Hero

by Dan Sugralinov

  There were two more factors at play there. Firstly, I still didn’t know what kinds of perks I could receive at the next level of Insight. You never know, I might be able to see hidden treasures by looking at maps, or even new plutonium deposits. And secondly, processing a large flow of job seekers would allow me to hand-pick the best people for my own company.

  I went back to Vicky. She’d already poured out the tea and was sitting at the kitchen table hugging her legs, glued to her telephone. On seeing me, she looked up quizzically.

  “That was Alik,” I answered her silent question. “He asked me the same thing as you: when we’re gonna start the business.”

  “Alik? Who’s that?”

  I realized they hadn’t met. They’d never had the occasion.

  “Just a friend,” I said, unwilling to go into details. “He’s gonna help me with the business.”

  She didn’t seem too convinced but she didn’t show it. All I could see in my interface was her slightly deflated mood and her prickled interest.

  “You’re gonna meet him as soon as I get the chance. And as far this business is concerned...” I chuckled. “This isn’t just an idea. I know exactly how to launch and develop it. All I’m asking you for is a little bit of patience. You won’t be disappointed, I promise.”

  “Phil, I’m only worried about you, don’t you understand? I just can’t work out what’s going on in your head. I’m afraid you’re thinking about going back to your old lifestyle...” she lowered her gaze.

  “Look me in the eye, sweetie,” I pressed my hand to my heart. “I swear on everything that’s holy that I haven’t even thought of anything of the kind! I’m following a plan, and this plan is going to bring success to our family!”

  There was a spark of surprise in her eyes. A smile lit up her face. “Are we a family, really?”

  “Yes, we are. And next weekend we’re gonna see your parents just as you suggested.”

  “In that case...” she said slyly as if she was up to something.

  She suddenly dropped her head, letting her hair fall over her face, then stood up, holding her outstretched arms in front of her, doing an impersonation of that girl from The Ring movie. “You’d better watch out! The ancient evil has awoken in me! It wants you!”

  * * *

  EVEN IF MY RELATIONSHIP was going well, my leveling up strategy wasn’t. All I’d achieved in two weeks was a level 13 in social status, +1 to both Strength and Agility and +2 to Stamina. Just as I’d planned, I’d invested the three system characteristic points into Perception (+2) and Intellect (+1).

  Even if I’d become any smarter, I hadn’t noticed it. But my heightened Perception had immediately made my world a lot brighter. I now had 20/20 vision, my hearing was excellent and so was my palate. I was even capable of telling the difference between various types of tea and coffee which I’d never noticed before. Just think that I used to equally enjoy that instant powdered crap and proper freshly-ground coffee!

  As for my eyesight, the only thing I’d been able to see in the night sky without glasses was the North Star. And now... now I derived a particular pleasure from studying the heavens. How fragile planet Earth was and just how insignificant was humanity! You never know, maybe it was true about all those senior races visiting us from thousands of light years away and the mysterious Vaalphors who looked suspiciously like horror-movie demons.

  I hadn’t yet touched the system skill points I’d received for leveling up so now I had a total of five. It wouldn’t have been wise to invest them now because the initial skill levels normally don’t take much time to achieve. Which was why I was waiting for the Learning Skills optimization period to expire so that I could invest all the available system points into it. If I’d calculated everything correctly, touch wood, then I might be able to learn new skills and level up my existing ones at a truly cosmic speed, almost like in WoW. I only had ten days left to wait.

  Philip “Phil” Panfilov

  Age: 32

  Current status: unemployed

  Social status level: 13

  Class: Book Reader. Level: 8

  Divorced

  Children: none

  Main Characteristics:

  Strength: 9

  Agility: 7

  Intellect: 20

  Stamina: 9

  Perception: 11

  Charisma: 14

  Luck: 10

  At 8 pt., my Reading skill had already overtaken Empathy. These days, I wasn’t perusing sales manuals anymore. I chose the books relevant to my skills as I’d already found out, through trial and error, that knowing the theory of a given skill — be it boxing or vending — considerably increased its leveling rate. I hadn’t yet attacked Martha Stewart’s cooking books but I fully intended to, because a high level of Cooking just might allow me to prepare buff-rich food.

  Heh! Wouldn’t it be cool to eat a hearty bowlful of borsch[3] knowing that it gives you +2 to Strength and 30% to Satisfaction for three hours!

  These days, I was cooking much more often compared to the time I’d lived with Yanna, which had allowed me to make another level in Cooking.

  Now, whenever Vicky was at work I concentrated on XP grinding. We’d get out of bed together and have breakfast sharing our plans for the day or discussing a movie or a series we’d watched the night before. Then she’d leave for work and I would head off to a dilapidated school stadium nearby, its soccer pitch with lopsided netless goal mouths overgrown with yellowed weeds.

  Grass peeked out of the holes in the rubberized running track which I used to circle every day, trying to improve my distance. With every training session and every fraction of the skill gained, my running felt increasingly easier.

  One fine morning I’d discovered that I was already on my fifth mile and I wasn’t even out of breath. Nothing was hurting. If someone called me on my phone, I’d be able to speak to them normally without them even noticing I was running. I’d raised Running three more points and made level 5.

