My head was splitting after last night, but the naked girl lying beside me in bed, her hair splayed out on the pillow, reconciled me with this injustice.
Our relationship had, after all, moved into a horizontal plane, and despite being significantly intoxicated, I gave it my all, hoping I hadn't disappointed her.
My bladder was demanding increased attention. I glanced at the time, saw that it was almost eleven in the morning, and went to answer nature's call.
We had only gone to bed at seven in the morning, so a little less than four hours was clearly not enough to deal with the aftermath of our crazy night, and I was still slightly drunk.
When I got back to bed, I flopped down next to the girl. It was only because of the lingering intoxication that I answered "yes" to a prompt from the bracelet. I only realized afterward that it wasn't a call from one of my dear relatives, for whom it was already the evening of January 1st, but a strange system message from the communicator.
[Subspatial quantum capacity is full. Form a transition?]
A portal formed beneath my body. I fell into it, frantically grabbing for the blanket and the sleeping girl, pulling them in with me.
A fall from a height of a few centimeters could hardly be called fatal, but it still jolted me and woke the girl, who let out a pained moan and sleepily looked around.
Understanding of the awkward situation slowly dawned in her eyes. With a shriek, she snatched the blanket from me, wrapped herself in it, and, after looking around, asked the logical question:
"Max? What's going on, where are we? If this is some stupid prank or a moronic joke," she said, her eyes flashing with anger, "then someone is going to regret it."
Even though I had no answer, I hastened to calm the naked girl, who was still clutching the blanket. "Okay. We'll figure this out."
I looked around, walked up to the nearest rough-hewn stone wall, for some reason touched the shaft of a smoking torch that gave off an uneven light, and then looked thoughtfully at the girl. I touched the wall again and pinched myself.
"Argh, that hurts!"
"Yeah, and my butt is cold," Anya repeated after me, getting to her feet.
"Rhythm! Check connection, call my brother," I decided to check for a signal and understand what was happening.
[Cellular connection does not function in the subspatial quantum capacity.]
The girl and I stared at each other in shock and simultaneously asked the same question. "What the hell is going on here?"
Internally bracing myself, I finally asked the question I should have asked first. "Rhythm. What's going on, where are we?"
[In the subspatial quantum capacity.]
"Oh, for God's sake!" I exploded with a curse. "I get that we're in some kind of capacity. Can you explain what that is?"
[In accordance with clause 83.5.17 of the Symb 2.0 testing agreement, you consented to additional testing of new communicator bracelet functionality.
[The microscopic nanogenerators built into the bracelet use quantum effects to collect energy. These nanogenerators extract energy from quantum vacuum fluctuations and photons, affecting the position of particles in quantum fields.
[The phenomena of tunneling and cascade amplification provide microscopic electric currents, which are then collected and converted into electrical energy. This process allows the bracelet to continuously generate energy using quantum phenomena on the nanometer scale.
[Once every three days, the quantum effector is fully charged, allowing it to teleport into a special space isolated from reality and move the user into it.]
"What the heck is an isolated space?!" I said, syllable by syllable. "Wait a minute." I latched onto an important detail. "What do you mean by 'moves the user'? What about her?" I pointed at the girl.
[Object with the code name "User #2" is also the owner of a bracelet with extended functionality.]
I clutched my head and said, "Okay, how do we get out of here?"
[Pass the location to the end.]
"What do you mean, pass it? Just walk through?" I was now yelling at my voice assistant.
[The style of passing is up to the user. You can destroy all creatures in the location and receive an additional reward, or you can try to pass unnoticed without engaging in battles. The reward for this style of passage is significantly reduced.]
"What creatures?"
"Apparently, these," Anya said instead of Rhythm, pointing a finger at a small mouse sitting at the end of the corridor. Then she shrieked, pointing at the small animal again. "A mouse! Max, save me!" The girl threw herself at me, but got tangled in the blanket and started to fall to the floor, at which point I heroically saved her.
Gently supporting my friend, I put her on the floor, and after looking around, I couldn't even find a stray rock I could use to kill the mouse. I logically figured that if I took the torch and hit the little animal with it, I might extinguish it and be left in the dark, which was definitely not what I wanted.
