Готовый перевод Ведомый / Follower: Эпилог: «Мальчик и Милфа»

Epilogue: "Boy and Milf"

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Igor woke up.

And Igor was also shocked.

First of all, of course, solely because he had woken up at all. Falling on the blood-soaked floor in the middle of the broken auditorium, he had almost resigned himself to the fact that he would never get up again. Well, simply because there was no one to pull him out, unless you counted Elizaveta Albertovna, who had fucked him beautifully, and literally. No, she could have saved him, even though he had a vague idea of how exactly to drag his unconscious body out of there, but then he would not consider her a conniving and mean bitch when he woke up. And he does think, and he remembers, he certainly hasn't forgotten the secrets of his own memory revealed to him... or he has, but he thinks he has. The paranoid thought was firmly lodged in his head, and he dutifully gave in to it for a few minutes, telling himself not to overreact. It was much easier not to play with the partial shift in emphasis, but to erase it all, making him an obedient boy again.

As he listened to himself, he realized that he was lying on his bed in the very same backup apartment from which he and the traitor had left for what was almost their last mission. The air was cold, but not icy; his ears were caressed by the barely audible rustling of something roasting on the stove through the two massive doors, and his body felt like clean clothes. Though the body itself wasn't exactly clean. When he opened his eyes and looked at his palms, he could see blood on his fingers, as if he'd tried to wipe them with a damp cloth but hadn't quite gotten it right. Yeah, he'd used up all the radiance and passed out, so there was dirt on his body. He remembered sharply those touches to the bitch-like creature, and then he wanted to wash off everything that could be washed off. Even with skin, if it would help to calm down and forget about the experience. It seemed somewhat ironic that he had little to no experience of actual rape from the adult woman who had tricked him, but the usual skin to skin touching with the creature made him feel a bit defiled.

Mental twists, no doubt.

He stood silently on his feet, not even wobbling, and reflexively felt his Vessels, three of which were still empty, but not so ultimatum. Another day or two of bed rest and they would be back to normal, the consequences seemingly avoided. He immediately used the remaining four Vessels, spending two of them on five layers of protection, as well as active shine. It wasn't that he was expecting a fight; it was easier to slaughter him asleep, but alas, he could no longer blindly put his back to a man who had become a stranger. Igor involuntarily suppressed his fear, wary of leaving this cozy room, reminding himself that he needed a shower, even if an icy one, for he wished to wash away the remnants of dirt from himself. Or remains. The thought of clean water gave him strength, renewed his resolve, and chased away the sprouts of cowardice.

Such a good feeling and lightness in his body, combined with a seemingly heightened sense, mobility, and a sense of his own power, made him glance at the Steps scale.

Step: 1 [992/1000]

Closed Protective Charm: 49/100

Shine of Combat Unity: 72/100

This battle had given him quite a boost! He would have been surprised, though, given the deadliness of the creature and its Step. Then again, he was five hundred percent sure that the mere presence of the Name added an experience multiplier to any of the creatures. He had not received those eight units of the scale, most likely only because he had turned off and could not consciously absorb any significant amount of rainbow mist. The picture of the received stream of images was completed by something else, more voluminous and, let's say, alien, which came not from inside, like a status-list, but from somewhere outside. Something reminded him, and not remotely, of the very VOICE that had informed him of the dark omens on the very first night of the Other Side's arrival.

You are marked by the Deed: Crossing out the Name

How much does the Name mean to those who were deprived of it and managed to find it, managed to chew it out, or beat out the Right? The Name is more than Everything, for the Name is you yourself, who has managed to become something you could not have imagined to be. Names are reflected in the Other Side and the roots of the Tree, Names distinguish those truly close to Greatness among the myriads of empty destinies. In the same measure, they doom the Descended to Greatness. Doomed or Exalted? Either way, one of the younger and only recently dog-clad Daughters of Bitches countless times of the accursed Mother of Bitches has had her last meal by your will and your power.

Mark of Feat acquired (Essence Modification)...

Igor analyzed these images several times, not immediately reaching the reward. There was power in the images, there was Mystery, and he noticed, not without surprise, how the Steps scale jerked upwards in his attempts to realize what was hidden behind these words and images. He backed away immediately, realizing that the mystery hidden in Mark would not go anywhere on its own, that he would have to absorb and digest it. One layer of reward on top of the granted Modification of the very elite segment. Even if his new Step was at zero, he would be able to close its scale just by those words full of mystical mystery. He would receive another part of the well-deserved reward, the last part, when he broke through to the second Step, but he had not yet fully realized the reward and therefore did not know what would be given to him when he broke through. But when he got to the evaluation and analysis of the free Modification, for the first time since waking up, he allowed himself a very pleased and somewhat anticipatory smile.

