Готовый перевод Его не звали, но он приперся / They never called, yet he is here: Глава 18

Chapter 18

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The time is ruthlessly ticking, reminding me that delay will now be like death, and not just for me. I have ten hours to infiltrate the fortress, preparing the ground for further sabotage, so that at the right moment to take the necessary actions, giving a chance of survival to my comrades. The comrades themselves are waiting for their turn to use the anchors they have been given to summon the Shadows and rush into battle themselves. And if Ygra, in general, does not care - she knows how to wait in ambush - much less accustomed to prolonged waiting, people are nervous much more than the acceptable norm.

They would attack anyway if they didn't get the signal from me to retreat, and I had to do everything quickly and on time if I didn't want to kill them. For now, the team remained seated in an inconspicuous hollow, literally a couple of hundred meters from the beginning of the outer perimeter. Naturally, such a convenient place to prepare for sabotage was equipped with alarms and traps... and that's why the guys are sitting right there. The hollow itself was too far away and inconvenient to walk to it all the time, so the rangers hoped for signal charms. No, they could easily have checked the place if there had been at least two more fives. But there were too few of them. Who am I to tell if I already know the answer, because their superiors were too lazy to send scouts beyond the perimeter too often?

My clairvoyance told me that if any person, even one with a pass amulet, were to leave the perimeter, his return would require a long adjustment and a small false alarm. The rangers themselves were professionals who didn't mind wasting their time on long checks and reconnections to security circuits. But the operators of these circuits clearly lacked such work ethic, despite their professionalism in their field. As a result, the rangers were too rarely going out of protection, combing the nearby forest, and my team could sit in a cozy hollow almost without fear.

After all, nothing ever really happens at Stone, unless you count the whims of the bosses.

It was easier to get inside the fold this time than it had been the last time I'd been there. First of all, I had already learned the structure of the protection, so I was able to get through it without being delayed at all for even a single moment. Secondly, the ready plan of action and the rush gave such motivation and a kick that there was no time for doubts. And thirdly, and most importantly, my new title allowed me to disguise myself more reliably and easily, without causing me undue hardship.

The familiar sensation of glass shards scratching at my very soul, and I swam inside the fold, taking advantage of the appearance of the crucian fish closest to me. This fish was even slightly larger than the rats I'd been sick of lately, and I was going to hate them at this rate. The fact that I had learned to put on such small shadows did not make it any more pleasant than it had been, but the opposite was true.

Kostik has no luck again.

And so, I'm already inside the spatial anomaly, again feeling the unpleasant stare from the surrounding area of the Mist, which seems to have become even a little thicker. I'm sure it does, I'm sure of it! It's just nerves, that's all. There's no monster out there that noticed my presence and decided to come closer! It's not there, I said.

Such positive thoughts and reflections did not prevent me from moving slowly and sadly forward, straight to the very rock in which the damn stronghold had been hollowed out. The thoughts were swearing words, full of all kinds of wishes for uninterrupted diarrhea for such talented builders, even if they were long dead. The shells of the domed barriers still shone with the intolerable light of malicious magic, and I slowly and sadly crawled toward them, no longer even trying to emerge into reality, constantly in the Shadow. And with every fucking second I was forced to sink deeper and deeper, just to avoid being thrown out into reality.

The deeper you dive, the less clear and well-drawn the world becomes. At first, small details like grass, pebbles, thin twigs, and leaves on trees disappear. Even a simple step can take you far enough away that you can no longer distinguish these details. Then the larger features fade away, leaving only faint lines, like a rough draft of a drawing that has not yet begun. A dash, an ink-black bar where the tree should be, a dark gray blot where the huge stone wreck should be, faint flames of magical signals, and a clear image of the hostile barrier, dimmed but still dangerous and vivid. Now I am even grateful to this image - it is no longer frightening, but on the contrary, it serves as a guiding thread, an unquenchable beacon that does not allow me to lose my bearings in space and get lost in a world that is too foreign to me, which is no longer recognizable.

One sloppy move and I would fall even deeper. Where that light would not reach me, depriving me of even the ghostly sense of direction that I now possess. And it's not that I wouldn't be able to get back out - the class perks would allow me to swim up, even if I were completely lost, simply because of the instincts I had built into my core. Except that there, at the bottom, where the dim light of hostile magic does not reach, are creatures for whom one careless stray into their lair isekai would not even be a snack. Plankton, inadvertently sucked into a nostril on the inhale, figuratively speaking.

One more reckless move and I would slip upward, burning my ghostly body with unbearably bright magic. Even if I could hold on and not fall out into reality to the delight of the active defense systems, such a burn would take time to recover and would consume some of my reserves. Of course, I could recover my reserve very quickly, especially if I were in the depths of the Shadow Realm, but there was no time to lose, for Christ's sake. Otherwise, oops!

That's why I keep my balance, slowly approaching the small crevice in the first dome, squeezing in like a worm through the ground. This area is the junction of the two main elements of the barrier - in fact, its only weak point. In reality, this junction is not visible at all, and even in the Gaze, it reached at most a couple of millimeters, given that it was not visible at all because of the glow of the magic. But here, at this depth, this joint is no longer a thin crack. I think that if I dive any deeper, there will even be gaps in the dome itself that I can slip through without fear.