Leaving the girl behind me, I slowly approached the mouse, which was sitting calmly and not showing any signs of aggression. I hadn't figured out what to do next, because I didn't want to stomp on it with my bare heels on the stone blocks. I also didn't really want to hit it with my hands and risk a bite and getting rabies.
Finally, I made up my mind and crept closer to the still-sitting animal. It was a perfectly ordinary field mouse that wasn't paying any attention to me and was occasionally washing its face with its paws.
For a moment, I even felt sorry for it, but the situation was not conducive to long reflections. We, naked, if you don't count one blanket for two, with an approaching thirst from a hangover, were God knows where, and it was unclear how we would get out.
Gathering my courage, I carefully put my hand toward it, ready to jump back at the slightest sign of aggression, and grabbed it by the tail.
The mouse, not expecting such treachery, didn't have time to react and only squeaked in indignation as I swung my arm and slammed it against the wall. The mouse's squeak was cut short, and the furry corpse fell at my feet.
"Well, what's up?" the girl's voice asked. "Did you kill that disgusting creature?"
"It's not disgusting at all. It's quite cute and fluffy. And something's strange... You should see for yourself."
The girl came closer, treading carefully on the floor with her bare feet, and stared in shock at the text that appeared on the holographic screen.
[Level 1 field mouse killed. Gained 2 experience points]
Anya laughed nervously and, with a look of disgust, touched the fallen carcass with her toe. "So what? Is loot supposed to drop from it now, like in a game? Where's my epic level eighty dagger?"
I clutched my head, grabbed my hair, and squeezed it a few times.
"Okay, we have to keep going. I'm also incredibly thirsty. What a great way to start the year, don't you think?" A nervous chuckle escaped my parched throat. "You know, let's just count this as an unforgettable date. Naked Adam and Eve in a stone dungeon, fighting for their existence against field mice."
"Then you go first and fight them yourself. I'm terribly afraid of mice. I'll play the role of the girlfriend who stands behind and hands you the ammo. And..." she added hesitantly. "Turn around. I need to do something, so go ahead and wait for me without turning back. Just don't go too far," she said, catching herself. "This is so scary."
Listening to Anya, I went ahead to scout. It was a fairly narrow passage with converging walls made of stone blocks and an arched ceiling. The farther I walked from the starting point, the darker it got, until I finally noticed a new feature. There was glowing moss growing in the gaps between the blocks, which gave off a faint light, enough to make things out.
"Anya! Are you done?" I yelled to her without turning around.
"Yes! One second!" Soon, I heard the sound of bare feet slapping behind me, and the girl caught up, cautiously peeking out from behind my shoulder.
"Look," I said. "There are no torches here, but it's bright enough. This is Schistostega, glowing moss. I read about it once in a fact-pedia. Well, read. As usual, I was looking for a specific article and then came to my senses at three in the morning, engrossed in a story about glowing moss in deep caves and how to grow it at home. And it's likely the rodents living here eat it, because I haven't seen any insects yet either."
"Ugh..." the girl shuddered. "The last thing we need is insects. I feel completely unprotected without any clothes."
I looked at her skeptically, then at my own completely naked body.
"Yeah, yeah! That's what I'm talking about," she continued. "Imagine if there were huge insects here, crawling on the walls, the ceiling, falling on you and scurrying across your skin with their chitinous little legs."
Her vivid imagination gave me goosebumps too, and I tried to get the image out of my head.
"Okay, let's keep going." I bravely volunteered to lead the way, letting the girl look at my heroic naked butt as I went off to perform feats for my fair lady.
This must have been what the first cavemen looked like, at least until they got a tiger skin to cover their loins.
The passage turned sharply. I carefully peeked around the corner and saw a familiar mouse, also sitting on its hind legs and washing its snout.
Now without any apprehension, I calmly walked up to it, bent down, and, following the old routine, grabbed it by the tail, swung the makeshift projectile, and launched it into the wall.
This time, the mouse didn't die immediately and squeaked pitifully as it lay by the wall.
A lump appeared in my throat, and I felt painfully sorry for the mammal, which had been living peacefully in its established ecosystem until an enemy came along.
To stop the incessant squeaking, I came closer and repeated the maneuver, hitting the animal against the wall again. The disgusting sound of a wet rag hitting the wall followed, the squeaking stopped, and silence fell.
