《They never called, yet he is here (censored edition)》Chapter 21
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Chapter 21
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Send a dream: 4/5
Allows you to instantly immerse yourself in a dream, as well as clearly understand the boundaries of reality and dream; allows you to easily enter the dream of an intelligent being located near you if it is asleep; allows you to collect information from other people's dreams; allows you to know the nature and thoughts of sleeping beings; allows you to easily intercept control over another's the dream and detain the sleeper in the dream world, not allowing him to awaken; It allows artfully influencing the subconscious mind of a sleeper by inserting the necessary ideas and behavioral matrices; it allows creating shared dreams for several sleepers; it allows leaving anchors in others' dreams, which can be used to find the marked person, provided that he is asleep, even at considerable distances.
I look at the sign that popped up, and I do not have the strength to rejoice in even another skill increase, because I am too tired of this dreamwalking. The only thing I can say about it is a very tired "finally," and it's flavored with a bitterness that I still have a long way to go and will have to develop my skills if I want to reach the top. Or at least just not to die, becoming another dry line of statistics in someone's Status.
The three weeks since the final opening of my store have been mundane, quiet, boring, tedious, and exhausting. I was able to get the alchemy for sale fairly quickly, and the experiments didn't take much energy, but working with dreams was a hell of a job. It was complicated by the fact that I had no rest at all: alchemy and sometimes shadows during the day, and at night a continuous train of other people's dreams, carrying in them endless pieces of stories, troubles, aspirations, and other trifles of life, without which I had lived all this time and would have been happy to live as long again.
Not to say that my sessions were useless, but they were too psychologically difficult. Everyone has their own nightmares and long-standing traumas, and when you look through them, you can't help but hate humanity and the world in general. Human or non-human, there was a lot of shit among the sleepers, and I, diving into their dreams, involuntarily got dirty in that shit. Sometimes I woke up and wanted to wash immediately because the sensations were so disgusting.
Alcoholics and domestic tyrants, sadists and moral monsters of all sorts and calibers, battered victims and people who had long ago become burned-out remains of their former selves, chronic depressions and permanently strengthened psychosis, obsessive states, and the dreams of people killed by them - all this had already been in them before I came along. An Augean stables, which I have no desire to clean up, and no possibility of refusing such a job, which no one wants but myself.
It was a painful, sometimes dangerous, and almost always difficult task. It would be a relatively easy task to wander around and have fun in a single person's dreams, but when you have dozens of such dreams in a night, it's not so fun anymore. It's not even about the drain on my reserve: with my characteristics and increased abilities, and a huge level advantage over the average townsfolk, I often didn't even spend a third of my reserve. It was fatigue, which I've mentioned before and will mention again. It is too exhausting to pass through so much information garbage. This is probably how doctors and ambulance workers feel when other people's tragedies gradually cease to be sad, and other people's grief and tears cause only deaf irritation mixed with a desire to go away and not bother.
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Some I helped, some I brought to their senses, some I punished, some I made insane and suicidal, because they were so disgusting, and one I arranged for to fall down the stairs and wring his neck in the real world. But, for the most part, the problem was that I just took a long, tedious look at other people's lives for the sake of grinding up Dreams. However, I was always trying to add confidence to the insecure, take away fears and nightmares, just give them good dreams or something like that. A kind of payment for the use of their dreams for my development.
The fifteen-year-old girl a block and a half away from my house was particularly memorable. I could hardly reach from my bed to those places, which only stimulated in me the desire to develop a distance of secure covering with my ability. The girl could sing very well - really very well - except she wasn't allowed to sing. The angry stepfather, who liked to beat her mother, was the first to do so, and the girl herself was harassed for a very obvious reason. All she could do was cry into her pillow and gradually die from her back-breaking toil.
So I had to awaken her mother's deep-seated self-respect, along with her concern for her children, to whom she paid little attention, blinded by self-pity. And I simply forced the stepfather to go out the window of the house upside down, and I accelerated his fall with a shadow so that I could kill the moral freak with a guarantee. When you jump out the window over and over again in your dreams, and then wake up in bed again, and then, again and again, you follow your reflexes in the real world as well. Anyway, after my nightmares, he still had only absorbent cotton in his head.
Then, however, I was forced by my own conscience, risen from the dead in the form of archlich , to unseenly help the widow to wrest the inheritance from the greedy relatives of the deceased, while also making sure that the guards conducting the investigation were conscientious, who were alarmed by the too successful, as for a regularly beaten widow, death of the deceased. Too brutal even by local standards, where light beatings were considered almost a blessing and care for one's soulmate. A couple of nightmares about a dead man coming to visit, begging to live in his house, and dragging him there, were enough to make the superstitious people, who were the unhelpful buyers, shit themselves in reality, forgetting the idea of taking over the house by kicking the mistress out of the house.
And the guards simply found nothing, although they tried to extort a bribe from the widow, or even force a confession out of her (mental pressure, no more). But to counteract the latter, the landlady herself was enough, as she began, figuratively speaking, to grow balls so that in the future she could carry herself and three children. They will have less money, but they will all be much happier.
And the little singer was allowed to sing every morning, which pleased her neighbors. Without sarcasm, she was happy - her voice is beautiful, and they all get up so early. Even I was not lazy to sit in the front rows a couple of times, staying in stealth.
And there were dozens of such stories, which drained me of all my strength. Some of them were to help, some of them to tease, some of them to put an idea in their head, and some of them to enuresis. The most twisted I had to do with the last "patient", in fact, it was from this work my skill jumped up. The trick was that no longer a young painter slowly and sadly went off the rails. He was forgetting faces, events, conversations, which threatened him with a rapid transformation into a "vegetable".