Smile, striding towards the door - the urge to wash away the grime, and not just the physical grime, was only getting stronger by the second.

The door creaked horribly, but he wasn't going to quietly hide and sneak around. No fucking way! He entered the shower calm and confident, not looking into the kitchen, though he realized she couldn't have missed his awakening. Given her capabilities, Elizaveta Albertovna should have sensed his awakening without needing to see or hear. The water was cold, just icy and a little rusty, especially at first, but it was water. And the protection helped him cope with the cold, though the sensation of the shower was strange, because he could feel the texture of the water passing through the protection, but not its temperature. It was as if the very concept of coldness or hotness was simply cut off by the closed line of the barrier. It didn't stop him from washing off the dirt of the battle.

He got dressed in a thick terry robe, which was too big for him, and went into the kitchen, receiving a polite nod from Elizaveta Albertovna, who immediately began to serve him a portion. She was hitting on the sore, insidious, because he wanted to eat up to the point of squealing, as if the body was digesting itself in the process of recovery. And the dish itself - egg with crumbled sausage, herbs, tomato, and grated cheese, fried in a basket made of a piece of bread, from which the crumbs were cut out, knocking the base of the dish into the resulting “basket”. Something similar was prepared by his mother in his distant childhood, and afterward by his aunt, because they learned to cook in the same house. It wasn't his favorite dish, but definitely in his top five. For a few long seconds, he thought about whether to spit and leave or try to rip the bitch's head off, but hunger won out.

A knife, a fork, a primitive salad garnish, and complete silence. He wasn't afraid to eat the food she had prepared. His shine would protect him from poison, and the protection would be able to block the poison right in his stomach, given his current level of Understanding. The portions, by the way, are very respectable; they both want to eat very much, because while he was lying in a blackout, Elizabeth Albertovna also reached the first Step, having passed the zero mark. He wondered if she was supposed to be rewarded too. Let him hate to admit her involvement in his feat, but she had dealt the final blow, no matter how it went. These heavy thoughts did not prevent him from eating and keeping gloomy silence, but, to his shame, when the food was condemned, he was the first not to endure it, and in a tone full of resentful anger, he spoke the obvious truth:

"We need to talk, Elizaveta Albertovna." And there was something in his tone that, for a second, a fraction of a second, the unshakable calm of his interlocutor, if not cracked, was slightly shaken.

"This is a fact that is hard to argue with." She answers in an even tone, shaking a glass of grape juice, because there is no alcohol of any kind on the table. "This conversation is really important.

"I want to kill you on the spot, to be honest." Igor does not threaten, which is typical, but simply states a fact that is obvious to him, but this time, not even a shadow of fear flashed across Elizaveta Albertovna's face.

"I can't agree with that desire, but I recognize that there are decent reasons for it." The smooth and fluent lawyer speak didn't annoy him, but it did irritate him a little, and he would have liked to get more emotion in return. "I'm judicious about my chances in a direct confrontation, so I'm not going to humiliate myself by trying to resist. However, if it's your will, I'd like to suggest alternatives that don't involve my funeral. If there are any."

And she wasn't afraid, even if she clearly understood that Igor wasn't lying. Even if she could read his feelings instead of his thoughts, she wouldn't notice the falsity. He really wanted to kill her, just to shut her up forever and never remember her existence again, to get out of the apartment, out of the city, maybe even out of the country. He always wanted to see the beaches of Spain. If only to find more finances for them, and even taking into account the fact that sitting in front of him clearly has full pockets of cash, figuratively speaking, because that cash is in a separate purse, not in her pockets, moving closer to the warm seas will require a lot of investment. He doesn't know what he's experiencing, he doesn't know whether to kill her or not, so much so that part of him is tempted to flip a coin and decide the final result by its flip.

“I want to kill you, that's a yes.” He repeats, never coming to a decision, never deciding to cut the scene off right at one second. “But I realize the other thing as well. I shouldn't want this. If anything, I shouldn't be awake at all, and if I am, I shouldn't remember anything dangerous to you. Except here I am. Thinking about killing you. And you're acting like a fucking ice-cold lady and you haven't even fucking apologized! Well, unless you count breakfast as an apology. How'd you manage to get me up in time, by the way?”