"Two more experience points," I noted gloomily to the girl, who was looking on with interest. "Do you want to try? Get some experience points?"
Anya shook her head no and concluded, "No way. Anyone but mice." She thought for a moment and continued. "Also, lizards, snakes, cats, dogs, and... well, everything. I'm a peaceful girl. I don't want to kill anyone."
"What do you think is going on?" I asked the girl as we walked slowly down the long corridor.
"You know, it looks like some kind of game. You know, with experience points, levels, skills. Maybe it's virtual reality?"
"Hmm..." I stopped so abruptly at the thought that came to my mind that Anya, who hadn't had time to react, ran into me.
"Max, jeez! Why did you stop so suddenly?"
"A game, a game..." I said thoughtfully. "Rhythm! Display status."
The holographic panel obediently unfolded, and we both froze, staring open-mouthed at the data that appeared.
[Status]
[Name: Maxim Andreev]
[Level: 0]
[Experience Points: 4/100]
"Um... Thennnn..." I said uncertainly, "Open attributes."
[Attributes:]
[Strength: 6]
[Dexterity: 5]
[Constitution: 5]
[Intelligence: 8]
[Wisdom: 7]
"Well... looks like you were right. So, what about skills? Maybe I have some stray fire arrow?" I asked. "It would be a lot easier to fight mice."
[Skills: None]
Anya patted me on the shoulder consolingly and said, "Well, it's not all bad. Look." She opened her own holographic screen and displayed her attributes.
[Status]
[Name: Anna Mezhalova]
[Level: 0]
[Experience Points: 0/100]
[Attributes:]
[Strength: 4]
[Dexterity: 7]
[Constitution: 4]
[Intelligence: 6]
[Wisdom: 6]
[Skills: none.]
"At least my dexterity is higher," the girl said. "As they say, the most important thing when running from a bear is to run a little faster than the slowest person. Although there's nowhere to run here." She looked a little crestfallen.
"Alright." I collected myself and lightly slapped my knees. "First, we have to try to get out of here, and second, we have to defeat forty-eight more mice, get a level, and see what happens."
Encouraged by my own words, I moved on and soon saw two more gray animals, engrossed in cleaning each other's fur. I had completely stopped worrying about mouse genocide, so I just walked up to them, grabbed a mouse, and, as was my custom, slammed it against the wall.
"Ah!" The second mouse couldn't stand the brazen attack on its comrade and bit me on my big toe, a noticeably painful bite from its incisors.
I shook my foot, and the second mouse, clinging to my toe, went flying down the corridor. It plopped onto the floor but was barely hurt, bravely rushing to attack my injured foot.
I tried to meet it with a soccer kick, but I missed, and the animal, not missing its chance, jumped onto my left leg and, sinking its claws in, began to climb toward my most precious possession.
"You furry little bastard." I managed to catch it when it was halfway up my thigh and grabbed it, squeezing it in my palm and ignoring the scratching and biting. I wound up like one of the world's best baseball players and launched the squeaking nuisance straight into the wall.
My most precious asset was safe, and I could ignore the minor scratches on my hand.
"Phew..." The little creatures lay on the floor, and only one was making an indignant squeak. I had to finish off the second one, and only after that did I breathe a sigh of relief. The nervous tension left me, and a small shiver ran through my body. "Good thing they're small mice. What if it had been some kind of more serious animal? Or fantasy orcs and elves? We definitely wouldn't have made it past the first one."
Anya ran up to me and worriedly examined the bite marks. "Are they not contagious? You need to get a rabies shot, and we need to clean them with peroxide and bandage them."
The girl's concern was nice, but medical attention in the current circumstances was a bit difficult.
"Right! The new communicator function." I remembered showing my brother the biometric analyzer function and launched it. A projection of me appeared next to me, with my entire left leg, the toe of my right foot, and part of my palm colored a faint yellow.
[Multiple minor penetrating wounds, no danger to host's life. Recommended sanitary treatment.]
"See, there's nothing to worry about. It's just a bunch of scratches. And the analyzer shows my blood is clean and that no foreign viral ribonucleic acids have been detected. The minor scratches will heal on their own," I continued, trying to calm my worried friend.