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I had met lunatics before, but they were sick people, and their psychoses were the result of serious illness, as my knowledge of my past life had told me. But here I could see the influence of some incomprehensible stuff that literally filled his consciousness and his dreams. It was as if a black, viscous, and sticky sludge was present in every frame of his nightmares. Something was literally feeding on his memories, gradually replacing them with something else that was not entirely clear to me.
It wasn't like the occasional nightmare I've had (I've never seen anything as powerful as Sigismund's before), which I knew right away. Nor was it a Shadow, for I could recognize their presence with certainty. After a little deliberation, I dismissed the spirit or ghost option. There was a certain irregularity about the thing, but it was too different from anything I had seen so far. And I had seen a lot.
I managed to wipe the thing out of the man's memory and dreams, expending almost all of my reserve. It couldn't fight back normally, obviously not used to confronting me on my field, but it clung to its victim with all its metaphorical limbs. No wonder they gave me a new ability rank for defeating that thing. But they wouldn't give me a title, even though I'd killed the thing.
Or I didn't
The clairvoyance was strangely silent when I thought about it, which raised legitimate questions and mild paranoia, along with anger at myself for being so paranoid. Yes, too much expectation of trouble from all sides is not good either, especially when you risk missing the real attack behind the imagination.
It's time to get up because today I have to count my profits, pay my salesman, and get ready for a visit to a bored ogre. The last is especially important - I'll have to wait for the reserve to be restored before I move into the woods. If I come up empty, she can catch me, and then close to rape. And the rapist in this case would not be me, no matter how painful it would be to admit this fact to my inflated pride and even more inflated ego.
"Good morning to you, Master." The little rattlers greeted me with a resounding hello as soon as I appeared on the porch and let the old man and his assistants inside.
A master is a respectful reference to a skilled artisan of the highest order, which includes alchemists. The highest ranks here refer to the most prestigious professions, including semi-magical ones like potionsmiths and alchemists. Though the latter is still considered a craft, a sorcerer's craft, standing on the edge of full-fledged magic. That is not to say that the profession is less revered than true magic, but rather it is a recognition of its simultaneous presence in both planes.
After greeting the grandfather and his grandchildren, I began to prepare the shop for its opening, or rather, the goods in the shop. There are some things that only an alchemist can be trusted with, simply because of the danger of damaging the products or the inept person who takes on such a task. I allowed the old man to bring in his assistants rather quickly after I had ascertained that the old man himself had too much trouble to keep up any kind of active life.
He didn't complain, but he was tired and therefore not efficient enough. It was easier to show kindness and let him look after the kids than to cut his bonus. The children were obedient, not mischievous, and in tune enough to help their beloved grandfather, not only to stay out of the way but also to seriously help in the business. At least, to run to and from the stockroom, and at the same time to come up to me if I had to pick up a new shipment of goods. They liked the latter the best because it gave them a glimpse of the mage's actual laboratory, which automatically made them the real stars among the local kids.
To my surprise, both the boy and the girl were toothy and tough enough not to be harassed by the local punk kids. There were the little bastards who amused themselves with bullying, of course, but they preferred not to get involved with this couple, who could run fast and throw stones at their abusers. And after their authority had been increased, all the more so.
Of course, I checked them all through the dreams, finding nothing dangerous for me. The only difference was that the old man had a steely temper and the same honesty. His father had come from a village in the middle of nowhere, where goblins were seen more often than other humans. He had taught the little boy a lesson in honesty, hard work, and respect for private property, as well as a peculiar pride and inability to fawn. It was a place that was not prone to over-adaptation. But in the big city, this kind of character and upbringing was more of a hindrance than a real help, as I witnessed.
By the way, it was from dreams that I found out how Grandfather had such a good memory to memorize the list of goods literally on the first try. He had an unusual grade of the title Collector of Fairy Tales, which allowed him never to forget fairy tales, legends, and folktales, but only if he heard them by ear. It also improved his memory, though not perfectly, but enough to pass my express test. If it were not for his inability to bend his back, he would have made an excellent bookkeeper or merchant. And if it weren't for his lisp and bad tongue, he'd make a great storyteller, too.
"Today you work, and tomorrow you can rest," I told everyone. "Maybe the day after tomorrow, too. I need to make preparations, and it will be good for you to have a rest."
I justified my visits to Ygra as the need to make new formulas (as if I hadn't made enough) and to buy raw materials, which was closer to the truth. The result was a five-day workweek, just like on Earth. I spend my weekends with my green problem, and all the neighbors may think that I'm out somewhere drinking in secrecy.
"Thank you, Master Tin." The old man bowed. "Shayna, Valius, don't flicker."
The kids, hearing my words, already arguing about their weekend plans, deciding where to go, who to visit, and who to punch in the face. The little bastards, but charismatic nonetheless. If only they had the proper levels and classes, there would be a perfect fighting team, that would understand each other not just by word of mouth, but without any words. I'd rather break my own arm, especially since I've made my fair share of healing concoctions, than train young fighters. Let them live a happy childhood, not get involved in adventures. The statistics in this world are such that ordinary people are far more likely to die of old age than the average adventurer. If they were children of noble blood, then the conversation would be very different, but it is what it is.
The day passed quietly and unnoticed, causing me to blatantly indulge in idleness. My reserve was just recovering, and if it had been full, I wouldn't have gone into the mission with a half-empty supply of energy. I was not going to have to grind alchemy, I was sick of the dreams that flashed before my eyes, and I just didn't want to touch the shadows.
So I just sat there, spitting at the ceiling, and reminiscing about the days that had passed. I was thinking that it would be a good idea to get some books somewhere, so I could spend my evenings doing something other than training. And the brothels were still unattended, which was frustrating - as if there were a conspiracy and a sophisticated curse. I even scanned myself a couple of times in all the available spectrums, but, alas, I found nothing.
