Готовый перевод Ведомый / Follower: 6.

7.

* * *

For some time, Igor sincerely fought the desire to put his loot on the shelf and look at it, from time to time, enjoying his coolness. Alas, in the struggle between common sense and the desire to show off, his brain won, once again proving that Igor is a very base individual. Instead of a shelf, he hid his share for the past massacre under the floorboard: four Tiny Marks and two Small Marks, one Bone Lantern. No one wanted to take them because of the problems with using the ritual Tablets he described. And also his polyhedron. Then, however, it dawned on him that the Shroud actively hid his Vessels only if he carried it, so he had to take out the floorboard again, taking the valuables, and hiding the rest.

The next couple of days, he spent mostly recovering from the carnage he had endured. He performed the Frigile Vessel ritual twice more, focusing on his life force, finally getting rid of the bruise and cracks in his ribs. He was afraid that they would heal incorrectly, but they did not. The body, improved by the almost closed Step, seemed to be trying to get back to its best condition, so Igor could only refrain from interfering with the body's recovery. Yes, the body became not just stronger or more resilient, no, it was as if he was improving on some other level. He began to understand and think faster, even though the intelligence characteristic was absent in his status list. Yes, it is difficult to calculate the level of your own ICQ, especially if you throw all sorts of tests out of the equation. In the end, an intelligence test only shows how well you can pass said test.

But the result was obvious and undeniable. Reading and information processing speed increased, and memory improved significantly, to the point that one could pass a poem by heart after the first reading. He did not become smarter, no, but he began to use his existing brains, experience, intuition, and erudition much better. Physical characteristics also grew. It was easier to calculate them purely mathematically. Exercises became easier, gymnastics turned out better and better, flexibility, strength, and endurance obviously increased. Changes in appearance also continued, although not in geometric progression, and those changes accumulated. The spots on the skin finally disappeared, the hair became slightly thicker and smoother, despite the long-absent haircut, and facial features sharpened and softened at the same time.

No elven beauty, not even the level of a supermodel, but the result was noticeable, as was the increased physical fitness. No, not Superman, not Steve Rogers, and not Lex Luthor, but the same Igor. Only an improved version of him. But this is only the zero Step, almost filled, there are still many, many more steps ahead of those. Fortunately, the increase in "charisma" was best seen not in Igor but in Vasily, simply due to the low base. It is enough to simply change into fresh clothes provided by Zhenya, wash off the dirt, and slightly comb his beard, so that from a scary and smelly homeless person, to becomes a homeless, but charismatic one. And so ... under normal conditions, he could say that he simply began to take better care of himself and went in for sports, no one would doubt it. If they start looking for the Exalted on a large scale and systematically, based on indirect signs, will they may not believe him.

Regular training of the Tablet also brought results. The last battle had brought a lot of results. Thanks to the Gift, it was possible to pick out the important from the fleeting moments. The sand-clay attack on Zhenya was the first time the protection had repelled both physical and magical attacks, and a smart one, capable of targeting the target and independently climbing into her airways. And the protection did it, but the way the attack of the freak worked and the way the protection countered it, the thoughts of how to improve the defense, and how the shot maniac could improve his attack.... This alone gave him a trio of ones to his understanding, and that wasn't the most memorable moment of the fight. On the fourth day after the battle, Igor brought his protection almost to its peak, one step away from completing the comprehension scale of his main Tablet.

Alas, this little step seemed to require a much stronger investment of labor, brains, and imagination than the two-thirds scale before it. On the one hand, it frustrated him that there wasn't the typical experience filler bar, where each facet was worth exactly the same amount as the previous one. On the other hand, it slightly improved his mood, as for the rest of the Exalted, his problems were ridiculous since it was not an option for them to progress at this rate. Even his companions, who were getting some sort of increase from being in the same squad as him, boasted to Igor that they would soon reach fifty units of understanding on the main Tablets. Soon. If they kept up the pace. At that moment, Igor clearly felt that he didn't want to share his problems with either Zhenya or Vas-Vas, or they might punch him in the face.

The other two Tablets also grew, and the ritual grew even faster than the last two. It was a result of the already existing experience, which allowed one to notice regularities and similarities of separate arcane knowledge, to connect revelations, using the already known like fuel for a fire, which would light up the unknown. The mosaic structure of the Tablet also had an effect, which gave more freedom and allowed experimentation with different forms of application. Igor came to the conclusion that spirit Tablets should be developed more in direct combat or active use, while bone rituals increased self-awareness, even from trivial thinking about new forms and tricks. Igor was sure that he could try to develop the bowl, if not to a hundred, then to a new effect, without ever using the ritual itself, solely analyzing the structure of the mosaic and its possibilities in his head and soul.

Minor Protective Charm: 99/100

Minor Combat Shine: 96/100

Light Touch of Primordial Powers: Grant Fragile Chalice and Bodily Might: 37/100

He would have to finish with the Protective Cham, and then the Combat Shine would not be far from complete closure, which may well be followed by the evolution of the Tablet, its gaining new heights. Well, so suggests intuition and images-descriptions of one of Igor's gifts. That's what he thinks, lazily looking out the dark window, where even the lampposts are not visible behind the blizzard that lasts and lasts. The snowfall of the last few days is not just stormy. It's breaking all kinds of records, and utilities are scrambling to even clear downtown roads and fix power lines. The light outages have not occurred by miracle, and the profound swearing of utility workers. In a city panicked and flooded by a growing number of critters, only the power outages and the supply of basic necessities were not enough for complete happiness.