At this depth, there is no ground beneath my feet, so I am no longer walking, but actually floating in a weightless blackness and grayness. There is no sense of top and bottom, and just surrendering to the instinctive knowledge I have in me somehow uncomfortable. I think I am confident in my abilities, but it is better not to risk it yet. I have a very clear reference point - I can't miss it, even if I try very hard.

I passed (or, rather, swam through) the first two barriers without any significant expenditure of energy. I even had time to replenish what I'd spent earlier - the reserve fills up with the great force at this depth - when I approached the third dome. A dome that would be impossible to overcome so easily, especially for me, for a Shadow cannot be invulnerable to the purest Light. Even now it burns me as if I had stepped out on a sunny beach, never once in my life trying to add to my tan before this day. It's not dangerous yet, but if I try to get close to the dome and get through the gap between it and the neighboring barriers, I won't be happy.

Okay, Kostik, it's time to take extreme measures.

Until that moment, my body, despite its ghostly form, had retained its human features, and I was literally floating but now everything had changed. It was as if I merged with this place, reaching into the very depths of my consciousness. To where those very instincts were stored, that infinitely alien understanding that allowed me to use my class skills. My body seemed to float, changing, distorting, and melting into something different, more suitable, more right for this place.

The legs were no longer there, for they had merged into one strange mass, resembling at once the fin of a mermaid and the smoky tail of some cartoon genie. The torso elongated and became somewhat predatory, and the spine became too long, like a snake's, allowing it to curve at impossible angles and almost knot itself. My arms had grown, from scratch, enormous claws that looked more like blades and fins than ordinary limbs. I was also able to get all the bones out of them, which made my hands look more like some kind of god-awful tentacles than my hands.

The mind was numb, and the hunger and thirst for other people's lives froze at that thin line where a little more, a little more, and not even the Price of Humanity would keep that humanity from disintegrating into its atomic components. In spite of all these troubles, the result was undeniable. Gone was the uncertainty and loss, vanishing like smoke - now I knew exactly where, how, and why I needed to go to get to my desired destination. What's more, I might even be able to swim to the exact coordinates, if I hadn't hit the alarms.

The body itself was now less affected by the bright light or rather, by the Light that was eager to pulverize me into ashes. For one thing, I unknowingly dove even deeper, and for another, my new body was regenerating damage faster than it was getting, despite the burns. A great lead-in for successfully overcoming the next obstacle! With great difficulty, keeping my mind clear, I moved forward, gradually flowing between the flaming columns, passing through the domes of barriers like water through sand.

It was both harder and easier than I thought.

I turned back into a human when I was already inside the Stone. Though I was still in the Shadow, at the very top of it. I had to swim at random, praying to St. Random to make sure I didn't hit any of the deep alarms left especially for such tricksters. And there were! I counted twenty-one, and then I lost count - because there were so many of them!

Luckily, the data I had received from the Shadow, combined with the information I had pulled from dreams and clairvoyance, was enough to help me get my bearings quickly enough. Either there was another layer of protection I hadn't noticed before, or I was just doing something wrong, but the deeper parts of the Shadow realm were somewhat out of sync with those in the real world. It wasn't dangerous, but it was annoying!

How else could it be, when all too often I had to dive down to the depths, only to swim out into the middle of nowhere? Almost every door was secured in such a way that there was no way to get through it with normal shadow steps. Imperceptibly, I mean. Not as easy as my adventures in the Kraj, when I could just walk through a wall if it was too heavily enchanted, but the walls were also less enchanted, maybe, but not by much. Besides, the material of which the Stone was built was somehow wrong, which made me reluctant to squeeze through its structure. What if it would jam me?

But nothing lasts forever, including even my agony, and here I am, hanging in the middle of a room filled with all sorts of delicious things, with hardly any observers. I did not consider the four soldiers lazily telling each other the tales they had heard a thousand times I didn't consider as a serious obstacle, nor did I consider it a normal observation. In principle, they are right - a closed field watches more reliably than any bag of meat, but here in the warehouse, it is a little deficient. It would have found me as a human without the slightest problem, but I'm not going to be human now.

A moment of concentration, and then an instantaneous series of actions, so fast that even for me it merged into one continuous act, indivisible into separate fragments. Stepping out of the Shadow, capturing the image, and transformation, as fast as it could ever be. One brief moment in which my heart wouldn't even have time to make a beat, after which there was a barely audible slap in the far corner of the warehouse and a quiet, but unspeakably emotional

*Squeak*

But I couldn't avoid making a mistake, even if it was only a little - I managed to fall out of the Shadow and immediately take the form of a rat without any complications, but afterward, the I-image was suspended at a height of one and a half meters above the surface of the floor. The rat, I noticed, was much smaller. It's mathematics. The next moment bitch-physics work and fucking gravity impudently dropped the rat's body onto the cold and very hard stone, nearly breaking my image apart. That would have been a fun start to the operation if I'd had to rush into battle. No, I had a plan for that, too, but after that I would have to run away quickly, forgetting to kidnap Ferer, sitting in the depths of the fortress.

"Fucking rats!" The farthest away fighter, who seemed to have developed his perception well, echoed my indignant squeal. "I thought they'd been poisoned recently!"

"They were here before we got here and will be for years afterward." Unexpectedly philosophical, his comrade answered him. "No intendant could drive those bastard animals out of the grocery warehouse. Back in the Second Army, we had Mikhas Fyorodov as a quartermaster, and he was over 30 years old and had tough classes. But even he shook his hand later - if you kill them, you'll have new ones in a matter of weeks."