In the time that passed, I discovered that it was not for nothing that I had been intimidated by the lack of profits and customers if I didn't want to go under someone's arm. I did not advertise, I did not lower the price, I did not bargain, and at times I openly trolled my customers, driving them to a frenzy. The ones who suffered the most were the same vendors, not the big ones, but the slightly above-average ones. They had outgrown the level of simple shopkeepers, but they had not yet called themselves rich, but their character was great! They had the arrogance, ambition, and conceit of the big leagues, and the manners of yesterday's lumpen, who try to behave with elegance. I have never been a lover of the upper class, but when I looked at them I understood why so many of the nobles were so wildly disgusted by the bourgeois who had come up from the lower classes and had acquired wealth. Honestly, if it weren't for laziness, I would have buried them somewhere! Probably in the same latrine where the souls of my uninvited visitors are buried, sacrificed to the sewers and the ubiquitous shit.
Should I say that all their attempts to convince me to sell to them (and only to them!) my products for next to nothing, did not find my understanding. And if only they had offered a partnership or a percentage of subsequent sales, but no! Only their gratitude and, "Well, you understand that I can put in a good word for you with the one". When mentioning the mysterious "the one," it was necessary to look as mysterious and important as possible to ensure that the stupid peasant would understand.
In response to a polite, but frankly sneering dismissal, all manners evaporated, and I was almost directly told that I would have problems with the guards, the magistrate, thieves' gangs, all the city guilds together, and God the Emperor himself and all his primarchs personally. I can't help but laugh, reminding them that I've only got one house that'll burn down accidentally, and they've got loads of warehouses full of stuff. And extinguishing alchemical mixtures is very difficult. I hinted, of course, subtly and indirectly, which is why half of them did not understand such hints at all. But when they did get it! The skill of provocation grew by leaps and bounds, threatening to reach the master's level at any time, if not "right away".
As this seemingly useless skill grew, I really began to feel almost physically exactly what words would be beating out my interlocutor, and how to gradually build up his anger and indignation, and how not to overdo it. The synergy with clairvoyance and the Soul of a Mocker was not a joke. It made me feel like a true aristocrat and a master of intrigue... until I looked in the mirror.
I was not much afraid of the execution of the threats, because these guys were still f*ckers, but they were cowardly faggots, so they would only go to a real confrontation if they were absolutely sure of their impunity. Which I, thanks to the trolling, have completely and permanently ruined for them. We hit self-esteem, quickly and cheaply.
I suppose it would have been a lot more complicated if the serious guys had taken me on, but they didn't need me. The big players limited themselves to the very first envoys, and then they waited. Anyway, the big orders go either through the guild or through them, which means that I'll either go broke selling simple compositions at retail or still come to them to bow. I had a good sense of business ethics and practical capitalism under magical feudalism.
I have learned a great deal from the dreams of local businessmen, including some very insider or even compromising information on various subjects. It would have to go somewhere else, for I have no idea what I would do if I knew that the biggest grain merchant in all the Kraj, Lucio Samiani, fat and lumpy, calls little girls every Friday... to sing him lullabies and whip him on the ass with a whipping vine. What the fuck is going on in people's heads? And yet his quirk was still relatively harmless and not dangerous to other people's lives.
Make me unseen it!
Planting of behavioral bombs, along with brainwashing the entire city, was, in principle, possible, but too long, cumbersome, and, let's face it, a little immoral, even from my point of view. I don't know what it was that stopped me the most, but I think it was the tedium and complexity of the task at hand.
However, I made a dozen sleeping agents, just in case. Who knows, it might come in handy. Most of these agents, alas, were unneeded bastards, but one has to start somewhere. And a couple of important people, including that grocery tycoon, I did get. With the latter, I was lucky enough to reach the dreams of the residents of rich neighborhoods. I lost almost all of my reserve at the time.
I was much more interested in the adventurers' guild - the latter was very interesting and even more influential in the region than the magistrate with the burgomaster at their head. Serious guys, but their quarters were too far away, so it was impossible to get from my bed right to their dreams. In the end, I figured that all in good time, and there would be a chance to get to them, too. Sooner or later, they would.
Using the Ring, as well as brainwashing random women to create a harem, was heroically rejected by me for two simple reasons. First, there was no time, and second, it was dangerous. And now I'm not talking about training with dreamwalking, I'm talking about using the Ring. No kidding, that really wouldn't have been the smartest thing for me to do.
If training with Dreams simply caused internal aversion in the style of "am I so worthless that I can't do it myself?", then the Ring... Let's be clear- Ygra, while causing a lot of problems, remained a monstrously dangerous fighting unit. But even so, her gifted abilities blow my mind. Do I need another babe that can fuck my brain like that?
No way!
Maybe she would be adequate, I don't argue, but I don't want to take any unnecessary risks in any case. If I had a level 40 lady-knigh trying to kill me, I'd think twice about it. But to risk subjugating a low-level girl just for the sake of fucking... Well, I'm not desperate enough to be that stupid.
Although there were some very good-looking townswomen among those who passed over here and there, I won't deny that.
The day was over, and very little merchandise was sold, only cheap stuff like medicinal decoctions and poultices, which could not be called full-fledged potions, let alone an elixir or an essence. It was just a mish-mash, made from the leftovers of things you didn't want to throw away. I made you out of what I had - it would be an appropriate phrase for the occasion.
Before I sent grandpa and his rascals off to rest, I gave him the rest of the month's wages: one silver coin and a hundred in copper. If I counted all the costs and profits, I came out close to zero, with even a little leftover for groceries, as well as for new reagents. For an alchemist of the third rank in the local guild's report cards is contemptibly small. Even the fourth ranks, if they have a good and extensive clientele, can earn more while spending a lot less. But for me, it was just enough, at the same time I don't have to worry about being seen as a competitor. Certainly not with such sales.