  Once I’d realized that it took me very little time to restore — thanks to the booster — I started going to the gym every day. Ditto for my boxing sessions. Even though my Strength wasn’t growing as fast as in the beginning, I still had less than 20% left to the average 10 pt. which was about a week’s training.

  I’d also received a new skill: Athletics. It came without a description so I’d had to ask Martha about it. Apparently, unlike in Morrowind where Athletics only conditioned a character for running and swimming, my game system used it as the ability to compete. In other words, having this skill activated meant that the system now considered you a proper athlete (albeit an amateur) and not a wimp.

  Admittedly, I was starting to feel like an athlete. My six-pack might still be concealed under a layer of fat but there wasn’t much of that fat left, either. When I’d put my old glasses on just to check if my increase in Perception had indeed improved my eyesight, they refused to stay put. In actual fact, my goofy mug had thinned out so much that it now fit in the proverbial mug shot. If Kira were to be believed, I’d “shed a few years”. The only thing which still reminded me of my past was my admittedly shrunken belly which, although it had stopped pouring over my belt, was still visible unless pulled in.

  Last time I’d seen Alik was when he’d moved out of my old apartment. That day, I’d gone there early to make sure everything was hunky dory. He hadn’t let me down. The place looked fine; he'd even managed to do some repairs. The only thing my former landlady found to complain about were the claw marks in the couch left by Boris the she-cat. We came to a reasonable agreement about this, considering the couch’s ancient history.

  The same day, I’d come across Fatso in the yard. He'd changed an awful lot. Maybe not on the outside but his Vitality had considerably grown and his Mood figures were high. The stable job seemed to have instilled a bit of discipline in him. It had also calmed his wife down, disabling her built-in Scold mode. Altogether, it had improved his Satisfaction, pacifying the formerly
unemployed juicehead and considerably improving his Health.

  Last week I’d received an invitation for a birthday party from Cyril Cyrilenko, my ex-coworker from Ultrapak. I’d wanted to invite Vicky along but she’d refused saying she wouldn’t feel comfortable after what had happened with Marina and Dennis. So in the end I went there alone.

  Cyril had chosen a modest but cozy venue with attentive waiters, cold beer, good food and upbeat live music. There were about ten of us, all his friends and colleagues. I didn’t know some of them so I sat at a table between Greg and Marina. Their trial period had nearly come to an end but neither of them seemed to be too worried about it. Seeing as Dennis had been fired for sexually harassing Marina, and as I had also left the company, Pavel was likely to keep both trainees — especially as their sales results had been excellent. Greg was one of those people who could sell sand to Arabs while Marina was enthusiastically working her way through the client list I’d compiled for her, working on the “not a day without a sale” basis.

  After Greg had made up with his pregnant wife Alina, his paternal instinct seemed to have kicked in. Having sat with us for a couple of hours, he apologized to Cyril and went home. As for Marina, she’d brought a date along, some postgraduate or other.

  I was truly happy I’d been able to help my friends and change the course of their lives in some way. Who knows? Maybe this small readjustment would change their lives dramatically for the better. Or was it already doing so?

  By the way, the system had classified my attendance as a socially meaningful action and rewarded it with some XP points. Apparently, the ability to always stand by your friends in good times as well as bad was considered a virtue.

  I hadn’t heard from Yanna even though my Mom had called her mother for some unknown reason and asked how she was doing. That’s my Mom for you: she’s constantly worrying about everyone. As far as I understood, their conversation had been curt and brief, ending with Mrs. Orlova’s demand to “leave her family alone”.

  Mom had accepted this with comprehension. I’d only found this out by pure chance from Dad when the two of us went to our summer cottage one weekend to help build the bathhouse[4]. I’d used the occasion to weed the vegetable garden, bringing my Agriculture skill to level 2. I’d also used the hand pump to water the whole garden. No amount of time in the gym can compare to hand-watering a garden. My muscles were still indignant of the fact, remembering all the effort.

  One morning on my way back home from my run I’d met Mr. Panikoff, the dear old-age pensioner. I tensed up: by then, the whole dark incident involving Valiadis and Khphor had already begun to fade from my memory. Deep inside I’d been expecting something like this to happen. Still, my worst expectations hadn’t come true. All that had happened was he’d issued me another quest. Apparently, his children had given him a tablet with his favorite sports newspaper app already installed — but it stopped working whenever his Wi-Fi was out of range. As soon as I walked the old gentleman back to our building’s door and within range of his Wi-Fi, the app started up and the quest was closed, rewarding me with 5 more Reputation points and a negligible amount of XP.

  I’d bought myself a mid-range laptop, perfect for writing and doing online search. It was lightweight with a wide screen and a long-life battery. I’d developed the habit of taking it with me in my sports bag so that I could pop into a café on my way back from a gym practice and do a bit of writing. This had become my favorite time of the day. I was yet to tackle novel-length manuscripts but at least my vignettes and short stories had found their reader, harvesting likes and comments. That in itself was motivation enough, not to mention the fact that they improved my ranking on that particular writers’ portal.