"Oh, I wish I could go back to my home province now!" Another soldier paid no attention to his colleagues' words, simply taking advantage of the conversation to complain about life. "I'm about to grow moss here! Well, I punched that captain in the face, and he started yelling at me himself! Fucking "inappropriate behavior", chain mail wasn't polished! How the fuck am I supposed to polish it if I'm going out in three days? I'm gonna get an arrow in my gleaming asshole, but I'll be dressed for the fucking parade!"

"Jeez, Griff, nobody gives a shit!" It was the owner of a highly trained ear, who was most inconvenienced by the loud lamentations of his comrade-in-arms, who couldn't take it anymore. "You're not in a penal company, but you're sitting on your ass in our company. You'd be glad you don't have to do shit, but you're looking for deeds."

"Maybe I'll have a chance for a deed, why shouldn't I?" Parried the whiner, who had calmed down. "I'll get a medal on my chest, spurs on my feet, land as a gift..."

"Yeah, and Karin will pull her skirt up in front of you." The other one added. "You shouldn't eat those mushrooms that Sarius is claiming to be edible, you're getting a little too high."

"Oh, that's it! Go to hell."

I didn't listen to the guards arguing for the hundredth time in a row, moving inexorably forward along the burrows laid out for me in advance. I'd never thought rats could chew through stone. No, it's not just rock, though, and not just gnawing - there are plenty of simple crevices and holes. During my crawls through these very holes, I was repeatedly convinced that the rodents were poisoned and killed - skeletons of animals, most often cut into two even halves with the help of the enclosed field of magic, were indeed frequent. I had to squint my eyes at the message that popped up from the System, which I couldn't even be happy about, because I was so tired of the mission.

Form of Shadow: 3/9

Allows you to give your entire body the properties of Shadow while in the material world; allows you to manipulate the shape of your own body while in shadow form; allows you to completely ignore any physical or insufficiently severe magical damage if it is inflicted on a body part that has taken Shadow form; allows you to freely navigate relatively deep layers of Shadow, taking a more appropriate form to stay there; allows a limited increase in the volume and power of one's own body by taking a shadow form; when in a Shadow form, the characteristics are slightly enhanced depending on the degree of change.

It was a good deal, of course, but I'd rather develop the more useful Aegis than the murky and mentally unhealthy Form. However, it would be foolish to deny the fact that if I were to further level up, Aegis would be no less dangerous to me. Just like any other skill from the shadow or other class branch of development. The delights of owning a mythical class, what else is there to say?

I never realized that rats were such territorial creatures - my person, disguised as one of them, regularly be fucked by the whole crowd as a non-native. Either the rats somehow saw me as an outsider, or I behaved somehow un-rat-like, but I had to endure several unpleasant fights. Naturally, they couldn't even scratch me, but tearing the imprinted image, especially if I was in another burrow at that moment, was unpleasant. It wouldn't kill me - I'd have time to shift into Shadow, but it would be a pain in the ass. Even if the confined field didn't pick me up, I'd have to crawl back to the food warehouse to put on the rat's shadow again.

I think I'm starting to hate rats more than horses, although I doubted that such a thing was even possible.

A rat crawling along the wall of a wide corridor, with its inhabitants scurrying back and forth, could have readily signed its rat will and said a final hello to its rat grandchildren, for its life would not have been long. The fact that humans had not been able to eradicate the vile animals definitively did not mean that they would be tolerated if they came into view. And there were many eyes, and many eyes that were accustomed to spot every little thing lurking, or being hidden, far better than a mere rat.

Alas, this rat was not only a rat but also a great master of stealth, even if that skill was rather muted by the need to carry someone else's image. The gaze slipped from her, the eyes failed to notice her, the sensory skills were perceived as blank, and the beast itself made little more than nary a noise. There were no simple looks here, of course, but for a purposeful rat, even that wasn't enough.

Of course, I would have preferred to simply crawl through the rat holes, regardless of the resistance of their original inhabitants. But, as I said, the rats were not so numerous as to be able to dig their burrows through the whole territory of the Stone, or at least a significant part of it. Outside of the food warehouses and the areas adjacent to it, rats, if they ever were, turned out to be reliably exterminated, leaving behind not even skeletons and shit.

So I crawled almost in full view of the audience of interested people, at every moment risking to meet someone whose observation would be high enough to penetrate my weakened stealth and put an end to the operation. The possibility of crawling under the ceiling or through the vents I was not even considering, for the local controllers was clearly watching Earth horror movies. There were relatively few sensors on the floor because there were crowds of people walking around all the time, but under the ceiling and in the ventilation was no way. It seemed that the whole area of these sections was one solid trap, just for idiots like me. Sphere, by the way, had seen suspicious piles of ash there, indicating that something occasionally climbed in, even if it didn't live long afterward.

On several occasions, when I had to overcome not just alarms, but full-fledged barriers on doorways, I had to use a prearranged trick, lovingly constructed while still sitting on the farm. Magical negators are a separate subject, and it could be long, tedious, and still not enough. The idea of my plan was to fill the Essence Vessel with as concentrated an essence as possible, embodying the concepts of abolition, timelessness, and absence. The resulting cloud was not pure gold, but rather dark green with golden hues inside, but its effect was unmistakable.

