I had taken away its nourishment.

"Everyone is dead, and you are on the brink of death." My doll hissed and gurgled, frightening the boy even more. "And you, instead of saving yourself and the few people left with you, keep feeling sorry for yourself and shaking as you stare into the darkness. It's like you never got out of that ill-fated closet!"

The dream is already bubbling like boiling water, and I can feel something trying to take over my control. I didn't think twice about it, so I poured more power back into the dream, keeping it from interrupting. From beneath the coal-[censored] image of darkness seeps the purple fog of a dream world in which there is clearly something. Something other than the two of us.

"I'm sorry." Tears pour down his face, but he can't look away from the increasingly pale and fading image of the nurse who had largely replaced his lost mother. "I am sorry, I am too weak. Just a pathetic coward, I'm sorry."

I don't let him start repeating what the darkness is telling him, literally shaking him, feeling the image grow weaker and weaker. Even the reserve invested in the dream is not enough to control it completely. Whatever my adversary in the struggle for this boy's soul is, it, too, has put in its reserves, not about to give up.

"Nonsense! Silly, little Sigismund!" His words are interrupted by an ever-weakening puppet. "There are always monsters, always have been and always will be. They are always near, near to us. In the dark of night and the light of day, in the silence of the corridors and the night forest, they are always there, Sigismund! Just look! These are the monsters!"

I took control of the nightmare again, showing it what I had experienced, transmitting directly to its essence the sensations I was experiencing (though weakened, so as not to kill it with a heart attack). A green avalanche of orcs, eager to kill and trample, overwhelming and mad power of Skin Taker, eternal and eternally hungry Shadows that bring only cold and fear, the incredible abomination of creatures living in the ancient reservoir and painful dead aura of ancient Spectre. All this merges into his soul, filling it with so much fear that his mind hangs on a thin thread, at the very edge of a fragile edge beyond which there is only madness and nothingness.

"Do you see them, Sigismund?" Barely a whisper from the doll, which was almost scattered, shielding him from the howling darkness, which had almost lost its superimposed form. "Do you see the real monsters?"

Barely able to open his parched lips, the boy, barely alive from fear, could only whisper, struggling against the approaching despair and insanity: "I see them. I see them, Aunt Maclean."

The creature from the dream no longer even tries to pretend to be dark, becoming fully visible to my gaze. A shapeless mass of purple and lilac mist that can become anything it wants. It is furious, for it believes that I have just taken its prey. It sees only my puppet, unable to find me itself, but very willing. Willing to find and punish another predator who dares to open his mouth to his prey.

So far, it has not been able to see me.

"These are the monsters worthy of your fear, Sigismund." Scattering ashes, the fading silhouette whispers. "And there, behind your back, are only darkness and nightmares. They are not worth your despair. They are not worth your tears. They're not worth anything anymore."

"Auntie Maclean..."

"I'm gone, and so are many others." The silhouette was no longer even a shadow, only a barely audible whisper and ash seeping through the fingers. "Stand up, young master. Rise and never again be afraid of that which is not worthy of your fear... For we are all... ...are but... fragments of terrible dreams..."

After squeezing the rest of my energy out of the nightmare, it calmed down, believing itself victorious. I was a mere observer again, even though I still had a lot of power. I was still strong enough to defeat the creature, but I wasn't so sure about killing it. It was stronger than I had originally thought. And I suddenly realized that now it wouldn't drink the fear quietly, preferring to drink the whole boy in one gulp, to ensure that no one else would be able to take its prey.

Today, in this unreal shard of a place that never existed, where an old and experienced creature feeds on other people's pain and sorrows, someone is bound to die.

And if I were that creature, I wouldn't be so sure of the absolute superiority.

Sigismund stood up and, in one fluid motion, mastered by endless training in etiquette, turned to face the happily awaiting darkness, which except that it was licking its lips in anticipation.

And this time he didn't turn away.

The darkness was still scary, still pressing on the boy, still capable of driving a simple boy with only a ninth-level madness without even expending a lot of effort. But now the boy remembered what real fear was, what real monsters were. And he no longer had to be afraid of the dark, for the most terrifying monsters already resided within him.

"Not anymore." He answered the same accusatory whisper of cowardice and insignificance, and then stepped forward, keeping his eyes on the heart of the darkness.