In general, in this winter cold, there was no time for walks and searching for the truth, so Igor wouldn't have been surprised if their recent raid on the Sculptor had remained completely unknown to anyone. Snow had piled up in some places as high as a man's height, roofs were broken in many places, pipes and other infrastructure were failing, and here were some missing men at their dacha. Eugene also temporarily quieted down. According to him, he hadn't even met Vasily. He just couldn't find him in such a blizzard. The homeless one was probably sleeping in some snowdrift again, taking advantage of his complete invulnerability to weather conditions and drinking vodka by the bucketful. So all Igor could do was to train and follow the news, which was not only interesting in his hometown.

For starters, for example, the weather anomaly was exactly around his small homeland. At a distance of fifty kilometers from the borders of the city, the weather is winter, but completely normal. And within this radius, the most insane weather conditions are only within the building, and even in the nearest kilometers from it. The whole world would have already trumpeted about the weather anomaly and the coming end of the world, although it would have trumpeted, if not for the fact that this was not the only place of special weather nastiness. A town in Norway, which had recently made the news, was also suffering from a cold and snowy winter, so cold and snowy that it was exactly the same as the one Igor was experiencing outside his window. However, the inhabitants there did not whine about it, as they had been forcibly and in a very organized manner evacuated due to the extreme weather and crime situation.

The army occupied that town, and not only the Norwegian army. Half of NATO had units there, and the U.S. contingent was growing, bringing in heavy vehicles and aircraft. Of course, the official version referred to sudden exercises and all that, but it was hard to believe. They were shooting there, as it seemed, really often, and also pictures of an armored personnel carrier M117, opened and almost turned inside out by an unknown shell, leaked into the network. It looked as if the armor had been torn by huge claws, but there are no such animals, despite the attempts of network bots to prove that it was just a big grizzly bear that escaped from the zoo, and defective steel, no other way.

There was also a town in Mexico, not too big either, a hundred thousand population, not quite a hundred thousand. The weather there also went crazy, bringing increasing heat and regular dust storms. Cartel warfare was going on in those storms, and corpses were found regularly. Who else but the cartels would mutilate those corpses like that, huh? Rumors that all the drug dealers had either laid low long ago or had decided to leave the city while it was being abandoned were probably an exaggeration. Just like the increased swampiness of another city in the United States, the one in Maine. The fogs there were particularly persistent, cold, and wicked, albeit without snow. Complete doldrums, growing water level, and huge problems with water supply, as well as missing people and uncovered cell of some terrorists, which were blamed for the casualties. And yes, also troops and still only planned evacuation, American citizens were too used to having their rights respected, and they couldn't keep quiet. And there were more of them than Norwegians.

Africa was marked by a large-scale dust storm around a town. There were similar cases in India and China, and in one of the prefectures of Japan, a weekly large-scale fog was observed, even thicker than in the United States, but without swamps. Everywhere were towns, small and relatively remote from other populated areas. Everywhere there were weather anomalies of different kinds, which struck almost synchronously, although the Norwegians were ahead of the world here, ahead of the rest of the world for a week at least. However, as Igor had noted before, his small homeland was ahead of the rest of the world by a huge margin. Half a million inhabitants, and all in one huge ice pit with predatory creatures.

The more Igor reads, the more he realizes that his city was very unlucky. Or Igor was lucky. His city seemed to be the largest among all the dispersal points of those glowing orbs that initiated the newly minted Exalted. That's why there's no reaction. Two or three dozen corpses in a town of thirty thousand people, and in a country with one of the lowest crime rates, to put it mildly, cause a stir. In a large city of five hundred thousand people, too, but not so active, not so instantaneous. On the other hand, patrols with machine guns are already roaming around, even in this weather, and their uniforms are no longer police uniforms, but green. And the mandatory evacuation is also coming. Igor is sure of it. They are making very characteristic speeches on TV. The only difference is that the reason for the evacuation is not the packs of dogs that are naturally eating up the outskirts of the city and tore even soldiers who tried to shoot at them into meat, not the piles of corpses, incomprehensible bullshit and frankly mystical incidents. No, it's just bad weather in the city. That's why they're taking you citizens out.
T.N. Зеленая униформа

Jokes aside, Igor was more for the removal of all living things than against, because pumping is pumping, but even with his increased spiritual fortitude he couldn't think about those people who were chewed up by the mouth of the Other Side, either killed, or worse than killed, or turned into those who kill and arrange a fate worse than death. The size of the city was more upsetting than pleasing. It was much easier to remove thirty thousand Norwegians accustomed to following the government's orders than half a million people taught not to trust their authorities, who sincerely believed that the state was going to fuck them one more time. Yes, not without reason, yes, it would probably screw them with payments and the provision of new housing, but it was better this way than to become a candy cocoon or a fucking concrete-brick statue.