If this thing had simply weakened or removed magic in a certain area, I would have raised the alarm instantly with my actions. A signal interruption isn't a bad signal in itself, but my creation was much more subtle and refined. Nothing happened where the suspended matter I'd created hit the air. The magical and physical emanations stabilized as much as possible and were the same as they had been a second ago. For a short time - until the essence dissipated - all the barriers and closed fields saw nothing unusual in the desired area, even if there was a real mess going on there. It's a tricky thing, especially for fantasy spies.

This did not negate the need for caution, forcing me to make sure that I did not hit anyone else with my potion, so that the potion would disintegrate in time, before anyone else entered the area, so as not to waste all the supplies early. Everything had to be watched, but that was the price of even the tiniest chance, which could shift the difficulty from "impossible in principle" to "if you try very hard". And I'm going to try.

Oddly enough, there was plenty of time to spare. So I was not too worried about going to the officers' quarters. I am not going to lie by saying that I have a solid plan, for there is no plan at all, only a dozen sketches of what might be done "if I am lucky". At worst, I'll have to stay here until my comrades go into their most dangerous fight, and at best I won't need them to do anything, because I can do it all myself and even make it back.

In any case, it is necessary to check everything.

The attempt to get to Ferer was not that it was a failure, but it was very difficult and too risky. It was a leap into the unknown, with little guarantee of success and little chance of success. There are too many barriers that are constantly active, and my negator in the vessel is only enough for half of the trip in one direction. I could try, but I wouldn't be able to go back if I failed. I was also going to have to take the old man alive, whose level and the class was respectable, even if he was a dozen times noncombatant.

The idea of trying to disable the central reactor of the fortress, which powers all the traps set here, went exactly there. No, I'm not arguing with the fact that doing this feat will make my task several times easier, but I won't! I just can't imagine how tough I'd have to be to sneak in there unnoticed! And even if I manage to do it by diving extremely well into the deep layers of Shadow, and then also managing, by the grace of God the Admin himself, to surface clearly inside the room where the defense core is placed, there's still the damn Mist, whose nature I don't understand. And since the core recycles to neutral energy exactly the Mist, there is an obscene amount of this crap there. And I don't want to find out how it's going to try to kill me, and no, I have no doubt that it will. Fucking experience!

The idea of capturing or interrogating one of Ferer's junior students and colleagues looked much more promising - they are much worse guarded, and they have some knowledge, too. But here my luck showed itself in all its glory, just very clear. Just an hour before I left for the mission, Ferer had gathered up all his idiots and sent them off to do science. And waiting for their return in less than three days is not a good idea. And this is not even my opinion, but a direct quote I overheard as I moved forward.

One by one, my plans were either tossed aside or postponed, or I wondered how such nonsense had ever occurred to me and why I had put it in my workbook. I could not say that I was very disappointed, because I was well aware that even one or two successful points would be a real success, but I was still too stressed by the constant crossing out of ideas from the list.

Until I found one that could be executed right now.

For a change, this plan belonged to Taria, who sometimes made ridiculous plans, but that remained quite workable. In draft form, the plan was something like "find a prettier girl, fuck her brains out with a ring, and then just fuck her out, using her as an informant and a saboteur". The first part of the plan, if anything, is a direct quote, so no ethical claims are accepted.

Oddly enough, there was some common sense in her idea. I had to spend quite a lot of time sifting through that grain closer to the normal plans. The very idea of using the ring to get information wasn't a bad one, and it even made some sense. But here is the question of who to use such an ability on. I remind myself that it takes twenty-four hours to recharge a subjugating skill, and I have less than eight hours, so it's strictly a single shot. I'll add to that the fact that there aren't that many women here, and most of them are just servants, who are kind of undead, but not undead. And what good is one subordinate creature in human form to me if I don't even know if the ring can override the directives I put into it? I mean, it should, but I can't be sure.

In addition to the servants, there are a few girls in the rangers, a couple of wizards, a few ladies of the command staff, and that's about it. All the major roles in the chain of command have been taken by the stronger gender, except only two of Ferer's bodyguards. Except that those two "deadly rabid bitches," to quote one of the men who tried to hit on them again, have never been far from their superiors, so there's no way to get through to them, either. Too bad, those two would have been very useful.

And yet, we had found one suitable victim, and she was even within our reach right now. And I was not going to let it go, though I felt a little uncomfortable about that decision. I would have killed her quickly and without any heartache, for she was an enemy. But turning her into a sex slave was not the right thing to do. Especially if she gets some sort of infernal ability, like the obedience concentrator that Taria was given from the generosity of the Admins. No, it's useful, too, but not when I'm the first victim of the newly acquired skill.

There was an uncle here who was the chief mage of all the Stone if you don't count Ferer, who stood apart from the chain of command. So this noble-boned aristocrat preferred to have not only a cozy room in the fortress but a pretty girl as well. Gamel At'Orovai was undoubtedly a hard nut to crack (otherwise he would not have lived to his age and level), and so he checked his mistress beforehand, both himself and through the secret guard, not wanting to run into a trap of a rival family or a spy at all. But the ring is a mythical artifact because it allows you to quickly change and redirect the allegiances and aspirations of even a very high-level woman.

I have to admit, by the way, that Gamel knew how to choose his girls because this young lady was beautiful. I confess I didn't even recognize her name, only her class, and appearance, and so I have no idea what the name of the thirty-second level Golem Guide is, but her beauty was really undeniable. Tall, slender, with a perfect figure - she was much prettier than Taria until her appearance was corrected by the ring, even though her age was clearly close to her cherished thirties. The calm and detached expression on her white-haired face, the slightly unfocused look in her blue eyes, her high forehead, and her pleasant features were the epitome of an Aryan bitch, straight out of the posters of World War II. The only thing missing was a swastika on her uniform and a German accent.