The grateful and satisfied workers went about their business, and I got ready to go for a walk in the woods. The first thing I did was to eat cold porridge (don't even ask me what it took to learn how to heat the stove!) and some tortillas. Then I started packing, thinking about what I was going to do and how I was going to get out of the city.
I activated stealth, took the knives, stole someone else's shadow, took the spices... I think that's it. So I'm off to find my beloved belle. I hope she's got some brains in her head.
Lately, the situation with the goblins outside the city had escalated a bit, as well as with the monsters. The critical mass of forest dwellers had accumulated, and it could have turned into a full-fledged war. They wouldn't dream of attacking the city with its enchanted walls, but they'd be able to cut off the hunting parties' oxygen. And there will be a war, for, without the normal operation of hunters and gatherers, most of the infrastructure of the Kraj will be useless. All the same, the city was built to set the flow of the extraction of the "gifts of the unclean land," without which this haven of banditry is not needed. If not useless.
I had to wait quite a long time for the next unit to be inspected, but I managed to get out of the city before the sun fully disappeared over the horizon. I put aside the clairvoyant vision of the tattered squad fighting off two goblin squads, aided by some kind of tame monster, and quickly slipped through the open gate. Now, jokes aside, for I am already in a combat environment.
Tiredness and lethargy are instantly washed away by the rush of adrenaline. Somehow I feel like I'm much more at home now than I am within the walls of my workshop. Am I used to the constant danger and the pile of threats that could kill me at any moment? Why else do I feel so lost when they're not around?
This time the sleeping Ygra was found without any trouble. It was because she was asleep, not running around the woods looking for anything to put in her stomach. The pebble thrown at her head was easily intercepted, though, and she awoke instantly, falling to the ground in a fighting stance. Beastly, brutal, but extremely effective, as effective a hand-to-hand combat skill can be at the rank of a full-fledged master.
A quick burst of aggression was replaced by a much stronger wave of joy and happiness, with which she greeted my magnificent person with her gruff voice.
"Ygra, helo!" The sentence is unconstructed, the word itself is misspelled, but considering the fact that a month ago she was unfamiliar with the concept of greeting, that's not a bad result at all.
"Hello to you, too, Ygra." I answered as calmly as possible, glad that I had discouraged her from hugging me. "It's good to see you."
I was really glad to see her in one piece. Which, given the local population, was a perfectly reasonable worry. Yes, she's as dangerous as a goddamn tank column and a platoon of elite stealth troopers, but I know that even a legendary behemoth can be destroyed. Accidents happen, and shitty accidents happen a lot more often. If my green wonder encountered some legendary nastiness, I'd be left without force support.
"Eat?" She immediately demonstrated to me the knowledge of another word, and this particular word was even without an accent. "Ygra, eat!"
"Eat, eat." I nod in agreement, and then I send the huntress to drag the future victim of my culinary delights. "Hunting. Bring me the meat."
She was full now, but she went for the prey immediately and without a second thought. In principle, it is understandable - I will not cook much anyway, and she likes the food made by me in the first place because of the taste, raw meat is still not as pleasant as in spiced fresh meat or fragrant meat broth. Not only to a man's heart you can get through his stomach. I'm also speaking from my own experience. Practical, you might say.
It took her a while to get back: she didn't have my sphere, and her skills were weakening outside the swamp (at least they partially work in the forests), so she had to do things the old-fashioned way. It didn't take longer than a couple of hours for her to hunt, though, and soon she had the body of a young piglet off her shoulder with its neck twisted.
That's good because last time she brought the biggest hog she'd ever seen, a giant forest boar, a mountain of meat. It was also stinky, like my shoelaces, and stiff as the soles of my boots. Dinner was spoiled then, so I had to quickly catch a couple of rabbits for a snack. But now this woodland wonder had learned the lessons of previous days by picking out the owner of the most tender and tasty meat. I wish she could learn everything else as easily as she did, not just how to get a tasty snack. No, I understand that the right motivation is half the success, but here, it seems, the thirst for tasty treats took away ninety percent of the overall motivation!
My thoughts didn't stop me from making a festive (?) dinner while keeping my eyes on the hands of the giantess who wouldn't give up the idea of robbing me. I had a pretty big pot of broth, a second fire on which to roast meat, and I even managed to bake some potatoes in the coals. I feel like a fucking cook! And what is doubly offensive, I do not give out cooking skills, even though I'm 100% sure that such a thing exists! Man, I'm a man, not a housewife! Ordinary isekai all sorts of princesses bring coffee to bed, and only I need to stand "near the stove" to please the princess.
It's something wrong.
"Stop! Stop! Quick, what do you have to say?" It's getting harder and harder to keep Ygra from pillaging my work because nothing can stop her from getting the goodies.
My reserve hasn't dropped yet, but if she continues in the same mode, it won't be funny at all. It's annoying that she's so resistant to shadows that countering her is more exhausting than any battle.
In obedience to my words, my ward did calm down, sat down on the ground, and (don't laugh please) began to think, trying to remember what I had told her in my dreams. The general expression on her face, along with the inordinate tension of her thought processes, made her look as if she were trying to prove the theorem of Fermat, while simultaneously giving birth to a pack of wild porcupines.
Eventually, she managed to get hold of the crumbs of knowledge that I had tried to cram into her head during her nap last week. And not only to catch on but to figure out exactly what to say:
"Y?" Thank you!"
I'm just a God-given educator! A master of learning and a genius at unlocking inner talents! I would have even cried if it weren't for the need to still track the hands of an ever-hungry woman while removing cooked food from the fires.