The guy, pondering his prospects, was suddenly attracted by movement outside the window. A shadow flashed in the almost complete darkness, clearly not a trick of the mind, but something clothed in flesh. He pressed his face to the glass, sincerely regretting that the lights had been cut off. Or that the lamps had burst from the cold, who knows? The shadow moved again, again, again, and again, as if wandering in circles around the yard, throwing up snow. The car alarm started screaming. Such a nasty, standard melody, penetrating to the very bones and deeper. And as soon as the alarm went silent, it screamed again, and then again, and again. The shadow was no longer distinguishable, as if it were hiding, and Igor clearly understood that it really was hiding. Under or next to the very car that was now screaming, calling on the owner to drive away the thieves-carjackers. So that he would come out of his warm, concrete-protected shell, come closer, and become vulnerable.

Igor himself did not know what he was going to do. Shout out the window so that no one would dare come down, or go out himself, armed with a crowbar, a protection, the first layer of which was converted to resist the cold and also the shine, and then try to personally shut up the cunning creature. Fortunately, he did not have to decide, just as he did not have to reproach himself for indecision. The owner of the car turned out to be either lazy, or the owner of good intuition, or also did not sleep and saw something strange. He did not go out, just turned on the light in the window of the house opposite, and then leaned out of it, swearing to everyone around where he would stick the prankster's legs, having previously torn them off up to the ears. His threats were supplemented by the fact that the man turned on not only the light in the window, but also a powerful portable flashlight, pointing a beam right at his Precious.

At first, Igor, trying to blink his teary eyes, thought there was nothing there, that he had simply imagined that shadow. But it only seemed that way. The flashlight beam shone for about five seconds, showing a car covered in snow up to the windows, from the roof of which someone or something had shaken off the snow cap. And then the huge snowdrift next to the car moved slightly and stopped. The figure vaguely resembled a human, but its height was such that it would definitely not have fit into the car, about three meters, no less, maybe no more. Dressed in dirty rags, covering its entire long body with a thick layer, this something looked straight at the man who had swallowed his curses, and there was no malice or hatred in its behavior, just mild irritation. Like a predator who has missed this particular prey, but is confident that he will be lucky next time, that he will be lucky more than once.

With a leisurely and jerky step, this creature moved beyond the yard, and there was nothing human in its movements, as if there was something completely inhuman hidden under all those layers of rags. And it would have calmly left, but then a red dot, frozen in horror, flashed in the beam of the flashlight. It was Borislav Gennadyevich, who had obviously gone out that night to do his cat business. Neither the snowstorm, the cold, nor common sense frightened the cat, but the creature did. And he even managed to hide from that creature because that abomination was looking for something in the yard, looking, but did not find it. And now, it saw, throwing itself at the cat with one wide step-jump. The cat tried to rush away, to run to the basement window, but the snow was in the way, it restricted his movements, and, at the same time, the length of his stride was very incomparable with that of the three-meter-tall monster.

Then, Igor again acted within the framework of habit, a reflex, driven into the subcortex by only four battles on the brink of life and death. The young man casts the protection without thinking, covering the cat running from death with it, causing the hand, long even against the background of the creature's height, wide as a snow shovel, to slide along the force field, missing the animal. The protection sank by a fifth, no less, but it was only a fifth, taking into account the difference in size between the cat and the creature. And then a shine goes, flashing with white light under the paws of Borislav Gennadyevich, granting him courage and a thirst for battle. And the cat accepted that battle, turning around and rushing like a swift torpedo at the creature, which experienced something akin to cognitive dissonance from such a sharp change in status between hunter and victim. Like the bear that a small deer tried to eat. Or, more correctly for comparison, a wolverine.

A jump, the claws grab onto the rags, a second and third protection is placed on top of the first, the actively working shine allows the claws to cut that fabric easier than any web. The cat squeals and screams as if a loud growling "Meow!" was his secret weapon or a kind of prayer. The cat tears with his claws, rips out scraps of fabric, and drops of something black in the light of a flashlight trembling in someone else's hands. The owner of the car still hasn't lowered his hands. He hasn't removed the light source. The creature fights silently, only trying to catch the cat that has climbed onto it with a huge hand with too many joints, and the creature seems to have only one hand. In all directions, increasingly large scraps of fabric fly off, drops of an incomprehensible liquid that holds that fabric together, and the creature writhes like a snake, sometimes falling on its back, sometimes rolling on the ground, trying to tear the cat off itself.

The car they came across was crushed by a blow from a huge hand, as if an iron pole had fallen on the roof. Another car hidden under the snow was also flattened, and the noise in the yard was such that a lot of people had already come to the windows. And they all shone with something, unable to take their eyes off the battle between the cat shining with white light and the chthonic shit from the depths of the Other Side. The creature managed to knock down the first of the protections, but Igor immediately renewed it, and the constant use of the shine by the nimble and armored cat forced the enemy to spin like a top, trying to protect his throat and head. Igor was already going to activate the flash-explosion of shine when the creature finally achieved success, albeit quite comparatively.