The clairvoyance told me enough about her not to feel any pity or hatred. This lady was a complete phlegmatic, which made her golems equally indifferent against enemy warriors and against yesterday's allies ( Melareth knew how to stab in the back, yes). Because of her indifferent attitude to the orders of higher command, she ended up here, simply not to move to death on the order of some high-born dickhead, and prohibited her comrades-in-arms (by that time she remained the holder of the highest, after the aristocratic retard, rank). If the suicide attack had been officially approved and a tribunal awaited her, even they would not have killed such a rare specialist. Fortunately, the bad initiative came exclusively from a lonely individual, and therefore she was not even demoted in rank. True, she was transferred to the Stone, away from the wrath of the disgraced brat's parents. Not that it disturbed or upset her.

She became Gamel's mistress with the same piety - he almost explicitly offered her protection. To the aristocrat's credit, he had the decency to assure the beauty who had fallen in love that her refusal would not bring her any negative consequences. However, there is not only decency but also brains: why let an embittered girl to the body, especially if the girl has a high level, and can kill. And in this particular case, if I did everything right, she would kill him, despite all the precautions.

From the fur of an ordinary-looking rat, crouched in a closet of cleaning supplies in the form of several buckets, mops, and rags, a golden green began to flow down, weightless dust filling all the space. And after another brief moment, the image of the rat literally slid down, revealing to the eye, if there was anyone to watch, a man dressed in a black cloak, light leather armor, and a frightening-looking mask. And was he really a man?

He hadn't grown, hadn't puffed up, hadn't crawled out of the skin of a disintegrated rat, no. He had been here before, but the stolen Shadow not only gave the appearance but convinced reality itself that it was a rat, not a man. And the man would crawl into burrows, crawl through torn crevices, and fit into small recesses where not even his hand would fit. At a certain level of development, class skills make the laws of physics and logic modestly step aside, waving. And when you have a mythical class, the process of retreating and waving begins about fifteen levels before the norm.

In general, I was cool and pathos, and most importantly, very smart. In theory. In practice, of course, not always, but I try very hard. Now, for example, I did not appear in the middle of the corridor, where I could meet unwanted witnesses, but chose a more comfortable place. It was cozier and more sheltered from view, especially if you paralyze the alarm systems, of which there are more here than in a rich man's safe, and by far more.

The question was, how could I get the woman walking down the hallway to enter the damn closet, voluntarily and without triggering the alarm amulets? The answer came through clairvoyance, and with such ease that I almost dropped my jaw. It was either that I was getting stronger, that there was a malfunction in the anti-prophecy barrier, or that the barrier was weaker within the fortress itself, even if you did not have the amulet of admission. The latter makes sense because it's unlikely that anyone would break in just to take advantage of the knowledge. Specialists like me, who could simultaneously get into any hole without soap, registration, or text messages, and who were capable of higher clairvoyance, could not foresee even in the delirium of drugs.

Let them reap the consequences.

When the woman (I should have found out her name) passed the damn door, I... knocked on it, drawing the magician's attention. As experienced as she was, it was a reflex that worked against her, and a firm belief that she had nothing to fear inside the perimeter. If she'd been in a different mood, or if I'd let out even the slightest bit of threat, she could have grabbed the signal amulet on the spot, summoning the alarm team. She didn't care so much about the soldiers laughing behind her back that you can't even tell how much. But there was no threat, no suspicion, so she automatically followed the human impulse to see what was wrong.

She was about to tell off some joker, or just to see if the knocking seemed off, but the timing was perfect - no one was around, and the corridor itself was rather deserted. Everyone was either in training, or resting afterward, or engaged in personal (or governmental) projects, just like the alchemists who had slowly stopped drinking.

The moment she opened the door, I immediately sucked a good portion of the essence back into the vessel, allowing the signal spells to work again in a small area of the pantry, so that the lady would not suddenly go off the radar. She was - and still is, for that matter, an excellent specialist, trained in many battles and operations, so she reacted almost immediately, even before she realized the threat. Not a fighting class, yeah! She has enough experience, not systemic but a real one, to handle a dozen or so dogs of war, despite that class not fit for direct combat.

However, boosted with the potions an isekai was trivially faster, preventing her from shouting or signaling, or even understanding where the threat was coming from. The ring glowed faintly, and I had to pull the woman sharply inside the closet, while I applied Silence in the Hall to the closet, for things had not gone quite as I'd planned.

I don't know how the ring worked on Ygra because I was drowning in the swamp at the time, sent there by her paw. Taria, on the other hand, had blacked out at the moment the skill was applied, which made me think it was a common effect for all human beings. I was wrong, which is not surprising, considering my uncanny ability not to think about important aspects, relying on luck.

The lady's characteristics were enough to keep her from passing out from the flood of pleasure that swept over her, completely changing and rewriting her personality. And she was never known for the ability or desire to hold back her cries and moans - if you feel good, then the point is to try to hide it, both from yourself and from others. Anyway, the lady cumming in a violent way right in my arms, so that in the middle of her uniform pants, which had undergone some alchemical treatment and were made of an unusual fabric, a wet spot began to spread with alarming speed, getting wider as the muscles of her stomach and pelvis were shuddering in continuous convulsions. There was a very distinctive smell in the air, and I suddenly realized why Hamel had chosen this particular beauty as his mistress, although there were far more compliant and pleasant girls to talk to.