The creature, which realized that yesterday's victim dared not be afraid anymore, literally raged, furious with indignation, trying with one volitional effort to burn the mind and something much more important out of the insolent piece of meat, calmly walking towards it.

No amount of newfound equilibrium would have helped the boy survive this blow - too incomparable a scale for him and the bastard who fed on him. But there was a third participant, too, who was tired of being a mere spectator.

I put in about a third of my remaining reserve, or a quarter of the total, literally welding this dream with my will, and then I put the power over it into the boy's hands. But most importantly, I do not allow the creature to retreat to the place where it resides when it is not eating the brains of the unfortunate inhabitants of the real world.

Now it's fair.

Now you have one chance for two.

Whoever died first lost the philosophical dispute!

The creature tries to take shape, to choose something that can shake the confidence of the man still walking toward it, while pouring its power into the dream, trying to regain control over it and find me. There is not even a thought of running away. Only to devour those who dare not fear Him.

A step and the boy's unconscious desire form in his hand a graceful and somehow unserious-looking sword, woven from the dust and ashes left over from the disintegrated doll. It's just a toy for balls and soirees, not a serious weapon like Locij' pick. But in this dream, even such a trinket is capable of inflicting wounds that are by no means toy-like.

The creature wants to make the man stride on the spot, to embarrass him, to squeeze out, to buy more time to find a weakness, but I hold firmly, and the man himself is no longer afraid of the dark, so it can claw at him at once, bypassing my will. The creature accuses him again with dozens of voices: friends, acquaintances, servants, parents.

"Not anymore." Still calmly states the former victim, striking the sword.

The darkness is intangible, it has no body and no blood, but a wave of violet sparks and streams, like a splash of someone's blood, spreads from a blow, an ordinary, useless, and clumsy blow.

The creature transforms into a beautiful, gaudy girl about the same age as the young man himself. A contemptuous look and disgust in her gaze. An accusation of weakness and insignificance from someone who has no honor and no will. Someone who couldn't even speak back to her, let alone hit her.

"Not anymore." The blow splits "beautiful Sioria" - in front of whom he was really as timid as sheep in love - in half, causing the image to blur.

The girl's body distorts, floating, turning into some kind of wild creature, but the wound it inflicted heals extremely reluctantly and not completely, and the lilac light and shifting fog of endless dream peeking out from the cut. The creature roared in a hellish roar, literally leaping, while simultaneously investing a monstrous amount of energy into its attack, trying to rewrite the dream by its own rules and tear apart the insolent bug that had dared to bite it so painfully.

Despite all its power, the creature lacks imagination and skill, making it easy for me to deflect, disperse, and absorb its attack. Was it just an impression, or had I replenished my sagging reserve a bit? Whatever it was, the dream was still operating under my and Sigismund's rules, so the nine-level wretch with no class was able to react and deflect the blow, inflicting another wound on the creature.

And it's finally got scared.

Which caused a wave of even greater hatred and a clear promise to return and punish the slipping prey. But who's going to let that thing come back if no one will let it out?

The incomprehensible creature takes the form of the boy's father, trying to accuse him of being as useless and pathetic as he has always been and as he will continue to be, but is only met with another slap, knocking even more dream matter out of the morphing body, and the same dry phrase.

"Not anymore."

Another blow, followed by another, and with each passing moment the hatred grows smaller and the fear grows greater. Horror overwhelms the animated bad dream at the moment when it finally realized that it just couldn't go away. That this is the end.

It changed image after image, but it got no response other than the stab of a blade and the same total indifference. I hope I didn't damage the kid's brain more than it had been twisted before.

The creature died on about the thirtieth strike, disintegrating into a purple mist and bluish smoke that filled me with strength and power, restoring my reserve. The boy, to my surprise, was getting a lot of free power, too.

I feel like I can have it all, but while I'm wondering, "am I going to explode?" style, it ends, and the kid himself falls into the dreamless sleep he deserves.

That was quite a nap.

Before I woke up, I played with my companions' minds and memories for a while. Yes, I didn't want to kill them, and they had no plans to betray me, but at the very least they would have to tell everything about me. Even if only to the head of the clan, they would still have to.

