It was a lovely, sunny day, which wasn't unusual for Vladivostok. Unlike in Moscow, here good weather averages more than a third of the year, with only summer bringing a month-long misty blanket over the city. But if you drive a little further out, the sun is once again visible, proudly warming the waters of the Sea of Japan, which makes it possible to swim from the beginning of summer until the end of September.
But it was winter now, with the thermometer showing minus three degrees Celsius, and I was performing tricks for my astonished parents. I pulled things out of my inventory, shot Ice Blades into the air, and froze a glass of water.
"Dad, turn on your biometric analyzer and display your projection."
Dad obediently turned it on, and the resulting figure was almost entirely yellow, with splotches of orange and red. The degradation of age spared no one and was slowly beginning to affect his entire lifestyle.
"Look: joint arthritis, heart problems, hypertension, poor eyesight."
Mom looked at the list, then gave Dad a very pointed look.
"Didn't I tell you that you needed to go to the doctor? But you just kept saying, 'It'll pass, it'll pass,'" she mimicked him.
"Now look at mine," I said, activating my own display. "I also had minor issues, but passing through the portal completely healed my body. For example, one of the testers had a carnivorous toad tear off his ear in the portal, but it grew back completely after he passed through, restoring full functionality."
"People will kill for a chance to be cured," Dad said thoughtfully, digesting the information. "An enormous number of rich people would pay any money for a cure, and here, they'll get it just by putting on a new communicator and killing a few animals in a portal. And as I understand it, if four people get together, they can open a group portal and just walk alongside the others, leaving all the killing to them. They don't even have to develop themselves; they can just go inside to be healed," he said, shaking his head. "The world will surely be turned upside down after this information gets out."
"Exactly," my brother joined the conversation. "That's why we're going shopping right now. Long-lasting food, ammo, and bottled water. You have a well, of course, and nothing should happen to it, but it's better to have a reserve. And thanks to Max, he convinced you to put in solar panels, so even if the electricity goes out, you'll have enough for your basic needs."
"Okay. I can open a portal at eleven o'clock," I said, looking at my watch. "It's eight in the morning now, so we can get ready and go to the hypermarket."
We finished our coffee, got ready, and hopped into two cars to go shopping. The wholesale hypermarket's convenient location near my parents' house meant we could get there in five minutes and storm inside as a group.
We grabbed four carts and started walking along the aisles of stacked goods, loading up on long-lasting products. We cleared several boxes of instant noodles, creating a strategic reserve that could last for years. We also picked up grains, pasta, and canned goods, filling all the carts to the brim.
The wide-eyed shoppers in the store watched our raid, and some of them hastily pulled out their communicators and started scrolling through news feeds, reading headlines and thinking that some emergency had occurred.
Two hours and six trips to the store later, where we'd become familiar faces and were eyed with concern, with people asking why we were buying so much, we had everything unloaded at my parents' house, putting most of it in the cellar on the property.
It seemed like with all the modern technology, fridges, and freezers, they still hadn't come up with a better way to store food in difficult conditions than a pit in the ground. Well, no. Inventory. The ideal place to store anything; the key is to develop it better. It seemed to me that I could store a whole personal warehouse weighing several tons in there.
As we were carrying things, I also set Biokinesis to learn, using my remaining skill point, and increased my Dexterity to seven. I needed to sit down and sort out my skills because I hadn't opened the spell builder in a long time, saving the skill slots for Pangeokinesis and Aerokinesis for an emergency, but now was not the time.
"Okay, listen. I'll open a portal now, and we'll all try to go through it, but the probability of that happening is extremely small. The system shouldn't let you in until your subspace quantum capacity is charged."
"I'll take a weapon just in case," Dad said, going upstairs and bringing back a Saiga shotgun and a box of shells from the safe.
I had almost given the command to open the portal when a thought flashed through my mind, and I remembered how I'd thrown a corpse into the portal. I pulled the dagger from my inventory, and after making sure it was one hundred percent charged, I slashed through the air, opening the gateway.
