Готовый перевод Житие Мое / Life of Mine: Алхимик с боевым дипломом

An alchemist with a combat degree

Foreword

* * *

I was lucky to be born, and incredibly so. First of all, I was born at the right time, and secondly, in the right country, and no one will convince me otherwise.

What could a penniless orphan under the kings expect? At best, a place as a charioteer without a horse of his own. And no one would care if a great warlock was lost in the boy. There are five fruits for every dozen in Krowhard, and it costs money to learn sorcery. And it wouldn't have come to training: the ritual of gaining power also required payment - Uncle Gordon couldn't have done it alone. The people gave wild money to the sorcerers, but the collective mind of the authorities was not enough to make the patriarchs competitors. In our time, the only thing required of a black magician to manifest his talent is desire. Prices have dropped, but the need for magic has even increased, so a decent sorcerer will always have respect.

However, up until a few years ago, I was interested in magic purely theoretically. I was driven by another passion.

Of all the countries I know, only in Ingernika are alchemists more valuable than mages. In Kashtadar, alchemy is supported, but here it is everywhere: in the city, where you can't walk a step without running into an automobile or a cast-iron station, and in the countryside, where clever villagers have quickly realized that a tractor with an oiled engine is more reliable than a dumb cattle. And the fact the smoke and smog, so let the white magicians worry, give them the will - all will ride on oxen. What to talk about if even in a backward Krowhard village there was a machine yard that captured my attention forever and completely? At the age of eighteen, I left Twilight Side to learn the high craft of alchemy (at public expense, by the way, which is not something everyone is offered!). At that moment, magic did not figure in my life plans, and life was seen as simple and straightforward. But, apparently, some of my ancestors had a different opinion about it.

Magic came into my life on a spontaneous basis without any elaborate rituals, just... oops. Luckily, no one died at that moment! The authorities were to blame for what had happened (I hope Captain Ber felt bad about it), and I had to deal with the consequences. At first, I didn't realize the true scale of the problems created by magic talent (I was young and inexperienced). Well, I ruined the summer to curb new opportunities, so be it. I had to enroll in a magician's program at the university (the workload had doubled). But I finally had some money (a delightful feeling!), even if it wasn't quite legally earned. Who would feel bad about a poor student chasing an undead from a farmer's barn? The customers are happy, but the villagers had never even heard of such a thing as a license. I should have realized at once that in the life of a black mage, there are no happy coincidences, but every smart guy is always sure that the terrible stories are not about him.

The first warning sign was a zombie dog, which I accidentally created during the exorcism of a gang of malicious ghouls (for such tricks, you can go to the fire). Then there was my uncle's strange death. His equally strange inheritance and my close acquaintance with an undead creature that the most ferocious battle mages can only say, "Oh!" The infestation named Rustle could not be exorcized, had an unhealthy attraction to the brains of wizards, and demonstrated the rudiments of morality (which is a completely unrealistic thing for an otherworldly phenomenon). I was impressed (honestly!) and decided to concentrate on alchemy, having completely stopped with witchcraft (there was a reason - a friend offered me a great job). It was too late. Following the sociable undead in my life majestically entered NZAMIPS. The office, whose task was to give out fucks to all associated with magic (mages and otherworldly beings - equally). As a small consolation, it didn't end with chains but with the appearance of two superiors: the Senior Coordinator of the region, Satal, and the same Captain Ber.

They chase me like wolves. I hate it

And the boiling of passions is noticeable from the outside because Ms. Kevinahari regularly reminds me how important it is to work on controlling magic, which the Watchdogs are in charge of (For empaths, getting inside someone's soul is like eating cake). She gets paid for such conviction in NZAMIPS, though. And what about me? Thanks to some fraudulent trick, the essence of which escaped me, I am now an employee of this office, freelance and unpaid (a black one from Krowhard works for free: if they find out, they will laugh). And the first thing this worthy organization did was to turn my well-deserved New Year's vacation into a business trip. No, understand correctly, I would still do what I did: my brother was at risk (for a black one to be a senior is not just a word). But it's one thing to investigate Mihandrov's weirdness voluntarily and another to be officially sent.

They didn't give me any money for it, of course. I hate it!