With a jerk of its entire body, it fell to the snow covered with rags and spots of incomprehensible abomination, throwing off Borislav Gennadyevich, forcing him to freeze in the air, losing his support for a short moment. And then, straightening up, like a spring compressed to the limit, the creature decided to play baseball, not even knowing the rules. The blow with the flat of the palm-shovel on the hovering cat was performed at the level of the best stars of this sport. The cat flew no worse than a ball, only screaming in flight, all the way to the lamp post at the opposite end of the parking lot. Thirty meters, or even fifty, no less. Well, it's good that the post was not shining anyway. After all, from contact with the one who lost two amulets at once, the first from a blow with a paw, damaging that paw with a splash of force, the second from contact with the pole, the cat bent the pole. It’s also good that it was steel and not concrete; concrete would have been completely broken, but as it was, it just turned the letter “Г” into almost the letter “П”.

Borislav Gennadyevich shook himself off and started to run, having lost his belligerence and not wanting to continue the fight, quickly hiding in the basement. The creature, having shaken off the snow and the remains of torn rags, only raised its head, first looking into the window of the man with the lantern, who immediately dropped the lantern out of emotion. And then, in the ensuing darkness, because the light from the windows and smaller lanterns was not comparable to a hand-held spotlight, it turned to Igor, casting such an attentive glance at him. And the guy's protection, automatically placed and updated, for a moment seemed to sense something else. Viscous, slimy, stinking of the Other Side. This shit tried to cling to Igor's body and aura, like a stain, like a hunter's mark, in order to find it later.

He wanted to go outside and kill the cat-beaten bastard, but he was already rushing away into the winter darkness. Well, one more reason not to go to dark passages without protection, and not even for him, but for the man who owned the car. What's Igor care? He waited until the deadline for the renewal of the Vessels, just put the amulet on top of the second, and the first, brought to the top layer, and scattered with the mark embedded in it. The new protection was not affected, to the young man's relief and certain peace of mind. In the courtyard, meanwhile, there was a real commotion, people were yelling, crying, someone ordered to call the police, and some aunt yelled about calling the police, because "the cat almost killed a man". Yeah, such a mean cat. But it turned out just like in life. For self-defense, it is much easier to imprison than to look for a criminal used to hiding.

Igor went to bed silently, too tired from everything, including thinking about the answers to the obligatory questions of those who would arrive in the morning. No, they could arrive earlier, but the frightened witnesses would hardly open the doors of the apartments, and, most importantly, Igor would not wake up until the morning anyway.

* * *

And again, the young man watched the magnificent performance through the window, enjoying the second part of the already familiar blockbuster "To Catch Private Borislav", regretting only that he did not have a bucket of popcorn, only fresh porridge with honey and berries. Just a classic porridge.

The men in uniform who arrived early in the morning, almost at night, did not arrive as one lazy patrol or a couple of operatives sent alone with Whiskas. They were accompanied by a small minibus with a dozen armed individuals in uniform, with automatic weapons and in armor with helmets. And they questioned in great detail, and they took that man with the lantern away by the white arms, despite the latter's feeble resistance. The man's resistance was feeble and more symbolic, but Borislav Gennadyevich did not disgrace his native yard, resisting so much that Leonid from under Thermopylae in the afterlife wiped away his tears with a handkerchief.

Three men in uniform, a can of food, a cat carrier, a catch net, and, of course, the sounds of the touching "kitty-kitty-kitty" performed by huge foreheads, whose faces had all the thoughts about their occupation written on them. Written in obscenities, of course. The cat did not give up, maneuvered, climbed a tree, successfully carried out a feint, and disappeared into the snow, leaving the yard. He did not climb into the basement, because that is where he was initially found, forcing them to begin running operations. What is characteristic is the caution with which the cat was caught. They did not try to beat him, or hurt him, or shoot him with a gun. In general, a pretty sensible decision, because two (three, if you count that dog, the guys just don’t know about it) of the previous attackers of Borislav Gennadyevich either died or got some serious beatings during the conflict. The KGB agents who were busy catching cats clearly did not want to add to the statistics of those killed by cats, preferring a relatively peaceful approach.

Alas for them, but the old woman, who remained nameless for Igor, who turned out to be the official feeder and "sort of owner" of the yard pet, flatly refused to cooperate with the investigation, threatening to go all the way to the General Secretary himself if her cat was not left alone. Judging by her appearance, she really was going to see those General Secretaries soon, so the old woman was not afraid of anything or anyone on this Earth. In short, they did not catch the cat, no matter how hard they tried, which caused a certain touching joy for the freedom-loving cat, who could well be dissected if caught. He would not risk helping him again, certainly not in the presence of such a company. It was not fun. There was even less fun when inspections and surveys began to go around the apartments. People had nothing better to do, despite the workload and the crisis situation in the city. The fun completely disappeared when Igor looked at the questionnaires closely.

"Good day, citizen. And we've met before, I remember." It was none other than Fyodor Mamalygin who smiled at him with a kind and inviting smile, only instead of Ivan the Lieutenant, there were a couple of gloomy men in uniform standing behind him, and a sleek, fair-haired young man, only a couple of years older than Igor, looking tiredly in front of him. "You had quite a circus here last night. They say a cat bit a homeless person. So, we're walking around, questioning witnesses. Maybe you saw something?"