[Portal to Level 2 location: Crypt]
"It worked! Based on the name, there should be undead ahead. Mom, is there any silver in the house?"
"Of course," she said, bringing a chain and handing it to me.
"This is just in case," I reassured her. "Dima, go on, you try first." I sent my brother forward with an axe in his hands.
"I still can't believe this is all happening…" he said, but then he decided to go through with it. Warily looking at the mirror-like surface in front of him, he stepped forward and, shrinking into a point, disappeared.
"It worked! Dad, your turn." My father gave my mother an encouraging look and stepped forward. "Now you, Mom." She hadn't even had a chance to take a step when Timosha, who had been lying by the stairs, jumped up and rushed after my father, leaping into the portal right after him. "Oh… We didn't think about that. Mom, let's go, quickly, and I'll be right behind you."
The family stood in a stone crypt, waiting for me to appear. My brother was shining a flashlight from his communicator in the pitch-black darkness, looking around. This time there was no lighting, and we had to rely on our own devices. Mom grabbed the dog by his collar and held on tight; he growled and strained to break free and run, sensing something interesting ahead. My father, who was ready to fire at the slightest movement, saw me and relaxed slightly.
"Okay. The entrance is usually a safe place, but I wouldn't let my guard down. The portal is only level two, while I'm level six, so there shouldn't be any major danger. Although, most of my skills are for fighting creatures that have blood or some other fluid, so if there are skeletons here, buckshot from the shotgun and the axe will be good against them," I continued to instruct my relatives and turned to Mom. "Mom, hold Timosha so he doesn't run away."
"Phew," I said, exhaling. I took out my crossbow just in case, turned on the flashlight on my communicator, and carefully stepped forward, illuminating the path.
Two emerald lights, flickering in the darkness, swayed and approached, accompanied by the scraping of bones on the stone floor. The disgusting sound gave me goosebumps all over my body, and the dog bristled and growled.
"Timosha! No!" Dad shouted at the dog and came up to me with the Saiga at the ready.
A bare, fleshless human skeleton with glowing green eye sockets floated into the flashlight's beam. It was indeed a real skeleton. I had already seen a variety of creatures, but the sight was still slightly unnerving. And there was no need to even talk about my father, who froze completely, looking at the bare skeleton.
I shot two Ice Blades, breaking the bones in its ankles, and the skeleton collapsed onto the stone floor. It extended its hands forward, drove its bony fingers into cracks in the floor, and, breaking off its phalanges, crawled toward us. A gunshot thundered next to us, deafening us and illuminating the crypt with a flash, blowing the corpse's skull to pieces.
[Killed a weak Level 2 skeleton. Gained 1 experience point.]
"I got one experience point," I told my father.
"I got three."
"The experiment can be considered a success. The experience is being awarded, which means we managed to bypass the system with the uncharged capacity," I said, happy for my parents. "Let's go find the next monster and level up Mom and my brother a bit."
"Dima, protect Mom. Dad and I will bring a monster here so you can get some experience, too."
"All right. Be careful."
"Andrey!" Mom joined the conversation and turned to Dad. "Keep an eye on Maxim, or he'll start showing off and get into trouble."
"Aw, Mom! I'm not fifteen anymore!"
"Don't 'aw, Mom' me. Just go, get a skeleton, and come back quickly."
Dad and I exchanged stunned glances, then noticed the smile on Mom's face and silently, without comment, moved on.
The second skeleton no longer seemed so frightening. So what if it was a reanimated anatomy textbook? So what if it was walking on its own and not falling apart? It shuffled along, had no weapons, and when it hit the walls a couple of times with its limbs, it turned out that it was quite fragile.
"Well," my father commented. "With these fossils, you could easily handle them with your bare hands."