"I'll start at the end, I guess. I could sense the minds around me, and over the weeks of practice, I'd learned to distinguish between a mind in something like a medically induced coma and a mind just sleeping, about to wake up." Still no trace of apprehension or even remorse, nothing at all, like water off a goose. "As for apologizing. I won't be a hypocrite, and what can I say? Oh, I'm sorry, Igor, I didn't mean it, and I'm sorry. Well, I did mean it, and I did it. And I don't regret what I did. It's just. It's just that even I still have something like an atavism of conscience. I died out there on that board they tied me to. I've already buried myself, and I'm almost at peace with it. I... hell, I'll tell you, I'd stab the victim if I were you. Even if I didn't have the excuse you had. Just because I wanted to live, even an ugly life like a dead dog in human form."

She finished the grape juice in a gulp and, under his silent gaze, pulled a half-empty bottle of martini from the collapsing kitchen cabinet, pouring herself a full glass with slightly trembling hands. Not so much from fear as from some strange anger, not at herself, but at the world and the circumstances. The woman caught his gaze and poured him a drink, too, but it was a smaller portion for him. She drank the drink as if it were water, which was understandable. Even without experimental confirmation, Igor was sure that at the current stage, he could drink vodka as well as Vas-Vas. Not the Tablet of Shine, which purifies poisons, but a Step, which makes the body more perfect, would save her.

"You know, when you covered me, I just couldn't. I watched you shut down from overexertion. I'd already taken a drop of blood from you so I could get into your dreams and rewire your brain, and then I just couldn't. I wanted to, really. You don't know how much you wanted to." If she's trying to justify herself, she's not doing a very good job, but she doesn't need to; she seems to think she's above trying to justify herself. "So she decided to surrender to mercy, so to speak. At the same time, to buy back my life or even forgiveness of my actions."

"Buy it back with what? With money?" The venomous sarcasm in Igor's tone would be enough to wipe out the entire population of stray dogs in the city and the surrounding area, even if they resisted. "I don't give a shit about money, Aunt Lisa, don't you know that! I didn't give a shit the first time we met and I don't give a shit now! I fucking trusted you! And you betrayed me, stabbed me in the back, and raped me for dessert!"

For the first time, a shadow of guilt flickered in her expression, not guilt, but a slight discomfort, as if she'd really done something wrong. Well, forgetting to wash the dishes, not returning a borrowed hundred, or even scratching his car while parking, if Igor had a car. And even these fleeting traces of the workings of the vestige of conscience she mentioned disappeared as soon as he finished speaking. They disappeared, replaced by the same skepticism that made me want to punch him in the face, but with his amplification from the shine, it wouldn't fracture his skull, it would blow it the fuck away.

"Igor, I'm about to be as frank as I've been with anyone in the last twenty years. And I'm really ashamed of myself for... not holding back. My tastes had never been very specific, and I hadn't been attracted to young boys before my exaltation." The explanation was completely out of place, but Igor calmed down, just too embarrassed to listen to it to get angry. "But when you got caught in my web... I didn't intend to have any intimacy with you, believe me, but when I saw you, strong and deadly, but completely in my power. I'll be honest, it blew my mind in ways I didn't expect. I had planned to subdue you and make you an obedient assistant, and I was honestly not going to harm you. Unlike my last team, you didn't try to rob me, kill me, or anything worse to turn you into a vegetable unable to live without my direct orders."

Igor, who had noted in passing a detail about Elizaveta Albertovna's relationship with her past team, was not even boiling; he was almost laughing at the situation. It was as if the bitch sitting in front of him didn't realize that her words didn't help him stop wishing her death! However, some small part of him even admired the other's insolence, thickly mixed with extreme self-control and cold-bloodedness of some alligator's level. It was as if she were deliberately pissing him off, but she stopped just short of the point at which he would spit and try to kill her.

"So, yes, my guilt is undeniable, and so is the fact that you will have every right to demand everything from me, up to and including your life. I knew it when I dragged you through the city, when I didn't leave you when my protection wore out, when I waited for you to wake up." It was getting through to her, getting through to her, making her bargain for her life, even if indirectly and not directly, mentioning all the good things she'd done to him, but even that stopped when she smiled a slightly ironic smile at Igor. "I'm guilty. I acted like a jerk. I don't argue. I don't argue with almost anything. But when you talk about rape... Igor, I can read minds and memories. I know perfectly well that you didn't just like it, that you would have agreed to everything I suggested if I had just asked...."