From this "cat bit" the novice Standard-Bearer was so dumbfounded that he couldn't even find anything to say, so he simply shook his head, intending to blame it all on "it was dark there, and I only showed up at the very end." And only with a superhuman effort, multiplied by complete composure and experience in acting, was he able to keep his face. He sincerely thanked his uncle and aunt, because he was ready for a lot, but not for the fact that his freedom, or even his life, would depend on his ability to keep his face. That same young man, on whom the soldier's uniform with completely ridiculous combat boots looked worse than a tuxedo on a cow, put his hand in his pocket, took out a very old-looking cigarette case, and then opened it a little. And then a very strong feeling of such a familiar, cold abomination wafted, which filled the flight of stairs, but only for a short time, literally for a second.

Just enough for Igor to see for a moment a spiral flashing in his inner vision and three Vessels in the chest of this scarecrow. No, he didn’t hold back until the end, but he managed to improvise in time, and his slightly twitching shoulders coincided with almost identical movements of the other guests. They, although people, also felt something wrong in the presence of the Upside Down. Perhaps not so obviously and strongly, but they felt it, and then there was the addition of the fact that they knew about the radiation, which is why they were nervous. The polyhedron in his pocket, sprinkled with Igor’s blood, froze and began to exude a mortal chill, and his colleague, who looked at it attentively, only slightly closed his eyes and shook his head. At this point, Comrade Captain suddenly became bored and quickly ended the conversation, pretending to believe that the young man had seen nothing and completely agreed with the official version.

They didn’t even go into the apartment, even though he had specially cleaned up a bit!

As soon as these visitors disappeared up the stairs, Igor crawled to the sofa and let out a tired breath, finally letting go of the tension. He was pretty nervous, pretty nervous. And he managed to get his shroud cube just in time, without which he would have had to quietly and calmly ride to the Big House. Well, or roughly and bloodily try to kill all the assholes who came to him, and then do something with the alarm group on duty in the yard or somewhere nearby. True, he did not see this alarm group, but he understood perfectly well that it had to be there, that those ten guys with machine guns had not gone anywhere, they had just disappeared from sight, because no one would send such a "check" without the slightest cover. And if he still didn't give a damn about the young player, then comrade Mamalygin clearly loved and protected himself. Who knows, maybe they also have some kind of protective amulets or something like that hanging on them? The fact that he didn't feel them yet doesn't mean anything, because he didn't listen to his feelings, he tried to pass for such a normal Normis that he felt sick.

Frankly speaking, he doubted that they would have tied him up right there. You never know what he might decide to do. They would have talked, stalled for time, waited for that very cover group to approach, feed him some bullshit, and tried to convince him to leave with them of his own free will. Until they got the bottle, so to speak. Surely an experienced KGB agent wasn't an idiot to provoke a nervous teenager with superpowers into a conflict?

So he sat there for at least a couple of hours, while another rising snowstorm raged outside the window, but the story of these terribly drawn-out days was in no hurry to end. The ringing of glass and the roar of an explosion again forced him to press his face to the window opening, although some part of him felt like an idiot. There was an explosion and gunfire, and he, damn it, was coming to take a closer look, an unafraid deer! Deer or not, but Igor saw quite enough. Several broken windows in one of the apartments in the building opposite, well, it was very difficult to miss. Especially if they were broken along with the window frame and part of the wall, smashing parked cars with bricks and laying one of "Borislav Gennadyevich's catchers" face down in the snow, and laying it so that the snow turned red next to the victim's head. It was three times harder to miss such a scene if, after the glass and the stone, two bodies hugging each other in a tight embrace flew down.

And yet Mamalygin turned out to be an idiot, because in one of the falls, Igor recognized the left brute with a gloomy face. The second flyer turned out to be a vaguely familiar guy, often drinking beer on a bench in the yard, remembered for always cleaning up empty cans and wrapping dried fish scraps in a newspaper. Increased perception allowed him to see the scene, although not in FullHD, and even with the effect of slowing down time, he still saw a lot. Igor did not miss the moment when the man seemed to blink, disintegrating into a bunch of sparkling moth-like lights, immediately gathering back from them, but already standing on his feet and losing all the momentum of the fall. Just as he did not miss the fall of the brute, who flew like a candle into the asphalt, clearly smashing his head and breaking his neck. The sight was clearly not something you see every day, but the beer and dry fish lover did not slow down, breaking into a run. Moreover, he was dressed only in worn underpants and one slipper on his right foot, but this did not hinder him from running and did not slow him down too much. Apparently, since the slipper did not fall off, that is why he survived the fall, yes.