"Well done, Ygra!" I gave my praise, which made the "good girl" come in a violent cum at the same moment. The idea of tying my orders to pleasure was highly questionable, despite its efficiency, speed of learning, and ease of use.
I hand the instantly recuperated ogre the first portion of meat and then begin to slowly eat my own. Now we'll finish eating and start the second part of our entertainment program, grinding. At the same time and be able to start gathering ingredients, which is also very "happy". Seriously, I like alchemy, as well as the process of making a new compound. But the constant routine and processing of raw materials cause only wild rage and bloodlust.
Separately, I'd like to point out that our grinding is probably one of the reasons why hunters from the Kraj can still afford to leave the city walls. It's certainly not the most important one, but it's still a significant one - we're really killing off a lot of small and not-so-small groups of greenlings, while also extinguishing some serious beasts.
I finish the last spoonfuls of soup, watching Ygra whip it straight from the hot pot (regeneration and great endurance), and then I shake off my clothes and pull out my favorite daggers. It's time to play some fun games in the fresh air, and in an atmosphere of mutual love and understanding.
Let's go!
The goblins and other small things didn't allow me to level up in any noticeable way. I was not afraid of the threat of the Goblins and the rest of them. No, they're not as weak as they seem at first sight: cunning, sneaky, good at crowd attacks, bloodthirsty, and smart enough to surprise their opponents at times. But to me and Ygra, they are no more dangerous than rabbits. The epic monster skin is insurmountable for their weapons, I always take out the few shamans first, and our perception allows us to avoid encirclement and ambushes.
Add to that the fact that Ygra, unlike me, doesn't spend any reserve because her abilities don't require it, and can continue to fight until she's physically tired. Need I remind you what her endurance rating was the last time I saw her Status? That's exactly what I'm talking about. The only way they could do anything to the two of us was if I let them ambush us, surround us, wear us down, kill us. Preferably without fighting back.
On average, we spent about a minute on a small group of a couple of dozen goblins. It could have been faster, but we kept the risk to a minimum. First, we killed the outermost ones, then made them scatter to the sides by breaking the formation, tossing a couple of mangled bodies into the center of the formation (Ygra thought of that, by the way), and then we just crushed them one by one, without letting them pull themselves together. If the group was small enough, they didn't even have time to make a noise. In any case, we tried to get out of hiding as little as possible. I did it for the pumping, and Ygra did it because of her instincts and experience as a hunter.
So it went on slowly and smoothly until we came upon a somewhat more dangerous beast than anything we had encountered before.
The thing looked more like a cross between a gorilla and Bigfoot than anything else. He was about half a meter taller than Ygra, and his body was just as impressive. Ogre looked like a track and field athlete next to a professional heavyweight boxer. The monster's figure seemed even broader at the expense of long and tangled dark gray hair, which resembled natural armor in its density. The monster's enormously long paws and unbelievably long claws suggested thoughts of ravenous mutant sloths, while its eyes, almost invisible behind its wispy hair, held a malevolent intelligence.
It was no accident that we came upon this creature, for in the shadow sphere we could see it quite clearly, as could a pile of goblins, orcs, and even a squad of local adventurers that seemed to have fallen prey to it. My heroic cognition identified this individual as a forest yeti, an epic monster of level thirty-nine. At the same time, he was on his home turf, angry, hungry, and dangerous. Even without clairvoyance, I knew that in a direct fight such a beast would devour my Ygra. And I would probably have to run, too, if I couldn't get him with a couple of superdense shadow attacks. But the two of us stand a good chance of rolling him if we're smart about it.
Our collaboration in the battle had increased considerably lately, and, before I met her, Ygra knew a lot about hunting in pairs, which she used to practice with her tribesmen. In short, I regarded the chances as positive, giving a barely audible trigger-command to attack, which caused a satisfied and bloodthirsty smile of the predator, which was struck in the head by the call of the hunt. Swamp ogres didn't know how to enjoy a battle with a "worthy opponent" - they generally tried to always kill as quickly and quietly as possible, very rarely turning to direct combat - but that didn't mean she didn't enjoy the hunt that was going on.
It didn't start the way I'd planned. The creature itself had no special camouflage, but its perception was very well developed, and maybe it had some sort of sensory skill as well. And if the small and neat me, sliding in the shadows, he did not notice, then a huge ogre could not miss. And the forest, though it covered it a little, certainly not from the master of the forest itself.
The woman circling the victim was greeted by a sonorous and threatening growl that pierced through my bones and seemed to be screwed straight into my temples. Once again the title of hero helped me, but Ygra fell out of stealth, though she retained her fighting ability.
The monster was old and clever, so he didn't jump into battle immediately, glaring at his opponent and probably putting her in the "eatable" category because he attacked immediately.
Another deafening roar failed to paralyze and confuse the ogre, allowing her to miss the enemy's claws and strike herself. The green-skinned woman's blow was completely damped by the yeti's crumpled fur, and she was already having to dodge her opponent's blows, which threatened to rip her abdomen open. So his dexterity, like his perception, was higher, even with the buff from the hunt.
And its wool is not just natural armor, but the basis for some kind of racial skill that dampened the damage. Ygra's few blows simply didn't penetrate the seemingly intrepid barrier, and that's with more than a hundred and fifty strength! And the ogre itself gradually missed the glancing and nonthreatening attacks that left shallow but eerie-looking bleeding wounds on her delicate skin. Yes, they healed almost instantly, literally before my eyes, but regeneration (which I was seeing working at full capacity for the first time) was wasting the body's resources and could not act nonstop.