She regained consciousness rather quickly, within a minute, and then she looked around at the closet with a lost gaze, her uniform, which was now easier to throw away than to get rid of the traces of her recent orgasm, and my masked figure. Her gaze lost focus at first, and then her eyes widened in amazement as my victim reached for the system messages that had popped up, and began to mentally process the changes that had occurred to her.

"How much longer am I supposed to live?" She asked that question after another minute, letting me know clearly that she had guessed her role as a distraction and that she would probably live less than twenty-four hours.

She's a professional, for fuck's sake! She should be pissed on all fronts, but she habitually put her emotions aside and got straight to the point. I'm a saboteur, and if that's the case, she'll go to hell for my sabotage to be successful. She has a surprising temperament, though, for I've never seen such indifference to a change in one's fate before, except in the case of the cultists.

"It's hardly more than twenty-four hours, but there's still a chance for your survival and future life," I responded, barely able to suppress the urge to add more shadows to my voice. "You'll have to take your lover out of the game first, and that depends on what skills you've been given as a result of my... influence."

Once again, no emotion, just the stern professionalism of a seasoned veteran, ready for battle at any moment and with any adversary. If anything surprised her, it was the fact that her new gifts might have been different. Now some powerful skill like the one Tarya had received would have been nice. Maybe even the same one she had. She would still have to undress before the gaze of a man hungry for her body.

"I'm not sure I can relax enough to avoid arousing Lord At'Orovay's suspicions. He himself is skilled enough in reading faces to see what is hidden, not to mention his other skills. I'm not accustomed to playing a part, even if I can keep a face. An attempt at pretense will be instantly exposed to him." Immediately I get a brief resolution from her. "The only chance is to use the skills gained from your influence. But only if the lord somehow misses the threat coming from me. His instincts are developed to a truly impressive level, and I haven't had the training typical of stealthers and assassins. I apologize if I have failed you... Master."

She added the last word in an insecure way, obviously not accustomed to humiliating herself in front of anyone, but insanely eager to get at least a shadow of my approval, even if it meant saying goodbye to her pride and arrogance. Considering her character, it is indeed an impressive sacrifice.

"It's not a problem, I can hide the threat coming from you." I immediately reassure her, ignoring the questioning tone in her address to me and not going to give her my name or lie about the one I just made up. "Would you be so kind as to throw your full Status to me?"

The request was far more intimate than a marriage proposal, but it was fulfilled more quickly than a second later. And even Taria, despite her fidelity, took a long, long time to decide to do something like this. But Taria didn't have the school of life that my new... Slave? Ally? An instrument?

I cast aside the standard descriptions of the two rare classes, not having time to go into detail about her statistics, going straight to the granted aspects, since even she considered them the key to the success of the operation.

Touch of Ecstasy: 4/4 (granted)

Touching the victim's exposed skin is capable of inducing an instant orgasm that does not allow them to move, conjure or even think; allows for an uncontrollable eruption of semen or squirt; allows the victim's body to expend its magical energy to continue the eruption; does not allow the victim to wish to interrupt the flow of pleasure; touch and orgasms caused by it have a strong narcotic effect that can cause dependence, up to the instant occurrence; the speed of addiction is based on the ratio of levels, stats, and willpower of the victim; limited applicability in combat.

Fountain of Pleasure: 2/2 (Granted)

Allows the user the ability to spew huge amounts of squirt when orgasming, which has the effect of an aphrodisiac and a love potion; allows the user to experience orgasm at will at any time.

Exhaustion by pleasure: 3/3 (granted)

In orgasm, the victim of the ability permanently loses some of their intellect and will, up to the point of complete social non-viability; the possessor of the ability receives a temporary enhancement of thinking ability, depending on the amount absorbed.

Whatever it was, but Kostya was no fool, so I instantly understood the idea of this dangerous lady, immediately began to look for flaws in it. It turns out that if she has time to at least touch her victim, she just fucks a level forty-six mage to the state of a retard, if not immediately a vegetable, without even killing him, thus provoking a reaction from the security system. I'm not even considering the options of putting the target on a sexual needle, because we all simply won't have enough time. It would take more than a week, if not a month, for someone at that level to become addicted.

She would have made an excellent hand-to-hand combatant or some kind of monk since her skills are ideal for close combat. It's a shame she's a pure mage, though. Besides, I doubt that those skills would be as effective against someone ready for combat and that kind of influence, especially if that someone was higher than her in level and specialized in magical barriers.

Still, one more hypno-tits, or hypno-butt would have been much more useful, but I'm not going to complain about random, because the set was extremely useful for this operation. The fountain of pleasure is, of course, a little more than completely useless, but it only took two points out of the nine granted. It didn't add anything to her skills but that's a good thing because I sincerely doubt that I could have used a unit's mastery of lovemaking or something similar.

Oh yes! I was also very, very surprised by the side skill of exhaustion. It's the one that allows you to boost your own intelligence. If that's possible, I'd have to enhance the damn Ygra with that effect, because her stupidity would sooner or later drive me to my grave than enemy steel and magic. But damn it! Intelligence! How can I ever improve it... Not for myself, of course, for I'm already awesome, but for someone else. Well, maybe a little more for myself. Just a little bit, just a little bit.