Igor's opinion of Mamalygin fell even lower because the couple of guys waiting in the yard did not detain the fugitive, despite the fact that they started shooting immediately, without warning or even indignant cries. Scattering sparks again, the guy, in the form of a cloud of glowing dots, quickly moved straight to the couple of assholes in civilian clothes, regaining his body again and kicking the first corpse to the ground in the center of the chest. For some reason, Igor, who was watching all this action, does not doubt that the shooter died. He died, releasing a whole stream of sparkling sparks from his mouth, which the fugitive wrapped around and also killed the second shooter, after which he made a mistake. He slowed down for a couple of seconds to raise the barrel, well, or pull off the boots and down jacket, who knows. A kid in uniform, leaning out of a broken window and cursing loudly, held out his folded hand in front of him and started to fire not bullets, but combat magic, damn it.

The blow was not lightning, but something else, like a ribbon-thread woven from the polar lights, connecting the hand of the Exalted One and the end point. It hit no weaker than a lightning strike, clearly on a full Vessel, but the fugitive spent another charge, scattering into sparks and rushing out of the yard like a cloud of moths, hiding in snow swirls. Swearing and screaming, sounds of an alarm, cries of "Killed, Mom, I was killed!", because the degenerates with guns did not pay attention to where they were shooting at all. Well, the ground is concrete for them. What else can he say?(*) Igor only sighed, looked at how the blond guy, barely standing on his feet, was being scolded by the enraged Mamalygin, prescribing offensive slaps to the back of the head, and, shaking his head, went to lie on the couch and continue, because he finally stopped liking what was happening, but he still had no way to influence it. The sounds of the sirens of the arriving ambulance, someone's commanding shouts threatening to put everyone in jail, demote them, fuck them in the ass, and other bullshit, the guy simply slept through it all. It all tired him out.
T.N. земля пухом

He woke up from a nervous overstrained sleep towards evening, looking again at the damn blizzard outside the window and resolutely taking out the cash he had from his stash. If this continues, by analogy with other "contact points" around the world, then very soon there will be no food at all anywhere in the city. He needs to stock up while he can, and they are still accepting money. Again, the shelves in the supermarkets have been getting emptier in recent days, but it has not yet reached the point of absolute panic. Even rumors that the city will soon be put under self-isolation, as during some kind of pandemic, did not stop the work of grocery stores.

He spent all his money on shopping, filling the cart so tightly that he could barely drag it all to the checkout, and from there to the supermarket exit. He didn’t cry about the money, intuitively feeling that soon there would be nothing to cry about. That's why he called a taxi. The gloomy and unsmiling man of mountain nationality who arrived at the call communicated mainly with gestures, clearly not having had time to brush up on his language, but this did not particularly bother him - glory to the navigators. Having loaded some groceries into the trunk and the rest on the neighboring seat, the young man silently showed the completed payment and the final address. At the same time, he dropped a spam about a “hungry babe five hundred meters away from you” that had somehow gotten through the antivirus and adblock, only casually admiring the stock photo of some not particularly pretty woman. No thanks, he’d better close the door from such a babe, damn it.

Igor didn't understand what had alarmed him, and why this message had confused him so much that he kept thinking about it even while sitting in the car. But when the phone beeped with a new message that said “a hungry baby is running after you three hundred meters away,” he wasn't even surprised, just sighed tiredly. Nearby, the driver was no less tiredly cursing at the annoying spam, trying to close the exact same advertisement that prevented him from looking at the map. Igor didn't know what exactly his driver was saying, but he knew for sure that he could only use such intonation to speak in swear. The picture of the “ babe” was different, but it was also stock. And Igor realized only now what he didn't like about her - the lady's smile was very strained, tense, and she had more fangs than normal. Not cinematic vampire teeth, but too few incisors and too many fangs, he could see, but only if he looked at the image very carefully.

Ding-ding.

The messenger again reports that “the hungry babe is already a hundred and fifty meters away from you”, and the guy only sighs tiredly into the ceiling of the car, listening to the indecipherable muttering of the driver, who is trying to fix the navigator, parked by the side of the road, without turning off the engine. This is awesome. The Other Side abomination has already penetrated the Internet, has mastered how to say high technology. Modern problems require modern fucking solutions! Both intended victims of the unknown creature had no fear. One stupidly did not realize that they were threatened by something, and the other had seen too much shit and could not be properly scared. After looking at the completely abnormal picture of the “hungry babe”, which looked more like the genre of “post mortem”, he checked the protections and shine that were almost never removed, turned his gaze inward, assessing the state of the fragile Vessel, and also thought out a rough tactic.

After all, a loaf of hard-smoked sausage taken out of a shopping bag could kill as well as a club, and in his hands, with the effect of combat shine, it would hit as well as a cyberpunk katana or something like that. A messenger ding once again, and a joyful cursing of the driver, who managed to reboot the phone, starting the car again. Trying to start, because a relatively new, albeit budget, foreign car refused to start. Ding-ding. Ding-ding. Ding, ding, ding. The driver was no longer listening. He got out of the car, putting on gloves, and trying to fix the engine, simultaneously calling somewhere. But Igor is not prevented from looking at more and more strange pictures. The last one is especially good, with additional mouths on sagging cheeks. The last message told him, “hungry babe is near, look out the window”.