  I’d gone as far as to write the story of Alik and Fatso whom I’d rolled into one character. It had become a one-day wonder, hitting the portal’s “most read” list. The readers demanded a sequel which I didn’t have because the story’s prototypes were too busy working and basically leading an uneventful life. If it went on like this, I might write a sci-fi story in which the MC would receive the same kind of interface as I now had.

  Like about some puny guy who was too scared to fight. Why not? It might be interesting.

  In any case, my Writing and MS Word skills kept leveling at a rate of knots. That showed both in their numerical values and in the way I felt. Words came easier; my fingers flitted over the keyboard and ideas seemed to come out of nowhere so that I’d even had to start a special file in my smartphone to jot them down.

  The change in my lifestyle had also indirectly affected my other skills: Self-Discipline (+2), Self-Control (+1), Perseverance (+2) and Long-Term Planning (+1). Indeed, these days I found it easier to follow my own plans, nipping all attempts at procrastination and cowardly moments of “I don’t feel like it” in the bud.

  The major part of XP I now had I’d amassed by leveling up skills and characteristics — but some of it I’d also received for completing the tasks I’d set for myself. Any athletics-related goals counted (like an effort to run a hundred meters more than the day before), as well as helping my family with their everyday tasks. For instance, helping my Dad at their summer cottage that day had resulted in me receiving a hefty 500 pt.

  What upset me a little was that I still couldn’t level up Insight. I’d already got into the habit of IDying everything in sight. It had become as involuntary and automatic as turning round in the street to double-check a pretty woman’s posterior. Still, it didn’t seem enough. The skill seemed to have frozen at about 40% halfway between levels 2 and 3. All the hundreds of object identifications I performed every day garnered me a fraction of a percent.

  Ditto for using the interface map. Whenever I asked Martha about it, her response was like a Catch-22 situation: my level of Insight wasn’t enough to receive the answer to the question of how to level up Insight. I had this idea that its leveling rate could increase whenever I used the interface for the benefit of society. Alternatively, the skill’s level cap could be tied to the current social status level — but I had no means of checking out these two theories yet.

  But the biggest improvement, apart from Running, had proven to be my Boxing skill (+3) which had brought the total up to level 4.

  Main Skills and Abilities:

  Learning Skills: 3 (a primary skill currently undergoing Optimization: +4)

  Reading: 8

  MS Word: 7)

  Empathy: 7

  PC skills: 7

  Vending: 6

  Communication Skills: 6

  Creative Writing: 6

  Russian language skills: 6

  Running: 5

  Intuition: 5

  Cooking: 5

  Online search: 5

  MS Excel: 5

  Boxing: 4

  Perseverance: 4

  Decision Making: 4

  Hand-to-Hand combat: 4

  Self-Discipline: 4

  Self-Control: 4

  Seduction: 4

  English Language skills: 3

  Long-Term Planning: 3

  Speed Typing: 3

  Manners: 3

  Driving: 2

  Pushbike riding: 2

  Leadership: 2

  Marketing: 2

  Map reading: 2

  Public Speaking: 2

  Fishing: 2

  Agriculture: 2

  Power of Persuasion: 2

  …

  Athletics: 1

  …

  Playing World of Warcraft: 8 (a secondary skill currently undergoing Optimization: −8)

  System Skills:

  Insight: 2

  Optimization: 1

  Heroism: 1

  System skill points available: 5

  But as for the money, I was slowly but surely running out. After I’d paid the rent on the new flat and bought the laptop, I had to shell out a lot for my individual boxing lessons — and I also took Vicky out from time to time.

  I had put a certain amount away for a rainy day b
ut I loathed to dip into it, determined to level up financial discipline. Spending is easy; saving and making the money grow is much harder.

  * * *

  THE TWO GRAND I had to pay my coach for every boxing session was quickly depleting my budget. If I wanted to continue training with what little money I still had left, I had to join the group. It would certainly be wise and much cheaper.

  So once the next session was over, I stopped him. “Mr. Matov, I need a quick word with you.”

  “What is it?” he glanced at his watch, apparently in a hurry. “Go on then but make it quick.”

  “Do you remember when I first came you refused to let me join the group? Do you think I’m good enough now? Am I ready?”

  He frowned. “When you’re ready I’ll let you know. In my personal opinion, you’re still a while behind the other guys. You’ll be holding them back. You’ve made some progress, I agree. You’re night and day compared to what you used to be. But they’re young guys who’ve been training since early childhood and you’re still a wimp. Every boxer that’s worth his salt will punch your lights out.”

  “Yeah but-”

  “Are you serious? Listen, I have an important tournament coming up and I won’t have the time to mollycoddle you in the group. It’s one thing when you pay for your own training and quite another when you start impinging on the time of the really promising guys who work hard to prepare for the competition. It’s absolutely out of the question. Carry on for another six months and then we’ll see.”

  “But I don’t have money for another six months, Sir! I could pay you for another couple of sessions and after that, I’ll either have to quit or look for another gym.”

  “Does that mean you’re stopping with the one-on-one training?”

  “I’m afraid so. Two more sessions is all I can manage. But I don’t want to give up boxing.”