So I went back into their dreams and started... I don't really know how to describe it. Apparently, I'd caught a boost of ability again while I was wandering around in dreams and sawing out other people's nightmares with the hysterical (though he's calmer now) aristocrat. In any case, it was as if I'd learned how to work with dreams and their effect on real memory.

By replaying their memories over and over again, by creating dreams and letting them live through the events that had already happened, I gradually erased my image from their memory. I was somehow able to do it in a delayed way so that it would not be noticed immediately, and the erasure itself was smooth and gentle.

To put it very crudely, in twenty-four hours after they parted with me, they would have no recollection of my appearance. There are, of course, options for recovering memories, but the problem is that I acted through dreams. Something (clairvoyance?) tells me that the standard ways of recovering lost memories will not work on them.

I wanted to make fun of the [censored]-assed bitch, so that she wouldn't dream of cutting off all my protruding parts. I wanted to set some kind of behavioral bomb or even enuresis, but I decided to take pity on the fool. She was a shit human being, of course, but not a complete maniac, and her own life was already punishing her. Even without my humble help, so let her live.

I've realized for sure by now that it's just not the way for me to go with them.

They have too many people at home who can assess. They can read something bad about me. And there are all sorts of important people there now, they're organizing gold mining and dividing the profits. So I'll lead them to the exit of the town, and they'll get there on their own. I was sure of that, both my intuition and my common sense, which was that all available resources in the town had been thrown into the hunt.

They can make it and reach a safe place, even if they go through the woods. I made it, and I had to go through a much more vicious and dangerous biome.

If not, let it be. I'm not a nurse for them.

Now I'm going to take a nap, because I'm tired.

The morning, or rather late night, greeted me with silence, the mustiness of our basement (it was good that the small air vent had not been blocked, or we could have suffocated), and the flashes of messages from the system. I was not even surprised at the last one, though I was glad to see it. I silently opened my status and began to read the news.

Create a dream: 3/5

Allows you to control the dream you are in by influencing the passage of time; allows you to directly control the situations and plot of the dream; allows you to create scenarios for individual dreams; allows you to understand which scenes will resonate most with the dreamer; allows you, with effort, to create complex dream scenarios; allows you to better control the matter of dreams and to confront others' dreams even if other entities oppose it.

Not bad, especially about the other entities. Just delightfully comforting! Just got used to the fucking evil Shadow, and now they've rolled out another dangerous piece of shit! At this rate, I'll be afraid to sleep, let alone grind. What the hell was that shit today? And how dangerous was it? From the looks of it, not much for me, but how bad was it compared to the average inhabitant of the dream world?

All questions and no answers!

Okay, what else is dropped?

Invisible Mentor: It's hard to keep the line between helping minors gain combat experience and not letting them die in the process. It's even harder to do it in such a way that victory remains entirely for the minors, and that there is no risk for them as well. Such skill only true geniuses of education, well, and just lucky fools. In any case, get the bonus. Bonus: +10 to the perception stat.

Wow! Considering the level I took, I'm now only four points short of perception to get the precious hundred. And I can easily invest my five points into this stat and get a bonus boost for a nice number at the same time.

But is it worth it?

For me, perception is one of the main stats, but not the most important one, and in combat, it is not very useful. Maybe I should try to accumulate some points to increase my dexterity or energy by one hundred and fifty. That crane in the sky would be much more profitable than a tit in the hand now. But I can have the tit now.

But still no, it would be too stupid to spread it out even more. It's easier to wait for another title than to waste precious points on not-so-needed stats. The fastest levels are already gone. It's going to be much harder to take even single levels, so I'd rather have a hundred and fifty points in one stat than a hundred in another.

Decided.

I'll be hoarding.

The murdered nightmare, by the way, was not rewarded. On the other hand, it is logical, because it was Sigismund who killed him, and he probably won the new title. On the one hand, of course, it was enviable and even very enviable, but on the other hand, it was his fight, which should have been won by the young imbecile. Otherwise, he would have remained an offended juvenile imbecile.

And now it's going to be a withered and matured little imbecile who holds a grudge against me.

Fuck.

Somehow my pedagogical work didn't work out. I don't give a damn about the situation, though, do I? He would forget my face anyway, and I was nowhere in town to be found.

I'll get over that trouble, too.

As I should - Heroically.