He looked out and saw a tall and skinny figure, partially hidden by the snowfall, waving at him. Igor, not really panicking, waved back, reaching into one of the bags that didn't fit in the trunk, pulling out the aforementioned stick of hard-smoked sausage. By the time he turned back to the window, the figure had successfully disappeared, and a new message had arrived on his phone, claiming that “the hungry babe is absolutely starving and really wants to play.” With a kind of hilarity in front of his attitude, the guy realizes that a couple of months ago, he would have built a brick factory from such a situation. But now it's fine, nothing like that, a working mood.

The cold air was hitting his face, the driver's swearing under the hood was almost inaudible, and the Vessels in his chest were accelerating more and more. The stench of the Other Side is no longer just a faint smell, but the creature does not show its face yet. Nodding to the driver, he points to the phone, saying he wants to talk, and the driver just nods, smiling, happy that the client does not scandalize and trying to explain with gestures and extremely broken Russian that soon, soon he will fix everything and let's go. There is only snow and emptiness around, stalls that have managed to close on one side, a long nine-story building on the other. There was almost no light in the windows, and even if there was, hardly anyone could see their company in the snowfall.

The cold, not only the inside cold but also the usual one, ties the fingers of the would-be repairman, preventing him from fixing what was clearly broken in an unnatural way. The cold does not prevent Igor from picking up a small piece of ice that had frozen on top of the storm drain, and then sharply throwing it over the man leaning over the hood. He did not even notice, even missed the dull flash of the whiteness, so indistinguishable against the background of the snowy landscapes. But the creature even recoiled, hiding its body in the swirling snowstorm again. She was tall, one and a half times Igor's height, skinny, naked, with folds of bluish skin hanging all over her body and several sets of breasts and mouths in the most unexpected places. In short, not a woman, but Giger's dream, and also hungry for caresses, even touchingly so.

Joke aside, the piece of ice did not kill her. It only slightly drove her away from the driver, so she could emerge from the snowstorm behind Igor in some kind of teleportation. How did he guess? Well, if a second ago you saw how the creature disappeared before your eyes, and a second later something grabs you by the neck from behind, trying to drag you into the evening darkness, then you can assume either teleportation, or another creature. Igor assumed teleportation. This ability fits very classically into the atmosphere of a sudden horror. Well, for some it was sudden, and for others it was sickening, yes.

The grip of the creature that had hugged him by the neck and dragged him five meters into the snow slipped off the soapy glass of the amulet, limiting the damage to the guy with snow that had gotten down his collar. An attempt to strike the prone individual with a long, weighty limb ended with the individual striking himself. With a sausage on the knee, until a wet and disgusting crunch was heard, to which only silence and the howling of the snow responded. The creature was silent and did not make a sound at all, not even the crunch of snow under its bare feet, the dimensions of which even the famous Bigfoot would envy. A size sixty-five, no less, even if the folds and toothy mouths on that leg are not counted in the total volume. That huge leg hit the guy right in the head as he tried to get up..

Thanks to the protection that sank by a fifth, he didn't feel either the blow or the overload, but his defense didn't completely extinguish the inertia. He didn't even have time to swing at the hobbled opponent, as she disappeared again in the snowstorm, and he was hit from behind with a hammer, no doubt. It turned out, not with a hammer, but with hands folded in its likeness. He flew about four meters, flying into a snowdrift. Well, to make a snow angel, no doubt. The windshield crunched, and the headlight fell off, which surprised not only Igor, but also the "hungry babe" that attacked him. Having appeared right above him, she tried to grab his limb and push him even further from the car, deeper into the depths of some snow-covered parking lot. The blow from the sausage didn't hit her fingers, but it forced her to pull her hand away while Igor slid down the glass, which was covered with a network of cracks.

Under the glass was a car interior, in which sat a frozen man with a slit throat and eyes pulled out of sockets. Those eyes were located on the palms of the severed hands that lay right under the glass, instead of an icon. As it seemed to him, not only was he surprised by such a sight, but also the babe opposing him. Rolling to the side, Igor does not act ideally, but calmly, which shocks the guy more than anything else. They are killing him here, there is a blizzard around, cold, you can't see a thing, and his opponents are chthonic bullshit with a love for online dating, and he is calm. That is, he is scared, he understands the danger, but still acts consciously and according to the plan, whatever it was. Acting, and not screaming in horror and calling for help from the Lord God!

There would be a reason for pride, but he is busy. He simply anticipates the new attack because the creature stupidly acts too predictably. The starving babe again appears behind his back, and he hits, hits with a backhand, putting more and more force into the sausage stick, hitting the side of the creature at the very moment of its emergence from the snow swirl. The sound of crunching bones and tearing muscles was his answer, and a slight hissing. As after the last attack, the creature does not react with a scream to the damage received. But it folded up, allowing another blow to break the hand extended in front of it, while the second is pressed to the wounded side. The third blow to the exposed back of the head is met only by a whirlwind of snow hitting the face, with which the creature disappears. Only upon contact with this whirlwind did the charge of the upper protection sag a little more, and the sausage flared up with a white glow, still touching something, doing something, damaging it.