I did not grumble: blacks are not afraid of anything, but they know how to distinguish their benefits. Five years of voluntary forced labor was an acceptable price for forbidden sorcery and triple murder (though, considering the identities of those killed, I should get a medal for it). I have to be meek and obedient (ugh, what a sin!) and get over this upset somehow. But once the contract is up, I'm getting out.

* * *

Part one.

Facultatives

This, too, shall pass.

A philosopher's dictum

If you feel like it's over, you're a dead man.

Practical observation

* * *

Chapter 1

* * *

After returning from the ill-fated business trip, I was surprised to find that life had become gray. Quiet. For almost two months, nothing happened. Lectures and credits somehow stopped satisfying my notion of occurrences. No, I don't believe in the intuition of practicing mages, it was just that the silence seemed somehow false to me. Miss Kevinahari thought it was all about nervous exhaustion. She recommended I drink Siamese tea (no milk or sugar) and claimed I was lacking in company. I agreed, but not to the point of wishing for a return to Mihandrov. In principle it was possible to blow her off, but why? Dealing with empaths is easy if you don't think about who they are.

Perhaps it would have been easier to dispel my melancholy if I had been able to boast of my role in saving the "town of the retards". Alas, I had nothing to back it up. Somewhere far to the south, journalists were rattling the bones of Sigismund Salaris. My name was never mentioned. I remained a faceless emissary from Redstone, a white, black, or even a renegade Artificer. Lt. Clarence wrote (don't ask me how he got the address) the order for anonymity came personally from Mr. Axel, and no sane person had any desire to quarrel with him (the fact he shut up all those whites is saying something). He was the oldest regional coordinator. He was not even my father but my great-grandfather, and he had a heavy character, as a black magician of the old breed should have. Besides (Kevinahari delighted me with this information), Axels and Tangors didn't always get along. Can you imagine the consequences of a black mage duel? Five minutes of dubious glory wasn't worth the hassle.

Well, screw her!

And in Redstone, it was mud and boredom. It was snowing, then raining, then snowing again, quite Krowhard weather. Wet and almost indistinguishable townspeople scurried through the streets, and I walked among them to lectures and workshops, home and work like everyone else, faceless. Nevertheless, this winter was an exact copy of the previous four, so I had to admit: I was the problem.

I couldn't clear things up with Quarter because he didn't come to the beer halls I knew. It would be too expensive to fight in public, and chasing him around the city wasn't dignified. There were only two exams at the University of High Magic: the entrance exam and the final exam, but the second one was coming at me inexorably. My fellow students were becoming feverishly excited: it wasn't the test as such (those unable to study were weeded out in the first year), but rather the proximity of the goal. And for the sake of what the crowd of undergrowth (including blacks and whites) worked so hard for so many years? That's a silly question! To get a diploma, of course.

A diploma. The crown of five years of work. It's the final touch that transforms a schoolboy into an honorable master. At the same time, it is the finale of reckless youth and the first step of a future career. A status symbol (for blacks, an absolutely necessary thing!). I was to carry this piece of paper with the enchanted seals of the university through my life, and I wished that the notes the professors would make on it would correspond to my ideas of my genius. Carelessness in such a matter is absolutely unacceptable! I had to choose a topic for my pre-graduate internship (and where to do it), find a suitable reading list (without it, the paper would look ridiculous), and find out what questions the examiners were asking this year (exams are taken not before but after a successful demonstration of practical skills). I didn't have to worry about Alchemy: I could start presenting it at any time, from any place, and on almost any subject. Among other things, the Dean of Alchemists had a weakness for me and was ready to count my work in "Biokine" as practice, and as a diploma, he wanted to see a comparative analysis of the work of gas generators of different types (well, he was curious, yes). But my second specialty was a mess.

I didn't really understand the depth of the trouble at first; after all, the whole black magic thing had been started solely because of my spontaneous Acquisition of Power. Well, yes, at one time, I was able to make good money on it, but as soon as the matter came into the mainstream of the law, the cash flow dried up sharply. As a result, I faced a question that had never bothered me before: what kind of black mage do I want to become?

A career as a cleaner wasn't really on the table. I was sick of that crowd. It was possible to go in the part of searching for inanimate objects: treasures, springs, gas leaks, wires under the plaster, after all. White ones can do it too, but not so well and selectively, and not every client needs to find an elephant under the ground. The only thing is that a searcher with a university degree is a curiosity, unworthy of discussion; in this business, everything is built on instinct, and usually, graduates of craft schools, often not even having passed the Acquisition, are engaged in this kind of work.