My father and I turned around and walked slowly, making sure the skeleton didn't get left behind, leading it to the slaughter. Dad handed the Saiga to Mom; she took the safety off and aimed at the undead's skull. A flash of red lightning shot between Dad's legs, which had lost their vigilance, and hit the skeleton, knocking it to the ground. Timosha, his teeth clamped on the enemy's neck vertebrae, shook his head, instantly tearing the undead's head off. The skull bounced into the air and fell, bouncing like a ball. The dog instantly lost interest in the remains and rushed to the makeshift ball, hitting it with both paws in a jump.
"I wonder… did Timosha get experience?" my brother voiced the question on everyone's mind.
"Timosha! No. Come here." The dog stopped tearing at the bones and rushed to Dad, his tail wagging happily. "Bad dog. Stay close!"
The dog, realizing he had done something wrong, tilted his head and looked at his owner. He heard the last command and settled down nearby, watching his surroundings.
"Well, if Timosha can handle a skeleton, let's all go together. I don't think there's any real danger here."
I, as the most experienced, moved forward, covering my family from any sudden dangers. The light from the flashlights revealed uneven stone blocks from which the crypt walls were built. From time to time, we came across ravaged and opened stone European-style sarcophagi. Some were still closed, and out of curiosity, I knocked on one of them, ready to jump back and fire Ice Blades if it suddenly opened and an enemy jumped out. But the stone remained deaf to my entreaties.
Then, purely for sport, I tried to push the stone sarcophagus lid, but my seven points in Strength didn't even allow me to budge it. And in response to my suggestion that the three of us lean on it and open it to see what was inside, my family looked at me with the utmost skepticism, and Mom even gave me a smack on the back of the head, telling me to stop acting like a hero.
The scraping of bones ahead again made the dog tense up, but Dad's shout held him back, and he stayed by his feet, looking at him faithfully and wagging his tail, waiting for permission.
Mom brought the rifle stock to her shoulder, took aim, and this time nothing stopped her from blowing the skeleton's skull to pieces, scattering bones across the floor. My brother walked up to the lying remains, picked up a tibia, and threw it back toward the entrance. The dog took off and a few seconds later brought it back to Dima, wagging his tail and asking to play more.
My brother just shrugged at our disapproving looks, picked up the bone again, and threw it back again.
"Timosha, that's enough… Stop. Walk close," Dad's commands came again, and the dog, with his tail down, returned to his owner.
"Dima, your turn."
My brother gripped the axe tightly in his hands and moved forward.
"Wait!" his father yelled at him. "Where are you going with that contraption? Do you think you're a hero?" he said, getting angry at his useless son. "Dear, give him the Saiga. What a little idiot. A Viking, huh? I don't think so."
A embarrassed Dimka took the extended shotgun, checked for shells, and headed straight ahead.
Two pairs of lights glowing in the dark at once flustered him a little, but the ten-shot shotgun left the enemies no chance. Two shots, and a mix of bone shards and buckshot were sent on a further journey through the crypt.
I thought that as soon as communicators hit the market, groups with access to firearms would race ahead, leaving everyone else dozens of steps behind. And while others would be heavily dependent on their slow-recovering energy and whether they were lucky with their skills, armed squads would easily bypass them. Even reenactors with experience in training battles and medieval armor would easily deal with such enemies. They would only face minor difficulties with non-standard monsters, but humans are creatures that adapt to everything.
"Congratulations to everyone on a successful start. Even the ginger one," I said, ruffling the dog's head and continuing. "In the future, we will only go into all portals as a group. As a famous comrade once said, 'Family is the most important thing.'"
The dog, walking faithfully next to his owner, looked with desire at every upright pile of bones. He had a lot of fun playing with that toy whose ball had torn off and bounced away, but the alpha had forbidden it, and he had to wait until the alpha's pup again broke the command and threw the toy to him. The dog didn't understand how one could disobey the pack leader's command, but he probably hadn't grown up enough yet since he was the youngest pup. And those fluttering lines in front of his eyes were a nuisance after such a fun game.
The dog stopped, sneezed, and rubbed his eyes with his paw.
"Timosha. Are you all right?" Dad stopped and, kneeling, looked at the dog. The ginger dog stared back loyally, leaned forward, and licked his nose, showing that everything was fine. He then trotted alongside, wagging his tail happily.