"I think I understand exactly what you're suggesting." I look up from my thoughts and meet the calm and expectant gaze of the subordinate woman. "All in all, a very good plan. Now I'll disguise myself, and then you'll go to your lover since you were going to him anyway. From any of his intuition I will be able to cover you, the main thing is not to arouse his suspicions yourself. And no masters, we can be "you."

"Excuse me, but I need to change my clothes before I can carry out my orders." Still calmly, with a slight degree of apprehension and unwillingness to disappoint, the magician objected. "Otherwise, my appearance, as well as the smell I emit, will raise legitimate questions that I may not be able to answer."

I gave myself a mental smack, and then my brain clicked into place, giving me the perfect solution. I moved closer to the woman, trying to stay in the spray zone, and then put my hand on the wet spot on her clothes. If her "fountain" is a drug, this automatically elevates it to the rank of alchemical ingredients, subject to my essentialism.

I shake the golden-pink dust off my palm after a minute and then retreat under the protection of the sprayed negator. The woman gives me a look that almost makes me ashamed that I didn't fuck her out right there, but it has to be done, so I step back and pray to the same Randomius that I succeed. Trying to steal a shadow through half the fortress is no easy task, especially since the surrounding magic and stone somehow muffle the sphere.

I was about ready to give up and rush back to the warehouses to steal the rat image I needed again, sending the woman to deal with the mage herself. Fortunately, at some moment, I managed to drag the damn image onto myself, and then admired the woman's face when she saw the transfiguration.

*Squick* The indignant cry brings her out of her stupor, and then she picks me up in her arms and shoves me into her pocket, where I spray some more negator, which is not much left, and then calmly heads toward her goal.

And I finally remember that I never looked up her name, which I immediately decide to fix, because there's nothing else to do besides reading the Status sent to me. Besides, the journey itself is hardly going to take long, now that I'm being carried in the pocket. I'm a rat, damn it, I can't run for long, because I've got fucking legs!

Name: Hestia Reimel

Hestia, then. Well, it's just a name, a lot of people have it worse. I knew a kid whose name was Patrick. Not a foreigner at all, just parents with an inventive streak, which, given his not-so-sounding last name, was a source of jokes from those around him. Including me, yes.

I look at the result, and I have to admit that I somewhat underestimated the abilities granted by the mythical art. With their help, right in front of my eyes, a confident in himself and in life veteran aristocrat wolf was turned into a vegetable lying in an unnaturally huge puddle of his own semen, unable even to think coherently.

Hestia didn't even get naked, just took off her uniform. A few words for each other, an exchange of meaningless phrases, during which the magician almost screwed up everything she could. Fortunately, since Gamel felt no threat, he allowed himself to walk over and either comfort or question his mistress. And she embraced him and kissed him, at once extinguishing all suspicion, after which his fate was sealed. They only had time to lie down on the bed - by the way, the place of a mage was not like a soldier's barracks, very extensive, like a small apartment - and then the woman firmly clung to him activated both skills simultaneously and did not get off the continuously buzzing man until his magic reserve began to show the bottom so that he already risked to die from dehydration.

She may have taken off her uniform, but the rest of her clothes were covered in a thick, white mass that forced me to climb to the ceiling and thank myself that I had made a filter mask. Perhaps she had better change her clothes now, for I would not dissolve it on the essence for any money. Give me the right to be squeamish and all that.

At least after Gamel let us into his room, the defense and the closed fields treated us as guests. Yes, yes! And her, and me! When I leave the aristocrat's dwelling, I will have to disguise myself again. But for now, I can be almost safely in human form, even if I don't think about the slightest bit of shadow manipulation. It's a foolish thing to do, as it seems to me, creating a huge security hole but apparently, the aristocrat has managed to defend his right to privacy and confidentiality against regulations and statutes. He succeeded.

"Done," Hestia said with unbearable disgust in her voice, looking at her former lover and his dirty clothes. "He's less intelligent now than a shrew."

Much of her disgust is played up, just to show me how she doesn't care about any man but me, and in the back of her mind, she's even proud of a well-executed order. It is true that until I praise her myself, she will not risk even a hint of her success, not wanting to make herself look bad in front of me.

"Well done, Hestia." The clumsy compliment and my approval shattered the mage's aloofness, causing a sincere smile to appear on her face, which immediately disappeared again under the usual detachment of a warrior on a mission. "Do you have anything to change into?"

She is well aware that any praise I give her is worthless, and that she must die for my sake, trying to do as much as she can, but at the same time, she cannot crush the sprouts of insane and illogical hope for something more, even though she is well aware in her mind of the senselessness of such thinking. If I were to disappear now, leaving her alive, she would remember my words until her old age, until her death, keeping them deep in her heart - so strong were the feelings the ring had provoked. I sincerely wanted to wish its creator all the best, beginning in alphabetical order, but I had no time to curse with an unknown mage-mentalist.

"There's a special box with household charms, and it will clean the clothes in a few minutes." Here she looks at the literal layers of seed, like dirt, on her pant legs, then adds. "In half an hour. Do we have time?"

"There's still time," I answered, trying to figure out what else I could do. "In the meantime, it wouldn't hurt to take a shower."