I realize that if I don't intervene, I'll be left without a tame animal, which I'm not happy about. And another knowledge that the green one herself would not have attacked a too dangerous creature, but did it on my word and to please her "leader," is also drummed into my head. Well, that just means I have to save my, three times "ha," tribe. I smiled my meanest smile and covered my face and body in a shadow cocoon, not allowing the pheromones released by the ogre to hit me, and then I attacked myself.
The swamp child was forced to circle and back away from the constantly attacking monster, constantly at risk of being knocked down and mauled. The monstrous superiority in arm's length and the tangible gap in physical strength made it impossible for her to even think about attacking. The only thing that saved her was her high skill and her different fighting style - although she was used to sparse strikes on the marshes and constantly changing positions around her prey, so she skillfully kept her far more direct opponent from cornering her.
The change came with my entry, and I came in with a trump card. A few of the shadow tentacles, capable of easily breaking a man apart, were scattered and torn without much strain. Judging by the way the wool easily reflected the shadows, which Bigfoot himself hadn't even noticed, wrapping and slowing him down with standard methods would be a bit silly. Shadow silhouettes could have been used, but they might distract from the fight and ogre instead of her opponent. So I used vials of potent acid.
Two of them landed on the back, and the luckiest one flew into the head. I even managed to damage them enough so that they cracked even on impact with the enemy's fur coat, but that was all. In shadow perception, some waves went through the goddamn braids, after which the acid ceased to be acid, disappearing in the blink of an eye. Antimage? In principle, for an epic monster, not the most impossible ability. The main thing is to remember to dissect its corpse afterward.
The next action was to dodge some driftwood flying in my direction. I ducked, which allowed Ygra to break the distance. She didn't look well - she'd been badly bruised, including a very nasty gash on her side and what looked like a dislocated arm. Regeneration would take the most serious effects of the wounds in a couple of seconds, and the wounds themselves would be gone in less than a minute, but who was going to give her that time?
I am.
Another vial, this time of the same negator of magic, splattered over the woolen armor of the fuck-monkey, clearly doing something bad. I wasn't the only one who noticed that, by the way, as the monster roared his skill again, seemingly trying to knock me out of stealth. He was fighting quite loudly at all: growling, sniffing and grunting in assortment, but the skill was thunderous at all.
I stepped into the Shadow and stepped out, pressed literally against its side, except to hug the bastard. The stench of the beast's body was pungent in my nose. But I was already attacking with a dagger-blade that came down from the pure darkness. The blow struck exactly where the negator had hit, penetrating the fur, skin, and muscle, clearly hurting it.
It hurt even more when I turned the super-powered blade into a spiked club, but that was it. Even with the magic-neutralizing compound, the damn fur was able to absorb most of the attack, so my favorite "stuff the guts with shadows" trick didn't work here. And I couldn't get the blade to infuse a second time. The almost instantaneous backlash from the huge claws nearly cut me off.
He stepped to the other side again, letting the blow pass him by. Even before I could attack, I was forced to watch as the beast's head bobbed under the attack of the ogre that had come in from the blind spot. A moment later, Bigfoot was ready to crush the green in the embrace it had so carelessly slipped into. But I was the one to stop it, stepping out of the shadow right next to the mossy's supporting leg. Naturally, I didn't just step out, but again, I pummeled the attack with two blades in an attempt to inflict injury.
There was enough strength to cut a couple of poorly armored guards in half and still have some leftover, but the fuckin' hair was weakening my blows. Instead of amputation, I managed only a minor piercing of the hide, but I accomplished my main goal by simply dropping the monster to the ground, making it lose its opportunity to attack.
Alas, Ygra's attempt to saddle him (hussars, you know what I'm about to say) and tear him up ended with a powerful kick to the chest (poor boobs) that broke half her ribs and knocked her out of the fight for the duration of her regeneration. The weirdo tried to quickly attack and finish off the green one, but I got mad - now my ward could be really torn up, and I wouldn't let him.
And I dragged her from the swamps not for the feast for some fucking woolly dickbag!
A step of the shadows and I appeared above his head, not realizing how, but coming out of the movement in midair and throwing a handful of various products in his face. The wool worked well again, and I didn't bring the second charge of negator with me, silly as I was. The paws of my opponent almost made a few little Kostiks out of me, but I did it again...
...step, again in a vague way beginning to infuse the dagger with shadows before even the exits, after which I cut off the toes on one of my opponent's legs with one smooth blow. The claws on his feet, by the way, are only slightly smaller than the claws on his paws (how does he walk with them?). A wild growl, followed by a momentary fall. A completely deliberate fall, as he is eager to trivially sit on me, crushing me with his weight. It almost succeeds, but the moment I can already see the last asshole in my life, I manage to do it again...
...step, and get out from under the carcass that was almost on top of me, displaying some miracle of dexterity. As much as my speed had increased while I was in this state, I was accelerating even faster now. I also seemed to have learned to fly, or at least to levitate, for I emerged again out of nowhere in front of the still snarling yeti's face, literally shoving a lump of shadow down his throat, immediately growing spikes on them, wounding and tearing the delicate tissue of his larynx and mouth. The monster, still unresponsive, doesn't even have time to raise its paws to swing away from me before I...
...I take another step away, appearing next to the paw he was leaning on while he tried to pick my shadows out of his throat with the other. There is an unpleasant progression of emptiness in my chest, but there is no doubt. There is me, there is the enemy, and there is the clear understanding that the enemy is already dead, and I just need to bring that fact to him.
Kill.
Tear.
Devour.
In a moment I managed to infuse the daggers with power again, and now I simply thrust them into the elbow joint up to their hilt, causing the creature to lose its balance again.
At the same moment the Ygra, who I'd forgotten about, enters the fight, whose lively and combat-ready look puts my brains back in place a bit, and the reflexive breath of tart-sweet air almost knocks me out of my fighting rhythm. No matter what happened, I was fine again. But my opponent, who had a wickedly grinning swamp ogre jumping on his shoulders, clearly wanted to be somewhere else.