I gently took the girl by the shoulders, shook her slightly, and looked her straight in the eyes. "Anya. Everything's going to be fine. We'll get out of here and finally wash up, brush our teeth, and have our morning coffee. Do you believe me?" The girl thought for a second and nodded. "Good. Let's keep going."
The corridor, dimly lit by Schistostega, stretched on. I dealt with the mice we occasionally encountered using a new method. I'd grab them by two tails at once and slam them against the floor or wall, knocking the life out of them.
The experience counter already showed fifty-six experience points out of the one hundred needed. I had to find twenty-two more critters to finally get the counter to one hundred, get my first level, and find out what would happen next.
Anya was still afraid of mice and categorically refused to kill them, leaving the role of executioner of the gray-tailed creatures to me.
I honestly think we were lucky that the enemies here were so weak, often dying in a single hit. And most importantly, they weren't aggressive, giving me the right of the first strike. If there had been aggressive monsters here, we definitely wouldn't have gotten off so easy.
My parched throat and the intense thirst, which was drilling into my brain, were also a problem. Honestly, if there had been a stream here somewhere, I wouldn't have been able to resist drinking from it, regardless of the consequences.
I brought up the time on my bracelet and showed it to the girl—it was 1:06 PM. We had gotten here around eleven in the morning.
"So two hours have already passed?" the girl asked, doing the simple math. "I hope it won't be much longer and we'll get out of here soon. I really want to drink, shower, and eat."
"Oh yeah, after a night of drinking, some junk food like instant noodles would be amazing. A shower, some soup, and we'd be good as new."
"Mmm... not bad, but it's January 1st. By tradition, we should be lounging around, stuffing ourselves with Olivier salad and watching Christmas comedies."
"And tangerines. You forgot the most important part!"
So, indulging in fantasies, we continued to move forward through the seemingly endless corridor.
A light flickered ahead, and as we carefully approached, we noticed a round hall with torches on the walls and the same arched ceiling as in the rest of the corridor.
I would venture to guess that the torches marked the beginning and end of the location, because the entire floor of the hall was littered with scurrying mice, and there were at least fifty of them.
"Hey! This is an unfair difficulty spike," I blurted out. "First one mouse, then two. It should have been three, four, and a maximum of five or seven at the end. But here, the difficulty has increased twenty-fivefold! What the hell is going on?" I continued, asking the void.
My eyes caught on a pile of junk lying around, and I spotted a piece of rotten wood that I could try to use as a weapon.
Carefully maneuvering between the scurrying mice, I made my way to the pile of garbage, which on closer inspection was a tangle of branches, scraps of burlap, and a divine weapon of retribution sticking out of it in the form of a piece of rotten board, about a meter long and a palm's width. The grip was frankly awkward, but I didn't have a choice. I returned to the girl and began to carry out the plan that had formed in my mind.
"Anya. I need the blanket." Anticipating her questions, I continued, "We'll tear it into pieces, and I'll wrap my legs with it to protect myself from bites. And I'll try to reduce the population of these nasty rodents with this board."
After resisting for a minute for propriety's sake, the girl took off the blanket and covered her nakedness with her hands. My body immediately reacted to the beautiful sight that I had been looking at just last night and sent blood to the lower part of my body.
Anya happened to look and, blushing, turned away in embarrassment.
I took my fantasies in hand, a little suppressing my rampant imagination, and got to work. I had to tear the blanket apart with my teeth. The fabric was uncooperative, but the human mind is resourceful, and it finally ripped.
After that, things went much more easily; I just had to pull the fabric in different directions to tear it into pieces. In the end, I got five uneven pieces, two of which I used to wrap my legs, two I used as ropes to secure my improvised poor man's pants, and a loincloth, which was meant not only to cover my shame but also to protect my groin.
"Phew..." I let out a tense breath, getting ready for battle, and turned to Anya. "How do I look?"
She laughed, looking at me, and said, "Like a homeless man who's gone to war. The hungover look, the ruffled hair, and the magnificent weapon are especially appropriate."
"Alright, enough jokes," I said and dramatically raised my hand with the board. "I'll return with my shield or on it and present this hall, worthy of my queen's beauty, as a gift!" I winked at the girl and went to the entrance.
Gathering my courage, I swung the board and hit a passing animal with all my might, killing it with a single blow. The mouse died without a single squeak, and the other animals didn't even react to the death of their comrade.