"But I didn't agree!" Igor interrupts her already blatant twisting of the facts, gets up from the table, leaving deep furrows on it with his shining white fingers, blushing with anger at the fact that she tried to justify herself in this. "And you didn't ask! You're a very beautiful woman and you got it out of my head how I fucking jerked off to your image with pleasure, but you didn't ask! You didn't offer! You just took it for granted! You really don't see the problem with that? Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Bitch, even if you bewitched me and fucked me, I might fall for your tits! You couldn't have known, you got inside my head! You'd just have to ask, wouldn't you? Why ask when you can take? I've been helping you! I trusted you!"

Exhausted, he simply falls back onto the chair and looks at the ceiling. He didn't even want to cry, he just wanted to leave, anywhere. It's unpleasant when those you trust betray you, who helped you so many times before, and didn't betray you. It's just that before this, help didn't cost her anything cardinal or vital; it allowed her to be good, without suffering any particular inconveniences. But as soon as the benefit from the blow to the exposed back exceeded the "norms of decency", then it all started. But she didn't abandon him there, she didn't start to brainwash him again, did she? It seems like it was even in the calculation, huh? Only some kind of rotten calculator turns out. Igor doesn't like such shitty mathematics, worse than a sudden test in algebra at school.

"Well... I can't find any objections to what was said." Elizaveta Albertovna says quietly and a little lost, and for some reason, it seems to Igor that she either hadn't thought in this plane before, or, more likely, thought that Igor thought in the same plane as she did. "Probably, I should apologize for this. And also voice the options for what will happen next."

Turning his tired gaze to his interlocutor, Igor expressed not even interest, but rather expectation, achieving in response that Elizaveta Albertovna pulled a small bag towards herself, taking out several sheets of paper covered with writing, a stack of cash, and a small pencil case, from which she took out a couple of clearly mystical objects. On top lay an iron shiv, already emptied of the embedded shine, the length of a kitchen knife.

"Option one has already been announced and does not need any additions." Again, in a dry and businesslike tone, with a minimum of real emotions. "As I already said, I will not resist, I will only ask you to do without experiments in mastering the torture business. It is still better than what awaited me without your help. In the bag, there is cash, several passwords to crypto wallets, as well as detailed instructions on how to leave the city. While you were sleeping, my contact got in touch, and now either we or you alone will be taken and delivered to Moscow without unnecessary questions. You may not believe the latter, but no one will stop you from leaving on your own. You will just have to stand in line for evacuation, and they will take you wherever they have to. Also hidden in the pouch are four Mystery items, as that thing in our heads calls them. I advise you to look at them right now."

Igor obeyed silently, immediately assessing what had fallen into his hands. The first artifact, albeit in triplicate, was an advanced version of the Shroud. A sort of thread rolled into a ball, which completely muffled even the most powerful etheric vibrations, hiding not just the presence of the Exalted One nearby, but even active training or ritual actions. This miracle was called the Line of Deafness, and it worked for more than a hundred planetary years after it was activated, although it did not move to a new place and was damaged when trying to remove it. And it was also damaged by active reflection and damping of etheric vibrations, so the real duration of its work would be calculated in a couple of years, not centuries. Using the ball is simple - you just need to unwind it and leave the thread in all corners of the room, as if creating a closed three-dimensional figure with bases in the walls, ceiling, and floor. Igor, by the way, felt a certain synergy between this thread and his protection. He was sure that the closure of the Tablet would be able to enhance the effect of the external Mystery.

The second artifact... it was something much more serious, and the young man understood that for this he was ready not only to kill her, but also to seriously think about forgiving her. This thing looked like ordinary chalk, two pieces of chalk, to be more precise, which were connected together with a dull copper ring. This chalk was called the Door Drawer, and this name was extremely appropriate. One side draws a door, or to be more precise, just a closed quadrangle, in one place, and the other draws it in another place. Then, having emptied at least five Vessels, this door can be opened, connecting two points in space. The transition lasts about a minute and a half, and everyone who passes through it must pay another Vessel for each of their Steps... or wait for someone to pay for it.