More promising was the "dictate of will", or more simply, control magic. No potentially dangerous alchemical device (from a lathe to a steam turbine) would be put into the shop unless it had a couple of curses hanging on it, protecting the workers from... everything. There's not many things you can think of, is there? My motorcycle has the entire engine magically controlled. And the spells of "dictate will" are transmaster in the rarest cases, which means you can't install them without a black mage.

It was even more important to build all kinds of defenses. It was a great money-making business, although there was a lot of competition. Let the undead be dealt with by NZAMIPS, but in Redstone, almost every door had a lock with a stubborn black-magic filling because thieves could open ordinary mechanisms with a fingernail. And safes, and the homes of the wealthy? A sinecure for mages with slow reactions: two weeks of tedious enchanting of seals, then thirty seconds for activation - and the money in your pocket. You go once a year and check if the curse needs to be renewed, of course, not for free. Good!

After wracking my brains and meditating over a mug of beer, I found a task that perfectly combines the two most promising directions - an amulet for a car. No mortise locks or stupid rotary locks: the engine simply won't start until a special amulet is inserted into the socket, which must be made by a transmaster. With this brilliant idea, I came to Rakshat. He wrinkled his nose a little and told me that Mr. Senior Coordinator would choose the topic of the diploma for me, and I would have to accept it. Should I explain that this news made me a little nervous?

Since when do Watchdogs interfere with the educational process?!

I went to the university administration, and suddenly it turned out that Mr. Darkon, our unbending vice-rector, was literally in awe of Satal: either he knew something about him, or he correctly assessed his fighting potential. I was told that it was a great honor and responsibility to have such a mentor and that no one cared that I didn't want it for anything. I flared up and decided to give up the title of mage altogether. Rakshat explained I would have to gather the city's certification committee to confirm it, and no black Redstone would support me because of Satal. It was a mystery how the coordinator had managed to subdue the crowd of fearless and freedom-loving black mages, but no one wanted to mess with him because of some Krowhardian. Damn townspeople! The circle was closed.

I was angry, I raged, and I cracked the marble pulpit in the faculty lecture hall, protected by five layers of magic (I still don't know how I did it). I swore that I would wipe out Satal and his entire bloodline to the seventh generation. Rakshat promised to bring flowers to my grave. We had a small drink (with the teacher, wow!) and quickly agreed that the present Big Boss is a raving lunatic with persecution mania, obsessed with conspiracy theories. The world will only get cleaner without him! But it will be better for everyone if the Lord God himself strikes him, so to speak, personally. We couldn't decide which denomination we wanted to see as an avenger - the dean came running to the noise and threw everyone out.

As a result, if before black magic classes seemed just tedious to me, now they were starting to get annoying. What and how am I going to pass?! And to whom? "Combat curses" is a topic that generations of mages have trampled on. Nothing new will be invented there for another thousand years. The military department gives diplomas exclusively to practitioners for combat merits.

Finally, after a long absence, Satal returned from the capital. The kindest mentor looked at my sour face, listened to my bitter reproaches, then took me to the gym and beat me in a civilized manner. I got angry and kicked him in the balls (an ultimate Krowhardian technique), and then ran home in what I had (in shorts and a T-shirt in the cold - good!). By the following Wednesday, Kevinahari had so worked up the coordinator that he didn't mention the incident aloud but insistedently offered to give me a couple of wrestling lessons. I politely declined: I still cared about my bells. In the end, my favorite teacher decided that I had enough theory and sent me to the cleaning department's training ground to practice.

And the silence was over, damn it.
* * *

It's morning (seven in the morning!), Sunday (day off!), it's cold, rain is drizzling. On the thrice plowed dunes of a small island (and where else could there be a training ground for combat mages?) stand five recruits-cleaners and a corporal-instructor with such a face that is just "mom, where are my slippers!".

Since when am I a recruit? Since when does anyone care? Classes run from seven to eleven (four hours), which means I'm guaranteed four weekends a month. And that's if I can be firm enough to keep Satal from signing me up for the full course.

"Fighters!" The instructor's voice was such that it could be heard anywhere on the island without any amplifying magic. "Young pillars of Ingernika!!! Today, you embark on a thorny path! Harsh trials await you on this path. Some will die! But they will not shame the honor of a battle mage!!!"