The hint that she is all stained with other people's bodily fluids causes her to have a fit of anger at her now-dead lover, who could not even let himself be killed normally. But outwardly she remains just as calm. Leaving the victim in his bedroom, I walk into the living room and sit down on the guest couch. Hestia had already thrown her uniform into the local equivalent of a washing machine and, after wiping her body with the sheets, went to the bathroom to wash off the disgusting substance.

Somehow I do not doubt that if I told her she needed to love this kind of sensation, she'd be happy to go back to the bedroom, except to bathe in that puddle with her head, happy that she was complying with my request. Or dive headfirst into the latrine. I hold back a sudden attack of nausea, staring at the ring with disgust. I don't understand why the fuck I got this thing instead of a normal blade.

It was easier with Taria, because I didn't order her anything, didn't demand anything from her, and didn't change her with my desires. But now I was using Hestia without even hiding it, which made me feel... well, not ugly or embarrassed, but uncomfortable. Just because I couldn't respond to her with anything but indifference like I couldn't even keep her alive. I sincerely doubt that she will survive the meat grinder that has ensued. But even if she doesn't get killed in the process, I'll have to finish her off myself, which she can't help but understand - her title of Hero's Companion itself requires a thorough cleanup.

Oh, there's no need to hesitate! I won't have to get my hands dirty, because she'll know from a half hint what she has to do and she'll do it with a clear heart and a cool head, without even a second of doubt.

She's in a shitty situation, though.

I planned to make the local head of the secret guard my next target, simply because he had the key to the warehouses with the most powerful amulets, potions, artifacts, and other crap. He, Gamel, the Commandant, and my target. But Gamel is already out, the Commandant "I-already-forgotten-his-name" will go with the assault team out of the fold when my team strikes, and I will take care of Ferer. In sum, to reliably cut off the enemy's ability to react normally to danger, I would only have to somehow knock out a professional paranoid level thirty-five plus and do it inconspicuously. And hell no, he'll let Hestia get close enough to touch him. At least he won't relax enough to take off his protective skills and artifacts.

On the chest of her former lover, now in a peculiar coma, I left a small vial of extremely dangerous stuff. And this vial had been strengthened earlier by my essentialism, turning it into a very strong vial that would not dissolve its contents. Now, the same essentialism has turned this material into a simple and very fragile glass. Four or five hours, and the glass will disintegrate into dust, and not even ash will be left of the magician's body.

There were quiet footsteps behind me, and a second later a woman who hadn't even bothered to get dressed sank on the couch next to me. She sat down, and then leaned over and reached for the strap of my pants. Before I could even say a word, my question was answered. It was better anticipated than any clairvoyant.

"I understand everything, my Lord." Quietly, calmly, confidently, as she used to give and take orders. "But I want to leave you at least some memory, even if it's just to please you. I'll do anything, just don't disturb me, please. Just twenty minutes, no more."

The clairvoyance makes me know that she had time to take a special potion. Even if her corpse is cut open, the seed inside her body cannot be used for any rituals or curses. By the way, taking this potion regularly was one of the few things that the now almost dead Gamel insisted on. And her mind, fueled by exhaustion, allowed her to surrender completely to her fantasies, imagining what she wanted as real as possible, even though there was no real lovemaking involved.

I lean back on the criminally soft couch, letting the ring of her full, sensual lips glide over the shaft of my staked cock. I was, without a doubt, very pleased. And it also hurt a little bit for Hestia, hurt that a strong and really interesting woman, who would have had something to interest me and surprise me, was forced to stoop to a banal blow job, just so I could remember her. At least with this, but to remember her.

I can't bring myself to promise something that would be a lie, but somehow I'm sure that if there's any chance of getting the already-buried mage out with me, I'll take it, even if every single inhabitant of this world is against it. Especially since I would have to fight them anyway.

Silently licking and wiping the corner of her lips, Hestia still calmly and busily zipped my clothes back on, and then got to her feet, giving me a still half-lying, luxurious view of her body, as if hoping that I could find another half-hour for her. Realizing that the maneuver had failed, she asked just as phlegmatically:

"Just a minute to put it on, if that's okay."

A minute later, we were both headed in the right direction. I was in her pocket, and her face, still the same phlegmatic magician, had not even a shadow of negative emotion on it. I didn't even need clairvoyance to know that she thought she was ready to die now. Logic, probability theory, and the laws of the universe agreed with her death.

It seems that I am the only one who disagrees.

But when have I ever cared about that?

Author note:

14 pages.

Dice is on no one's side today - most of the plans failed as early as the possibility test, but something did work out. Gamel would have been a dangerous opponent for the MC, just at the expense of class. Not too dangerous, but worthy of consideration.

Hestia correctly believes that she is not destined to survive - she is not in the group's plans, and therefore there will be no pluses to her rolls, while there are plenty of minuses and a carload of them.

MC will adjust her chances a little bit due to the potions and stuff like that, but only a little - at most she'll flounder longer. If you want to save her, you'd better get the omake ready, because I'm not going to cheat with dice that much, otherwise why would I need them at all.

Pictures:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lzIzakWs2_Qi0K45iyxa8fbrStq7AMmU/view?usp=sharing - Form, option. Yes, and the appearance is similar.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IfjTqXSPMUGOhMlPQVfKk6GDU_NLISP0/view?usp=sharing - Only the hair is white.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FWrWyCRxGCuKZ6FY0M6CDtwKKNMIaahv/view?usp=sharing - Very similar.

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http://notabenoid.org/book/80370/535605

Переводчики: Camrad_RIP