Igor, by the way, noted the fact that Elizaveta Albertovna herself would not be able to use this thing, although she would clearly want to. Even if she was given a similar feat mark, which would allow her to close the first Step and step onto the second without any extra effort, she would have enough charges to open the passage, but not pay for it for herself. However, if we are being completely honest, no one would stop her from finding another Exalted One among the refugees and brainwashing him or her in order to have a protector and guide.

"One of its ends is shorter and shows signs of friction." The young man looks at her questioningly, deliberately not touching on the topic of whether he will decide to kill her or not.

"Yes, that's right." She points towards the pantry next to the kitchen. "The blank for the transition is there, but it can be erased. It will just eat up an equal amount of resources from the other side of the Drawer. I was a little discouraged by the prospects that opened up and couldn't resist checking. One way or another, my life is in your hands, and what we've obtained can be easily appropriated."

"Other options." There is still no decision, he does not know where to stop, and this clearly gets on the nerves of the woman who senses his emotions even through his defense. She tries to either appease him or move him to pity.

"Option two: we simply part ways like ships in the open sea." She shrugs, as if she is voicing something self-evident, and what she has voiced is truly obvious. "You are free to use my help, or you are free to try to get out of here yourself. You are free to take any of the listed values, as well as demand large financial investments. It is only now that I cannot empty the bank account for obvious reasons. After that, we disappear from each other's lives and do not remember why we decided to disappear. I will add on my own behalf that I will be ready to restore our cooperation at any moment, and not only because your Gift is so useful for my development."

Igor didn't even chuckle, although he appreciated the way the question was put and the seemingly sincere words, the sincere readiness for any outcome. However, how could he know how much sincerity there was in the intentions she voiced and declared? That's right - he had no way of knowing, because he still didn't have the ability to read minds, and it was not a fact that he would ever have it. Wrong Lot, alas, wrong specialization.

"The third way is to simply return to cooperation, but now without... my usual methods of persuasion." Seeing the endless mountain of skepticism in the eyes of her interlocutor, she raises her hands in a conciliatory manner, putting them out with palms away from herself, as if fencing herself off from possible reflections. "I understand perfectly well that you have no way to check my kindness and truthfulness. And I certainly will not promise not to use my abilities on someone else because, excuse me, you are worthy of my trust, and not temporary allies. But I will approve of any reasonable measure of reinsurance... and the very fact that we are having this conversation, it seems to me, gives a tiny credit of trust."

"Very tiny." He corrects his interlocutor, but also agrees with her, and also remembers his own thoughts and intentions. "I won’t hide the fact that I am interested in group work myself, but I don’t trust you... and why am I still on formal terms with you?"

Well, one could be proud, because his last question had thrown her off balance for the first time in ages, letting her face take on an expression of real surprise. A reason to be proud, given Elizaveta Albertovna's impenetrability at any given time. She scratched her eyebrow thoughtfully and shrugged, I have no idea what the answer to your question is.

"You can call me by my name, I don't see a problem with that." Yeah, but he sees a problem with her, and not related to her name.

"Why not Aunty Lisa?" Again, there was offence and venom in his voice, though it seemed that he had already burned them out, but no, one can't burn out such a lot of venom in one heart-to-heart talk.

"You can do that, Igor. In fact, that's option four." Here his eyes bulged, so much so that he choked on the air from such disarming impudence or simplicity, for a few moments not finding words, and when he did, he limited himself to an indignant squeak of some kind. "Well, I couldn't help suggesting it. You remembered all the things I'd conjured up for you, so it's silly to hide it - my Lot had opened up, shall we say, a new side of sexuality for me. I loved it, and I'd like a sequel. You liked it too, but were insulted and angered by my betrayal. What I'm suggesting is that we start over. say, without erasing the memories, or with a regular reset every three or four days. I, um. It's gonna be hard for me to trust anyone else but you."

Igor had a breakthrough after all. Well, or he had butthurt, especially at the moment with ‘trust’. Fucking trust, he was so proud of the honour he had received.

"Is it hard for you to trust someone you've brainwashed?" The look on his face now would have honoured Jim Carrey in his best roles, so twisted was he with the urge either to shout or to laugh. "Are you serious right now? Really, really, really serious?"

"I phrased it wrong, sorry, I'm a bit tired." If his grimaces swayed Elizaveta Albertovna, it wasn't visible outwardly. "I don't mean mistrust of those I, um, process. I mean distrust of those I'm giving control of myself to. And don't give me that look, you know I'm not lying if I really remembered all the dreams I sent you, all the compulsions I left in you."