An uplifting start...

I listened and tried to understand: Why Sunday? Does the corporal really like his job so much? Then I realized that on all the other days, they must have cadre cleaners here to renew their skills, and a combat mage on a salary would never go to work on his day off. If the recruits are crammed into Sunday mornings, then Satal is serious about getting his subordinates in shape. And that includes me.

"Tangor!!!!" bellowed the corporal in a voice that would have left any white man stammering. "What are you doing?!"

"I'm listening, sir," I reported readily, feeling an acute sense of deja vu.

"Then answer me, Mr. Smart Ass," he pointed his thick, wiener-like finger at me (if he grabs my shoulder, I'll kill him!), "what is the first thing you do when you encounter an otherworldly phenomenon?"

"Determine what kind of phenomenon?" I suggested cautiously, trying to ignore the proximity of the ugly face.

My brethren in arms chuckled amicably.

"Silence!!!" Corporal shouted, and even my heart sank. Why would you yell like that? "The only correct answer! Surprisingly rare!!!! And for nothing..."

That last words sent furry caterpillars crawling up my back. I had been snorting at Mr. Rakshat, an intelligent, university-educated magician! I don't have to worry about Ingernik's future: a man who can make a black one from Krowhard shiver must be an invincible warrior. Or am I just nervous? No, the neighbor to my left is also pale as a zombie. The two on the right are looking at each other anxiously, or else they're conspiring to run away. Ha! The boat has already left, and the island is connected to the shore by a drawbridge, which, of course, has already been raised. This scumbag has got it all - the students can't run!

Then the actual training began. There were cries of "Dangemaharus!", the instructor's curses, and the crackling of lightning. The novice cleaners demonstrated their abilities on simulators created with the help of black magic. The corporal couldn't speak complex sentences, but he didn't need to. There were no university graduates among the cadets (except for me, of course). The other four recruits were typical blacks of the present times - moderately cheeky and conventionally educated. If it hadn't been for Uncle Gordon's influence, I might well have been one of them. They'd been through the Ritual of Acquisition of Power at some provincial school or army training school, and they pronounced the words "higher magic" with a slight stutter. The chiseled subtleties of the theory were not interesting to the boys. They taught them by the method of an invincible sledgehammer - the simpler, the better. Quite a working principle, if you remember how I managed to make a fortune with a single practiced curse. The corporal was required to polish the newcomers' reflexes and to keep them from making the most common mistakes without explaining what they were doing wrong. Excess knowledge breeds sorrow, so to speak.

This is the praised combat magic, which all blacks love so tenderly. Don't care about brains, don't care about understanding. The main thing is to have a bigger channel and better reaction. Everything else is finalized on the spot during practice. And now they are trying to put me (me!) to the level of the village thugs. I won't give in!!!

The noise, bustle, and primitiveness of the task made me incredibly bored, and the simulators imitating the undead made me laugh. Ordinary people don't see the difference between a black curse and an otherworldly phenomenon, and for nothing. It's like a bee swarm and a sawmill: both are buzzing, but at the same time, one (if you are careless) will break you into two neat pieces and disarmed with an iron dirk, but where is the switch that is able to turn off the attacking bees? Everything created by man bears the imprint of his mind, and fighting with intricate signs was not much easier than with a primitive but alien all-living monster. However, it was impossible to bring the undead to the range (except for a ghoul and then run away from him) because flirting with the alien power always ended badly. And what for? The cadets wielded markers, marking large pentagrams in the sand (strictly according to the instructions), and I was slacking. I was doing just enough to disable the imitator. The real undead wouldn't care about my curses. But suddenly, I caught the instructor's glance and panicked: I had done something so mind-bogglingly destructive that Rakshat would have been sickened by the mere thought of it. In short, it went off in such a way that the trees on the shore swayed.

"Tangor!!!" The corporal growled, spitting up sand (strong amulets here, though).

"My bad!" squeaked I, trying to keep the funnel between me and the instructor.

For four hours, we had a lot of fun, and in the end, the corporal promised grimly that next time he would teach us wisdom. Four of the cadets went to the wharf to wait for the boat, and I went to the bridge. Naturally, it was possible to come here from the city at such an early hour only by motorcycle. Otherwise, I would have to get up an hour earlier. The service boat goes to the range on schedule. The rain didn't stop and even got heavier. Spring is here, for fuck's sake! Ice at night, mud during the day, and you can only travel by airship.