I woke up my wards, though they were waking up on their own. The assassin looked at me very suspiciously, apparently suspecting that I had put her to sleep. But still concluded that it was the effect of fatigue and stress of the previous day. During their sleep, their reserve had recovered a little, and even the small one wasn't as sore as it had been before I went to bed. Well, at least that's what my shadows sensed, and I couldn't tell with my eyes because of the darkness.

To be honest, I subconsciously expected some problems and dangers.

Another group of eliminators only strengthened to guarantee our destruction.

All the city guards will be waiting for us on our way out of the basement.

An accidental Hero was sent to destroy my person.

Orc invasions from the wildlands.

The meteorite fall.

Attacks of the pink ponies.

Anything.

But we got out of the cellar without waking a living soul in the inn itself, where the drunken ragamuffins were lying on the floor, feeding themselves incalculable cockroaches, bedbugs, and rats. In my opinion, even the unperturbed butler, let alone Sigismund, was sickened. The guy himself, by the way, was very thoughtful and was clearly squinting his eyes at his status. The latter was not at all surprising, for his adventures in "Dreamland" he had taken the tenth level and was entitled to choose his first class.

It's a responsible thing to do, I must say, but I believe he can handle it himself.

It is more important that he does not cast any suspicious glances at me.

The latter was quite understandable, for my words and those of his nurse, who was the image I had created, were too similar. And the constant opposition of the creature was distorting the doll's voice so that he could hear mine as well.

In another situation, it's just a detail of a dream.

But when you think of the level he'd raised and the title he'd probably earned, my suspicions were well-founded. He didn't venture to ask, though, or I might have answered. And the disappearance of fear didn't have to help him tolerate my trololos more easily.

Once we got out of the inn, we made our way to the wall. There was no problem there, either, for most of the guards were concentrated at the gate. Though there were more guards on the walls than there had been on the day I'd entered the town. Clearly, they were all over the place in the hope of catching the fugitives.

Although in such circumstances it looks more like a gesture of desperation than a real threat to our plans. Still, it's somewhat useless for the low-level guards to catch our company - we're just too tough. They could have caught one small one, but with those guards, they could have tried to sneak through on their own.

All I did was step through the shadows, finding myself on the crest of the wall in an instant. Just after a very sleepy and very angry guard had passed me by. I threw the rope down and tied it to one of the wall's cogs, and waited until both men had climbed the rope, with the bodyguard dragging the boy along as well. A good rope, I must say! It's tough!

We then repeated the same procedure and made our way down, avoiding the returning guard and only with my shadows managing to remove the rope from the cog before it would have been seen.

We could still be spotted by those on the walls who had either night vision or just high perception, but we managed to hide in the darkness without too much trouble. I was really surprised, for I thought that at least someone would still have time to see our fleeing backs. Apparently, I was lucky enough to pick a section of the wall where there was just no one with high enough perception or normal sensors.

Sometimes you have to be lucky, at least statistically.

"It's time to say goodbye, folks," I said this after we'd successfully left the town, gone a short detour through the swamps (thank goodness I didn't encounter Ygra), and avoided two competent, though not very high-level ambushes by some shady types.

In response to my announcement, the three of them relaxed and tensed at the same time. Relaxed, because my words meant that we were out of town, which automatically led to parting with my inadequate persona, whose company they no longer needed. They were tense because they would now have to pay.

"Most of the young master's amulets and artifacts are bound to blood and useless in the hands of a stranger. We don't have much gold ourselves, for almost all the valuables were left in the guest house, which was stormed." Calmly and as if apologizing, the bodyguard said.

"I can write a receipt for the bearer, certified by my ancestral ring and my blood." Suddenly the kid intervened. "It would be enough for you to send a loyal man for your reward. And the Royal Bank will sell it without question, though they will charge you their percentage. To receive the full amount, you will need to come to my family's ancestral home. I only ask you to tell me what reward you want for your deed."

Somehow he... grown up during the night. Even the two fighters looked at him in surprise, clearly not expecting him to make such a calm decision. It wasn't even the words, but the way he said them. He was no longer a whiny boy, but the heir to House Lanorsk, ready to take responsibility for his words and actions.

Ah.

I wish I could charge them more, but I don't want to risk receipts from banks - there's too high a probability that my status will be read there, after which there will be a rush, turmoil, horror, and other f*cking shit.