"Hmm... If you kill it with a single blow, the other animals don't even react!" I said. "Anya! We have a chance!"
Taking a firmer grip on the board, I carefully moved forward with small, shuffling steps, trying not to step on them, and began to exterminate the mice one by one.
I had already killed less than half of the gray-tailed creatures, which were difficult to count because they were constantly scurrying around, when during one hit, the board broke and the mouse I was hitting survived, alerting the entire area with a squeak.
My stomach dropped, and I looked back, awkwardly stepping backward. A living wave of gray, wriggling mass rushed toward me in a single impulse, and I ran from it in a panic.
A previously crushed mouse inconveniently got under my foot, and I slipped and fell on the floor. The living carpet caught up with me as I tried to get up, and the mice immediately started jumping on me, biting and scratching me with their claws.
Screaming, I threw away the useless piece of board and began to tear off the mice that were climbing higher, throwing them away from me. Unfortunately, this tactic was not successful, because the mice that flew off would get up, shake themselves off, and rush at me again.
A girl's shriek rang out, and I glanced at the entrance and saw the girl lying unconscious, apparently unable to bear the tension and fainting from the nightmarish sight.
"Anya!" Angry at the attackers and getting a refreshing dose of adrenaline, instead of throwing away another mouse, I squeezed it in my hand and threw away the half-crushed ball of flesh, which was clearly unable to continue the fight.
The painful bites all over my body drove me into a frenzy, making me roll on the floor and crush the mice with the full weight of my body. The enemies finally stopped coming, and only the squeaking indicated that some mice were still alive but unable to move.
Wincing in pain from the bites all over my body, I walked up to each squeaking creature and finished them off with a punch, turning them into flattened patties of meat.
"Anya!" Remembering the girl, I rushed to her and examined her. Fortunately, there were no bites or wounds; it seemed she had simply suffered from nervous overexertion. It's not every day you wake up by falling into a portal at the home of a person you just slept with.
I put the girl's head on my lap and commanded the voice assistant:
"Rhythm! Biometric analyzer! Scan the girl!"
The resulting model of my friend, colored green, calmed me, and the status, "Unconscious, no threat to life and health," put me in a much better mood. I checked myself and also only saw minor wounds and scratches, with no critical damage.
After all, we were alive, healthy, and had defeated our enemies. All that was left was to figure out how to get out of here and leave this inhospitable place.
Sitting on the cold floor and stroking the hair of the girl, who was still unconscious, I pondered what had happened.
The new bracelet model was clearly to blame. But a portal to an unknown area, some kind of dungeon, socially aggressive mice, and a character status panel like a video game clearly went beyond the capabilities of an advanced communicator.
The girl opened her eyes and at first looked around uncomprehendingly, realizing where she was. But gradually, awareness appeared in her gaze, and Anya, now conscious, interrupted my thoughts. When she saw me alive, she started to cry and threw her arms around my neck.
"Oh my God, Max! I thought you were dead when that whole mouse horde rushed you. I was so scared." The girl continued to cry and clung to me with all her might. Then she pulled away and began to frantically examine me. "How are you? Does it hurt? Where did those creatures bite you?"
I brought up my biometric status again and reassured the girl by showing her that everything was fine. "Everything's fine. Come on, get up and we'll get out of here."
I chuckled to myself. The scene was certainly very strange. A completely naked girl clinging to a wounded hero, carefully stepping over the bloody scraps lying all over the stone hall, and walking with him toward a brighter future.
"So what do we do next? Will it teleport us back?" I asked a rhetorical question.
"Look!" Anya exclaimed. "There's a door!" She pointed to a barely noticeable crack in the wall.
I slapped my forehead and groaned softly. The girl looked at me in confusion, and I explained. "We could have just not fought them and walked past them to the door. They weren't aggressive."
"What if we had stepped on one of their tails, and that whole horde had rushed us? So you did the right thing." She pulled the recessed handle on the door, and it swung open, revealing a small room the size of a closet with a pedestal in the middle and a strange-looking dagger lying on it.
[Location completed. Open portal?]
The long-awaited message suddenly appeared, and I, snatching the thoughtfully provided weapon, agreed.
This time, for a change, the portal appeared in front of us instead of opening beneath our feet. I took the girl's hand, and we stepped into the mirrored surface.