To be fair, the young man who wanted to shout “you lying, lying, like Trotsky!” did slow down with the shouting and insults. Because, yes, something like that was really remembered, to make him believe that it was he who controlled his mistress, and there were some scenarios. And there were other variants, but some of them she obviously didn't bring to the end, first of all, taking care of his subjugation, not creating role-playing games for her perverted mind. But he still didn't believe it, and not even because of his knowledge of psychology. He knew almost nothing about psychology, and the real personality of Elizabeth Albertovna was not what he saw in her. No, the real reason for his disbelief was something else, much more down-to-earth and practical.

"Bullshit. It's bullshit!" He is not even angry, but speaks with a reproachful tone, simply because someone who is so good at lying purely by profession could lie to him better. "Even if I believe under your compulsion that it was I who hypnotized and subjugated you, and now I use you as a sex doll in every possible way, it would be a lie. I would have no control in that state, only the illusion of it, and you could turn me off at any time with a single order, making me a good fucking boy for Aunt Lisa again. Honestly, damn, I like you. I like you, I desire you, but, uh. It just can't be an equal two-way relationship."

"First of all, Igor, I'm not focused on mind-weaving alone, and I'm quite capable of intimacy without the use of Udel. If you wish, I won't deny you some bondage or the desire to, ahem, spank me for bad deeds." Okay, Igor gives up. He can't talk with such a serious and businesslike expression on such topics. He already blushing like a beet, but she does not stop. "Don't take it for bargaining, but my gratitude extends very far, and I won't take offense at your desire to... let's call it an attempt to pay me back for actually committing violence against you. Even without any further cooperation or commitment. It's embarrassing, mind you, since you're the first man I've ever actually offered a form of payment with my own body. As for the issue of trust and why I wouldn't trust someone else....."

Igor didn't lower his redness, noting in passing that the bitch had successfully managed to shift his thoughts from murder to a completely obscene matter. So obscene that even anger hid behind shame, but she obviously had no shame. No wonder, for where have you ever seen a successful lawyer who possessed even a modicum of that shame? Quite right, there are no such people, if not in fairy tales and TV series about pure love for aging housewives.

All these thoughts were interrupted by a new artifact, which Elizaveta Albertovna took out of the second pouch hidden in her pocket and placed on the table. She demonstrated the very reason why she would not be able to trust anyone else properly. On the oilcloth-covered table lay a small dollop of a shapeless man, the size of a trinket, literally two phalanges of an index finger. And many words stuck in Igor's throat when he read and realized the properties of the Puppet Master's puppet, then compared what he had seen and what she had said. The objectified sacrament worked once, first binding itself to a drop of the owner's blood, and then requiring a drop of someone else's blood, but it could do with a hair, for example. And then, when a part of the victim was in the chrysalis, the owner could release all his Vessels, or part of them, pouring them into the mystical trinket. For every Vessel of the victim, it was necessary to spend two of its own to overcome, so the moment of attack is very important; it is best to strike at the moment of emptying the victim.

The more the Vessels hit the victim “ clean”, without being stopped by their own power charges, the more the effect will be complete. The trinket becomes completely useless to everyone except the owner, who will not be able to lose this trinket because it will be in his pocket, somewhere nearby, or under the pillow. Throw away, by the way, you can, but then the effect is instantly destroyed. The victim will not be able to see the trinket, to realize its presence, as well as to assume the fact of their subordination, even if a third party tells them about that, they just do not realize what was said. The only one who will be able to make the victim realize her position will be the owner of the puppet. And, of course, the ability to directly broadcast will through this transmitter - jump up, say something, forget something, do something. For example, get down on all fours and let yourself be fucked, to get dressed and forget about being fucked.

The better the mystery has worked, the stronger the effect of the transmitter and the faster the orders will sell the personality and resistance of the target. Gradually, the connection weakens, and the puppet becomes unusable, so that the moment the puppet disintegrates, all the secrets become apparent - orders, blocks on memory, forgotten or perceived as normal. It was a scary thing, really. The power in it was no less than that of the crayon for portal magic. And it was quite obvious what exactly Elizaveta Albertovna was offering him, smiling a slightly satisfied smile at the look of shock on his face.