Another growl and a sharp attack that nearly threaded me with its claws forced me back into the fray, missing my opponent by some measly palm. The Ygra also failed, failing to wring the sturdy neck, which the mane of dirty wool didn't even allow me to wrap its arms around. After a few torn braids, Bigfoot managed to throw his foe off his shoulders, nearly ripping her arm off, and was back on his feet. Or rather, on all fours, but with the length of his legs, it didn't matter.
And the creature had attacked not the larger ogre, but me, who was slowly recovering from the series of teleports, which even made sense. I had inflicted more damage on it, and I was now standing in a prominent position, unarmed and invulnerable. I am ready at any moment to go into another teleporter and attack him in the back, just waiting for his actions and distracting him from the ogre's movement. But even before the thing approached me, at the very beginning of his dash, a tree torn from the roots flew into his feet and he tripped over it. I was already forming a powerful shadow attack to finish the creature off without even approaching it, when Ygra's figure popped up on his shoulders again, breaking the vertebrae of the troublesome beast in one fell swoop.
This time, she took note of her mistakes and yanked at the only vulnerable point, not letting the blow slip sideways because of the thick hair. The monster's vitality prevented it from dying instantly. He might not have regeneration, but he was still an epic monster with his stats set way too high. Luckily, after this injury, his fighting ability dropped to zero, which allowed Ygra to spin his head around his neck a couple of times without any risk.
With the last convulsion, the agony ended, and then the life left Bigfoot, and I was rewarded with a considerable amount of experience. Apparently, the System counted the overall victory, dividing the reward into two parts. The twenty-fourth level is taken! It turns out that they gave me and the green one, who is now thirty-sixth level, two levels at once. I hope she can distribute her stats correctly because I'm still trying to get my stats up to one hundred and fifty in one fell swoop.
And also... of course!
A new development of class ability, for which I congratulate you, Kostik!
Steps of the Shadows: 5/7
Allows the user to step into the shadow and go directly to the shadow plane at will, with the ability to stay there for a certain amount of time, depending on the user's reserve and the actions they take; allows the user to choose a shadow to pass back directly while applying the skill; the distance of movement is limited by the user's reserve, but the effort and concentration are quite tolerable; in combat, this skill is extremely effective, especially for ambushes and surprise attacks; while in the other plane, the user's body gets the ability to pass through unechanted obstacles; allows the body to merge with the Shadow, developing great speed of movement; allows to accumulate shadow energy right in the moment of step; limited levitation is available when in the other plane.
So is the explanation for my nervous breakdown, which nearly turned me into a bloodthirsty beast, as well as for my increased capabilities. The system is right - this thing is much more useful in battle now than it was before. I wondered what would happen at the maximum skill level. Should I use the two points I have? Maybe I will, if my favorite isekai pet, which is a toad, doesn't choke me.
And now I'd better get on with cutting up my prey before Ygra, who had almost regenerated all of its damage, decides to eat it whole, leaving me with not even a hair. My intuition tells me that this beast would be enough material to buy an estate in a wealthy neighborhood, and perhaps more than one.
The thought of what kind of concoctions I could make out of it makes me chuckle, and then work off the sinister laughter of the black overlord. Wasn't there some way I wanted to boost my alchemy without wasting points? There's plenty of room for experimentation, and you can do it all you want.
I went home at dawn, leaving a satisfied and well-fed Yggra in the woods. I feared for my stealth and my subsequent entry into the city. The stealth, of course, is very advanced, but I'm still carrying two very bulky bags. Teeth, claws, some bones, the kind that radiated strongest to my senses, blood drained from the body, which I was able to seal before the coagulation began, and so on. It was almost physically painful to give the meat and heart and liver to a hungry ogre, but I had no way to get such a mass to town, nor was there any way to keep the precious reagents from spoiling - I had never acquired suitable containers, which was depressing.
And to tell you the truth, Ygra deserved her lunch - it was she who took the biggest part of the fight, taking all the punches. I couldn't say I felt sorry for her - not even a scar left on her body - but she deserved it. I was also very, very jealous of her regeneration. I mean, she'd healed the wounds in front of my eyes! She might have had a very uncomfortable opponent with a lot of damage, but against someone else, it would have been an insurmountable trump card. I want two hundred endurance!
I entered the workshop just before dawn, cursing the day that fucking Bigfoot had come into existence, as well as the stinkhole he'd come out of. The first thing I had to do was brew up some alchemical cleanser and odor neutralizer because the sheared wool reeked so badly that it made me sick to my stomach to smell like that.
In fact, I'd been doing just that all morning - getting rid of the smell, being careful not to ruin the wool itself. If it weren't for the knowledge that anyone who found out about my trophy would try to steal it from me, I would have ordered a cloak made of wool, preferably enchanted according to all the rules. I could use it to catch fireballs and bolts of lightning, assuming the material's original characteristics were intact. And I will carve daggers out of the claws! They are quite large, by the way.
A grandfather and little ones came and were sent trade with orders to disturb me only when the greenskins invaded the city walls. Toward the end, I was nearly dead from lack of sleep and fatigue, despite eighteenth points in endurance and a barely half-empty reserve. I was too exhausted for the weekend, though I couldn't deny that I was wildly pleased with the results.
If you think about it and put aside your emotions, Ygra and I handled Bigfoot almost effortlessly. Yes, there were a couple of dangerous moments, especially for the green one, but they were occasional moments where I was insuring her. I was helped a lot by the increase in the shadow ability, but even without that increase I would have done the task of "distracting the cattle". It would have just taken us longer and more painful to kill it. As it was, it was a foregone conclusion from the start: despite the danger and the stiff resistance, the creature was inferior to the two of us put together. It was also gradually weakened by Ygra's pheromones, though it died before it could have any noticeable effect. A few minutes and his reaction time would have diminished, after which all we had to do was peck the poor thing.