"Hmm…" my brother said. "As I recall, a crypt is usually a family complex. So all these skeletons are relatives of each other. But that's not the main thing. Crypts are usually small, but we've been walking for five minutes already, and all we've encountered are five skeletons at the beginning. I don't like this lull."
"I agree. I suggest we stay alert. A completely different monster might suddenly jump out, so we'll go slowly and light up everything around us. Although we have a furry alarm system. Right, Timosha?"
The dog, hearing his name, looked at me and wagged his tail like a bagel, enjoying the adventure.
"Dad, what about the ammo?" I asked.
"Fifty-seven shells left," he said, having taken inventory.
"I feel like there's a catch… A portal from a knife has never been this simple. Every time, there were some problems."
And the problems didn't take long to arrive, materializing in the form of a shambling, decomposed corpse.
A sound of a stomach emptying came from behind, and I could bet a million that it was my brother. Because it was difficult to frighten my mom, who had worked as a forensic expert for thirty-five years, and my dad, a hunter, with such trifles. So what if it's a corpse? So what if rotten bones show through the decomposed flesh? The main thing is that it can be killed, and we'll figure out the rest later.
I looked at my brother, who had the shotgun, and he straightened up, managed to pull himself together, took aim, and shot the zombie. The buckshot became embedded in the zombie's chest, having no effect on it.
"Shoot for the head! Haven't you seen zombie movies?" Dad commented.
"I'm trying, man. My hands are just shaking."
My brother composed himself, exhaled, and shot again, tearing a piece out of the corpse's neck.
The zombie staggered slightly from the first shot, and the second one turned it around, and it fell face-down on the stone floor.
Mom walked up to my brother, took the weapon, and, approaching the corpse that was trying to lean on its rotten hands, she shot it in the back of the head, embedding its head in the stone.
"Ten experience points," she commented. "That's a good amount. So, if I put to rest, God forgive me, ten of these sweethearts, I'll get this level of yours? And I can become stronger or faster?"
"And you might also get a magical skill," I added some details.
I remembered my thoughts about my mom, about how it was difficult to imagine her with an axe, and in my mind, I replaced the axe with a Saiga, dressed her in a military uniform, and put her next to the defeated zombie, with her foot on the corpse.
"I didn't expect that, Mom, to be honest…" I praised her. "I thought you'd be afraid of all this, but you certainly surprised me."
"There's nothing to be afraid of. We've had worse cases in the morgue. Sometimes, a drunk, blue homeless person will stand up—who, by the way, looked much worse than this sweetheart—or they'll bring a drowned person in. Anyway, this one is quite decent. He's even wrapped in some kind of torn rag," she concluded.
Dad came up, hugged Mom, and kissed her on the temple.
"See, kids, what a wonderful mother you have."
Mom smiled at him warmly and added,
"So you should find good girls for yourselves, too. Bring them over to meet me, and I'll tell you if I approve or not."
"Moooom…" my brother and I said in unison. "How can you? You just shot a real zombie, and you're still talking to us about marriage?"
"Well, you should have gotten married and made grandchildren already, and I wouldn't have any complaints."
"Yeah, and we'd be in a portal shooting zombies with an infant right now."
But it was impossible to embarrass Mom with such trifles.
"You'd take turns going into these portals of yours. Anyway, that's it. I need to take your future into my own hands, or I'll never get any offspring."
With our lighthearted chatter, we moved through the complex of stone crypts connected by passages when Timosha bristled and growled.
"Heads up!" I shouted and prepared for an attack.
A chimera made of skeletons crawled into the light of our flashlights, having gathered dozens of the crypt's inhabitants and built a powerful bone frame. Instead of a tail, a third leg stuck out from behind, which it used to help itself move, clumsily stumbling from side to side. Bony horns and a fleshy, bloody growth in the center of its skull with glowing red eyes completed the creature's terrifying image.