I took my goggles out of my saddlebag and wiped them thoroughly. In principle, my bike has a spell-disperser (it's an exclusive model!). It protects me well from dirt and insects, but once I got into the bushes and it "blinked" - I almost lost my eyes. I don't like surprises!

"Tangor, hold on a moment."

A corporal was standing behind me, and his eyes were very kind. That made me suspicious at once.

"Come with me!"

I honestly considered running away, but the bridge hadn't been lowered yet, and I would then have to jump into the water, and it wasn't the right weather for swimming.

We walked to the opposite end of the islet from the firing range, where there were several wooden sheds - offices. The corporal led me into the one labeled "Warehouse." The rough wooden shelves were piled with supplies: crates full of chalk markers and mirrors, bags of salt, skeins of twine, rakes, and shovels. In a cold, crypt-like cubbyhole were stored teaching aids: Phoma-eaten glass, the web of a Predatory Echo, the crest of a Water Spiral. On a separate table was the charred head of a ghoul with teeth the size of teeth that living creatures never have. Aha, aha! In the darkness, I didn't notice when the corporal got to me, and I realized my mistake when I found myself with my hands clasped behind my back. The twisted elbow crunched pitifully. Panicked, I tried to throw the offender over my hip, but he caught me and laid me face down on the floor, very professionally. He put his knee on my lower back, too!

I feel he's going to kick me...

"Your job?!" growled the sadistic man in my ear as he continued to twist my elbow.

Should I say no?

"What were you thinking, huh? What were you thinking?!"

At the time, it was nothing. It was later, at Miss Kevinahari's lecture, that it became clear to me how big a risk I was taking by expelling the undead without magical support. The point is that being without a host, the infernal part of the ghoul begins to divide, and if there are suitable bodies within reach, then instead of one monster, you will get at least three. So, his appearance in the world, Max was due to the carelessness of the former head of cleaning, who traded one big creature for a couple of smaller ones. Of course, the time of the phenomenon's out-of-body existence is very limited, and the fresh ghouls will be weaker than the old ones, but who will feel better?

The pause in the conversation must have become noticeable. The corporal gave me another irritated poke on the floor and let me go.

"Piss hit you in the head?! You want to be a hero?!"

Ha! Fuck that. Even if I had suspected the presence of such creatures, I would have either just left, telling everyone to scram, or barricaded myself in the house. I just didn't have a choice.

"Who knew they'd be woken up during the day?!"

"What's the difference?!"

"Humans?"

The second moment is that at night, the ghouls might have tried to inhabit the living. The whites wouldn't have been able to resist.

The corporal spat on the floor in frustration:

"Hero, for sure! Do you have any idea what a ghoul in a mage's body is?"

The undead, accessing the Source channel. I don't want to know about that, even in theory.

"If I'm dead, what the point to worry?"

My reanimated carcass would have been disposed of by the cleaners rushing to the aid, and the people on the estate would be dead anyway. I didn't feel guilty. The corporal looked into my shameless eyes, spat once more (a humpless camel!), and concluded:

"You'll be studying in a special program!"

I expected something like this from the beginning. As long as it's not boxing.

And tell Satal to make you a guardian.

I nodded vigorously, clearly aware that I wouldn't even say that word in the presence of my kindest mentor. The Guardian is a trick of professional cleaners, you know, like in the fairy tale: a black mage is killed, and he turns to ashes. Without me.

Corporal cursed again and told me to get out. He didn't have to repeat it.

I drove back to Redstone, thinking about the fact that my contract with NZAMIPS was for five years. Less than six months had passed, and the situation was getting worse and worse. And I hadn't been paid a crone, not even for that mess with the Witch Bane in Mihandrov. Where is justice? And then someone is surprised that black mages do not go into public service.

It's time to beat Quarter. After all, the dark streak in my life began with an offer to work on his behalf. Don't think I don't believe in all those Krowhard tales of stolen luck, but the fact that my string of troubles began with my work at Biokin, it's not for nothing... Maybe if I get satisfaction from him, I'll get some of my luck back. It's worth a shot.

* * *

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Переводчики: Camrad_RIP