All in all, we're as badass as a pair of boiled dragon eggs!
Well it's 100% untranslatable joke. In Russian for a cool/badass person, boiled egg or steep mountain first word is the same. Like a sharp mind and a sharp blade. So often when MC tries to highlight one coolness in an ironic way he compares himself with mountains and eggs.
I turned off the moment my head touched the pillow without even using my skill. I was just tired, and I didn't resist it. With a tremendous effort, I fought the urge to sleep until morning, drifting off into other people's dreams instead. I still had almost half of my reserve. I had time to spend it properly, and I'd find all the pretty girls in my radius to have naughty dreams. It's been a long time since I've trolled anyone, so I don't want to lose my form.
But the first thing I was going to do was check out a new facet of the ability I hadn't touched in the woods - the ability to find those in whose dreams I'd already been to, at a great distance. And it worked! I could feel Ygra, even if I had to use my power to connect to her dream, but I could get to her. I'd prefer to have a full reserve for that, though, so I wouldn't exhaust myself.
Alas, Ostmark remained beyond my range, though I sensed something in that direction. And don't even ask me how and where I could sense that direction, being in such an ephemeral place. I did not dare to go in the direction my gut led me, but I preferred to check all the inhabitants of the Krai, in whose dreams I had left my influence.
Grandfather was still awake, apparently.
The twins, Shayna and Valius were already dreaming, and it seemed to be one for two. I added colorful colors and a sense of peace, mixed with security, to make them sleep better.
The girl singer was fine, too, and she was dreaming about a new song. Should I throw a couple of hits from my youth to her memory? No, I don't think it's worth the risk. What if they find out and come to ask me for plagiarism?
A mother was just asleep without dreaming, so I didn't touch her. She had her own behavioral algorithms - I just made her pay attention to her daughter, and then her maternal instinct took over.
I was going through my "patients" until I remembered the painter I'd cured of some unknown contagion. After all, working with him had helped me take my skill level, so I would send him a couple of gorgeous girls with big eyes in his dreams. I was too tired last time to send him pleasant visions.
Except I couldn't find the painter. Not because he wasn't asleep, but because he was no longer alive. And I had no idea why he died or how he died. Don't get me wrong, I'm not some detective who can identify a murderer by the color of the main witness' socks. It's just that my clairvoyance has always clogged my head with unhelpful information. I was never able to fully control this willful skill, but as it grew, I learned to ask for information at will. That is, exactly to ask, just approximately indicating the subject of interest, but not knowing what exactly will be sent to me in response. Whether it was the burial place of someone's stash of gold, or knowledge of the cut of his grandmother's dress. I could learn a lot about the death of a low-level, untrained painter, simply because it was the skill that worked best on weaklings.
But clairvoyance was silent.
Didn't clog my brain with a lot of unnecessary information.
Didn't respond with a headache, indicative of overexertion.
It didn't hit a wall like when trying to sense something I didn't know or someone with too high a level.
It was just silent as if I was trying to catch the emptiness.
My gut was silent, too, not finding any danger for me, but I knew intuitively that I did not like the situation at all. I had to stop the training and just go to bed, promising myself that I would check the situation. Carefully, so as not to show my interest and not to get into trouble. Otherwise, these problems might get into me first.
* * *
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The world of Ebeisia was engulfed in war. A war that holds the key to the world’s future. A war that will determine whether the world will be engulfed in darkness or whether a sliver of light will enlighten the entire world. The witches, monsters, Dark Elves, and many other dark creatures were on their way to the last line of defense. Slade, an assassin, took matters into his own hands to assassinate the Demon General, but he failed. In his last moments, he witnessed the last line of defense is breached and the Demons nearly winning the war. When he opened his eyes, he found himself in the body of a boy named Ethan Harrison, a student. Suffering from the crisis of his identity and confusion, he came across the game, which will change the future of the world. Will he be the key to thwarting the dark future that threatens to engulf the entire world?
8 108Subject 0001
Leon, also known as subject0001 is a boy at the age of 19. He is a criminal with powers granted by unknown entities, as is some others. In a world attacked by creatures known as Kreosoans and humans living in "the dome" protected by a organization of soldiers some with powers as well. Leon catches the attention of the leader of the special force and the hatred from plenti of others as he goes on an adventure. Just say everything you find good or bad. Thanks, and hope you like it! P.S. I marked it gore just to be on the safe side, but I wouldn't really call it a gore. (And) I didn't draw the eye on the cover, but i couldn't fine the person who did.
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If could go through a new life in a magical world indefinitely through the same timeline, in which your every action changes the future of your story. You are the writer of your story, your every decision would accelerate the future events and change all outcomes, you could chose to destroy the fate of your enemies or you could turn them to your side in a newly written story of yours. This story is about a reincarnated young man named Li Bai, who is trapped in a vicious cycle of reincarnation every time he dies. The reincarnation is more like an uncontrollable time travel back to the age of 4 of reincarnation 1 in a different dimension. In this world people uses martial arts, cultivation and magic to show dominance. Out of the mist a VR game called, "Creation", stunned the world with it's peculiar design and cultivation enhancing system. The game world be refer as "second earth" by future descendant of this dimension. This is a mix match story of cultivation, magic and VR gaming (Sci-fi). This is original story.
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A group of idiots who opened the wrong box and looked at the wrong photo...Be careful of what you see and what you know.What you know, isn't always the truth.Started: 06/01/18Completed: 04/29/19igotyesSwaeg
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