However, after a closer look, the outwardly scary monster didn't seem so frightening anymore. It looked more like a child's sculpture, with absurd and non-functional legs. And it was very unsteady on its limbs, getting confused and tripping over them.
Ice Blades that shot from my hand struck the chimera's bone frame, doing almost no damage. Only the buckshot from my father's shotgun threw the undead back, breaking a part of its body with a strong kinetic impact. A second, third, fourth shot—each one pushed it back a little, knocking chunks of bone from its body.
I stopped shooting blades and shouted.
"Eat this!" I quietly added, "you freak." And I cast a guilty glance at my mother, once again regretting that I had so foolishly named the skill.
"Back!" Dad shouted, hastily reloading the Saiga.
The dog barked furiously at the creature, running up to it and jumping back as it reached for him.
"Timosha! You'll be on a leash for a week!" I yelled at the ginger dog who had decided to bravely attack the monster.
The dog, hearing the terrible threat, flattened his ears and, with his tail tucked, jumped back behind Dad, retreating with him.
Finally, Dad reloaded the weapon, aimed it at the approaching creature, and the freeze effect activated, freezing the chimera to minus one degree Celsius. The bones, which had become more brittle, began to break more easily from the new series of shots, but victory was still far away.
"Everyone back! Dima, hold the dog! Dad, control the distance! I'm going to use a mass skill to dry out this creature. I need a distance of a meter and a half where you definitely won't be! The bones will become more fragile without moisture, and that should help."
"Dehydration!" "Dehydration!"…
Ten consecutive uses of the skill should have left no more than ten percent of all moisture in the surrounding space, and the bones, which didn't have much water in their composition to begin with, should have become much more brittle. And indeed, the third dozen shots put an end to the confrontation, breaking the chimera's body into piles of bones.
The dog calmed down and stopped growling, walking up to the defeated monster. He sniffed it, then lifted his leg and marked the pile of bones, claiming the territory.
[Participated in the killing of a Level 5 bone chimera. Gained 15 experience points.]
"Dad, it's dead."
"Yes, I got a notification, a whole ninety experience points. I, by the way, got my first level," my father boasted.
"Phew…" I sighed. Just as I thought, every non-standard portal brings with it a surprise, and this creature also caused a crazy energy drain: five percent for the freeze and three for dehydration, plus the Ice Blades. I looked at my charge, and the seventy-two percent slightly calmed my anxiety; if something happened, there would be enough for another chimera.
"Dad… How many shells do you have left?"
He carefully counted them and replied.
"Twenty-four left. Not enough for one more."
"Okay. Let's retreat. It looks like we'll have to stay here for a bit."
We went back to the beginning of the location, and I pulled a camping chair out of my inventory, offering it to my mother.
"Based on the portals I've gone through before, there's a chance that was the last monster, because the first time all the slimes merged into one giant slime, the second had a huge tree that fed on its brethren, and the third had a ratman with a pack of rats, but he was torn apart by his own pets. But the fact that there was no message about the boss being destroyed argues against that version. So, it's likely something worse than a level five bone chimera awaits us ahead."
"We should have dropped by for ammo, as we wanted to," my brother interjected.
"It's not all bad," I hastened to reassure my relatives. "Dad, open your skills and put Inventory on to learn," I asked my father to look at his interface. "You got your first level and a skill point, which is always spent on quantum inventory. After you learn it, you'll be able to learn a skill, but I'm not sure which one."
"And how will that help us?" Mom asked.
"I don't know why, but I have a slightly different skill system. I can create my own by setting conditions in the spell builder and regulate the power and energy costs. For example, I can create a very powerful skill that is guaranteed to destroy any target, but I'll spend all my energy on it and have to wait a long time for it to recover. At level six, I recover one percent every forty-one minutes, so I'll have to wait a long time."
"And what are the conditions? What can be invented?"
I opened my attributes and read the skill description out loud.
"Pangeokinesis: the ability to manipulate the elements of solid substances. So I suggest you all participate and we'll have a joint brainstorming session to come up with a skill that will help us get out of here."