"This thing is your insurance policy if you accept my offer. And no, I didn't hide it for later use. If you were going to execute me, you'd just read about it in those records over there, that's all. The only way I was going to keep it was if I survived, but we're going our separate ways." She says, hiding, precisely hiding, her excitement. And also a slight embarrassment, because she, too, is a bit uncomfortable admitting her preference so openly. "I'll let you apply it to me. First to apply, of course. Again, without any obligation on your part. I'll empty the Vessels myself, and you'll judge my sincerity and see if I'm willing to deceive and deviously subjugate you. You will be the first to get into my head and can do whatever you wish with my body. And, if you do agree, I would be extremely grateful if you would let me once again bewitch you, and make you a good and obedient boy for Aunt Lisa. Because Aunt Lisa will be good and obedient, too. We'll just switch roles from time to time. That's what I want. That's what I'm proposing. I know and feel and see that you like being mine, but you don't believe me, you suspect me. That's justified, I don't dispute that. But in front of you is the key to testing me, the key to myself."

He remained silent for a while, trying to hold back the laughter that was bursting out of him, rather than explode with anger at her and himself. The traitor's proposal wasn't just reckless, no, it felt like strict logic and a well-thought-out plan. Morality and ethics aside, her proposal literally answered most of the questions in their dispute.

"That's, uh... strong move." Igor stares at the damn puppet for a few minutes, and then turns his gaze to the extremely smug Elizaveta Albertovna, who can't be fooled by his acting, because she senses his real attitude. "Yes, you're right. It's a very tantalizing option. Pleasant for me. But I have to think about it. And also, if-- if-- - I accept, we'll have to talk about it. From the beginning. From the get-go."

The smug look of triumph on her face made him want to change his mind, but why fool himself? He didn't mind checking out the bitch's thoughts and desires. She had told him directly that she trusted him, that she trusted him to break the deal if he felt that the answers he received from her submissive mind did not suit his delicate nature. It's still foolishness, though, because he sees too many ways to fool himself, if only by the fact that her Tablets may well work on her too. In that case, with the proper desire and diligence, Elizabeth Albertovna could sincerely believe anything at all.

So agreeing to her offer was a game of hussar roulette, and the gun in it was quite possibly a magazine gun.

But Igor would probably agree anyway. Because he desperately needed at least some support and help, because he still wanted, despite everything, to believe in the best human qualities of Elizaveta Albertovna, because he liked her purely physically and he really wouldn't mind fucking her in return. And not in return either. And also because he was in fact not so risky, because in his arsenal there was something that his insidious and quite probably deceiving ally did not know. That something was lurking in the images of his status list, and he glanced back into himself involuntarily.

Essence Modification (First Stage): Eyes of the Reader I

Essence Modification (First Facet of the Lot): The Connecting Thread I

Essence Modification (Mark of the Feat): Feather of Free One

The last of the Modifications had no level, having originally been maximized. Perhaps there were similar variants of the Modification with similar or exactly the same properties, which could be improved even more as the Step and Rank increased. Perhaps, but Igor didn't know that. He knew that his reward was, as a Modification, incredibly strong and dense. The point of Modification was in the brain, running along the blood vessels that pierced the brain, as if creating an additional set of those vessels, temporarily blocked, but connected to a pseudo-Vessel, which was not a Vessel, but a storage and accumulator of power. It was like a feather curled into itself, folded into a tiny ball, but capable of unlocking the system of vessels and opening almost like a fern blossom.

This thing recharged in passive mode. Igor could neither speed up its work nor prevent it from doing so. And it triggered not only at will, but also automatically, once every thirteen calendar days of the planet Earth, plus or minus a couple of hours. This feather-flower in its unfolded state was able to heal the consequences of the abomination that the Bitch's Daughter had successfully inflicted on him, whose cursed Name no longer caused Igor such a comprehensive underlying horror and involuntary servile admiration. The same effect was guaranteed to remove all, absolutely all attempts to get into his head, leave a suggestion, or erase a memory.

Given the energy density of the Modification's body, its ultimate level of development, and all that, at the current level, Elizaveta Albertovna would simply not be able to deceive this defense. Even if she subdues it, it won't help her. The more the host's mind is processed and damaged by compulsions, the harder it is for him to even remember the presence of this Modification. He would never voluntarily tell her about this insurance, and involuntarily, he would simply not remember to tell her.

Igor was ready to forgive her, even if not completely. For all that she had done before the system had arrived, and for the fact that she had managed to overpower her pragmatic beastliness and saved his life without trying to take back his newly acquired free will. Yes, he was ready, no doubt about it, but some part of him wanted the opposite, wanted this woman to try to betray him again, to try to deceive and subjugate him again. And then, he would finally stop doubting, and she would stop being his, stop being the one he couldn't kill. And the world would become simpler again, clearer and more obvious, and Igor would finally stop having agonizing doubts.