The creature clearly didn't expect such efficiency, falling out of the teleporter from the side. He catches it in his peripheral vision, twisted and broken, about five meters away from him, and reacts immediately. Well, it seemed to him that it was right there, but there was no way to see it from the side, the third-person mode hasn't been brought to his RealRPG yet, and the customer support is generally sucks. The little babe fell on one knee, resting her only healthy hand on the snow, and not even pushing that snow with all her weight. It seems like she's trying to do something else with that snow, raise a new whirlwind to replace the one just destroyed, but she didn't have enough time. He wouldn't have enough time either, not in the snow, and especially in such weather, to pursue a teleporting creature. But he doesn't run after her on foot, no.

Igor is simply performing a new kind of sporting discipline - throwing hard-smoked sausages for accuracy. He threw a stick, so to speak, may all the gods of the universe forgive his sense of humor. And with a flash of white light, the movie spinning stick blows off the top part of the creature's head, which never managed to escape. No blood again. Its body looks as if it were made of papier-mâché, but the wound is fatal. It's a fact. After twitching a few times, the creature drops the rest of its face into the snow, beginning to emit a rainbow mist from its body. The blizzard around it subsides a little and no longer freezes its insides, and the stench of the Other Side immediately decreases. The driver's joyful shout comes from somewhere behind him, followed by the sonorous roar of the engine. The young man manages to grasp and partially wrap the mist that rushed towards him, absorbing as much as he can without arousing suspicion.
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He absorbs it and runs to the car, waving his hand so the driver doesn't run away with the purchased products, leaving Igor in the middle of the snowstorm. It would be a shame and much more dangerous than a fight with the creature. The fight, by the way, took place in less than a minute. The driver, fortunately, waited, demonstrating an outstanding customer focus for a taxi driver. True, now he wanted to chat and share his great wisdom with the young man, but it was much easier to endure than having to go home on foot. And without food.

"Don't eat shawarma just anywhere, brother! You have to get it from where there's good shawarma, I tell you!" Some people don't need an interlocutor for a conversation, or rather, they need an interlocutor, but not their answers. "Well, I was, I got poisoned by shawarma, I was sick, but why? And because a stranger bought shawarma! Well, you were poisoned, brother?"

"A friend of mine recently ate some sausage." That was all the young man could say, dreaming of getting there as soon as possible and forgetting this trip, like a bad dream, because he was in a bad mood and could only blame himself and his haste. "Immediately to death."

"Oh, my, my dear. When a girl dies, it's always bad." He seemed genuinely upset about the fate of a woman unknown to him, not even suspecting that he could have been her dinner. "Do you know her well?"

"Not really," Igor answered honestly, starting to twitch his eyebrow again. "We met on the Internet."

So he answered with one-word or extremely brief sentences, until we arrived right at his entrance, and the driver sincerely helped to unload the bags and even carry them into the entrance and then into the elevator. Then there was a whole epic with the transfer of products into the apartment and the arrangement of all this splendor on the shelves. And only then, having had dinner of vegetable salad and chicken thighs, having washed off the sweat and carefully mended the hole on the back of his warm jacket, left by the claws of a starving babe, he took off the effect of shine and gave vent to anger. He slammed his fist into the wall for all the money he had, and there was a resounding sound as if he'd dropped dumbbells. Luckily, the arm covered by the protection didn't hurt, as if he had hit a punching bag instead of a concrete wall.

The reason for his anger was simple and was hidden in the system status lines, his images, specifically the one responsible for the Step Filling Scale:

Step: 0 [999/1000]

And he realized that if he hadn't rushed, had just asked the taxi driver to wait, had lied about having a stomach ache or needing to pee, he would have gotten the treasured thousand. There was enough power in that rainbow mist that he had absorbed from the creature. He managed to grab at least a third, maybe even a quarter, he had received. So the creature was not as deadly dangerous as the concrete abomination in the late sculptor's house, but it was very multifaceted. A strong set of balanced abilities allows it to calmly hunt people all over the city. Camouflage, hiding in snow whirlwinds and teleporting through them, considerable physical strength and size, as well as the crap it did with the phone and the car engine. It's no surprise that the mist he got from the hungry babe was almost enough to complete the Step, even considering that he wasted most of its potential.

Well, at least he became a little stronger, purely physically. That same blow to the wall was as if it had been delivered by someone twenty kilos of muscle heavier. And he will find that unit somewhere, fortunately, as it seems to him, there will be more and more of all sorts of incidents in the city. That same dead man in the car has clearly been lying there for more than a day. He has already managed to freeze, but it was not the babe who killed him, because that was not how she tried to kill Igor. Two creatures were hunting on the same street at once, so the situation is gradually becoming not just tense, but it is already close to critical. And very soon, the number of corpses, disappearances, and outright chthonicity will reach such levels that it will no longer be possible to hide them, residents will begin to leave the city in an avalanche, and those who do not leave will be kicked out by force.

By that time, Igor must have finished taking the first Step and generally become stronger.

The weakling will be eaten.

At this sad thought, he was finally overcome by a wave of weakness and some kind of apathetic-meditative calm, with which he crawled to the bed and plunged into a sweet sleep.

* * *

Внимание! Этот перевод, возможно, ещё не готов.
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Переведено на Нотабеноиде
http://notabenoid.org/book/87876/586538

Переводчики: Camrad_RIP