How much gold do you have?

"A bit more than a hundred gold pieces." The possessor of elven blood answered. "As I said, we had to leave most of our valuables behind when we escaped."

"Give me eighty of them and get the fuck out there."

In response, a perplexed silence, along with genuine surprise. I felt that I was not just being cheap but almost relegated my actions to the category of "for a nominal fee," or even to the "charity" section. Without waiting for my thinking abilities to be questioned, I began to hastily put a noodle on everyone's ears.

https://youtu.be/X1ym8K6b2o0

put a noodle on someone's ears = feed a bullshit!

"At what price would you hire a specialist of my level for a case like this?" Sadly (how else, when the money is floating away?) I ask the tense lass.

"It depends on what for." She answers cautiously. "For a single decapitation of some not very high ranking head, you asked just fine, maybe with a small markup. But to get the three of us out of the Ostmark and into combat with the Enforcers of the Secret Corps would cost a lot more. A professional strike team of the [censored] Blades would have cost the same, but only for each of them."

Wow, she's got a blast!

She even began to talk respectfully, removing the contemptuous expression from her face. It wasn't surprising, my clairvoyance told me because she was confused now. All this time she'd thought of me as a crazy mercenary, with a sort of a dislike for the noble. The latter, by the way, is not uncommon among such personalities, though usually, such haters don't live up to the high levels. For some reason they just don't, which is a mystery, isn't it?

And now, by refusing the reward, I was causing her great fear for the life of her ward, for who knows what to expect from me now? It would be fine if I demanded her again - she was willing to do that to save the boy (though she would be sure to try and kill me later, despite the slave collar), but what if I just killed them all, and that was it.

"Once upon a time a man who had helped me a lot told me to do good things for people sometimes. Just do it, without looking for a reward. That man is no longer in this world, but his words are still alive. Consider that I am signing you in advance, so that you, in the future, will also sometimes do good, just for the sake of good. This world lacks kindness altogether."

By the way, there really was a man like that: he drove me halfway across town without taking a penny I could not say that his words had affected me that much, but since I was in a situation where I could not charge more anyway, I could at least pass on his idea as a legacy.

"That's a very strange position." The old man agreed with my thoughts. "But I have remembered your words, and I will try to repay you for your help, even if not to you personally."

And I believed, thanks to my clairvoyance, that he would really try to do something like that, even if he didn't believe what I had said. But the assassin, though she heard it, did not pay much attention. For her, there is only her, her master, and his family whom she serves. The executed favor was worth nothing to her, though she made no sign of it. And there was too much this world had thrown at her for her to agree to do her good in return for all the evil she had done.

I turn my gaze to the boy staring intently into my eyes, waiting to hear what he has to say, but he doesn't ask me what I was expecting to hear.

"How did you kill your fear?"

I'm sure he has no doubt whatsoever that I helped him in his dream, or that what he dreamed was not a delusion at all, but a very real danger that could end in his death.

In the same way, I am sure he will never tell anyone. Not because of the shame of acknowledging my help or for the sake of keeping my secret. It was simply because this battle was something very personal and profound to him. Something intimate that should never be shared, not even with the people closest to him.

I don't even answer with my brain, but with something else. Maybe with my heart, maybe with my ass.

"I just became scarier than those I was afraid of."

Nodding silently, he ordered to count my gold. Exactly eight dozen pieces of gold, a fabulous sum by local standards. Enough to guarantee a safe hiding place away from all the secret guards, the Heroes, the legendary monsters, and the rest of the bullshit. That's a pretty good score for one battle and one evacuation.

I could have taken more, but leaving these guys without any gold at all was a bit... inconvenient, I guess. Even the cops didn't take the last, and I was still a hero, even if I was a bit crazy. And in general, I did not want to change the amount of money. It would have ruined all the educational work.

But if I meet that [censored] bitch again, I'll do more than just erase her memories and rewire her brain to be completely honest and conscientious. You've got to be kidding me. She dares to ignore my passion heroic phrases!

As I was leaving, fully covered by the concealment, I turned around on a hunch and saw that Sigismund had a class, and not the usual or even rare one, but an epic one.

The Knower of Fear.

The One Who Knew the Fear or something like that.

* * *