"Well," he says, smiling a little sadly and at the same time hopefully, looking into the calm eyes of his interlocutor. "Let's try to start over, Aunty Lisa."

She still read his emotions, sensed them, saw something new in his gaze, something that had not been there before, something that had appeared only now.

She saw it, but still couldn’t take her eyes off it.

* * *

The trip had gone so smoothly that Igor couldn't help but worry. No chance encounter with some monster, no dangerous patrol of soldiers, no spontaneously emerging outlaws. Actually, if you don't count a couple of frozen bodies that they encountered on the way to the designated point, and the need to break through snowdrifts that they hadn't even tried to clear anywhere except the central streets and near the evacuation centers, then the walk would have been meditative. Soothing, melancholic. Elizaveta Albertovna's contact turned out to be one of the representatives of the prosecutor's office, not the most significant, but still a big shot, a small big shot. Since all the security forces and the like in the city were successfully put under arms to maintain order, the actual lieutenant colonel had leverage. And even though he was not allowed to do such important things as preventing looting by anyone not on the list of trusted persons, he was able to provide a good friend with a car, a driver, and himself as an escort.

Igor listened with some interest to how exactly she and Sergei Olegovich had met, because it would have been enough to write a short crime detective story. Elizaveta Albertovna, or simply Elizaveta, as she graciously allowed him to call her, and Aunt Liza only when they were alone and, preferably, in an intimate setting, introduced Igor as her almost-godson, the son of a friend from her youth and simply a good neighbor who had not managed to leave the city while he could. Because he was not very smart. To the caustic remark of her acquaintance that she was not very smart either, it turns out, the woman only sighed and admitted that someone else was right. The lies flowed from her mouth easily, smoothly, without unnecessary details and subtle moments, which is why Igor admired her at that moment.

Yes, she was solving the issues of moving to a new place, closing cases, hoping for clearer weather, and here she was, getting what she got. Moreover, the young man was absolutely sure that if the prosecutor decided to check her words, he would find all the evidence - the correspondence, the unfinished contract, and the purchased tickets that were never used due to the cancellation of flights. He considered himself a good adept at acting, simply due to the environment in which he grew up, but all his antics were precisely theatrical, which an experienced investigator can see through in a jiffy. Elizaveta knew how to lie so that even experienced law enforcement officers, who by virtue of their position are supposed to see through all kinds of liars, believed her.

"How did you get here, huh?" The man criticizes her, showing, it seems, quite sincere emotions. "I would have driven up to the apartment myself. Gosh, you would have just waited another half a day. I would have borrowed an AMV from Leshchinkin, who has better passability. Or a snowmobile. They're bringing them here by the dozens now, soon we'll be using them. Because nothing else can fucking pass through here. We've got a lot of people here, all afraid that this weather shit is going to spread outside the city and the neighborhood. There's nowhere else in the world like this. Nowhere else has such a major center hit an anomalous zone. We're ahead of the world for once, but it's no fucking fun. They say they're about to decide to set up a joint headquarters. Europeans, Americans, Chinese - all will send here their assistants, or spies, or both at once. And we'll send them ours. Both at once."

The man obviously saw no reason to hide the secret information, probably because it would not be secret for long, if it was secret at all, even for a day. The network is no longer catching, of course, but the trains and buses full of refugees leaving the stations will run circles around the water. There's no way to shut so many mouths. Somebody is bound to carry a flash drive or a camera of some kind, somebody will turn out to be an Exalted One who slipped through the inspection nets. And someone will turn out to be a creature, which is even more fucked up. The background of the cursed Other Side in the city is growing, it's in the snow and swirls of the blizzard, which makes the detector effect work every now and then. Well, it would have worked if Igor hadn't covered them both in a closed barrier of protection.

Igor also noted Sergei's keen eye, with which he led them “in a pass for their own” to put them in reserve seats on the outgoing train. The rails were easier to clear than the roads: special snowplow wagons had been brought in or pulled out from somewhere, and some of the locomotives had been turned into a homemade Mad Max-inspired clearing machine. Igor and Elizaveta noticed three spiraling Vessels owned by an unremarkable man in uniform, with a very tired face and a cup of hot coffee in his hands. He noticed the man nodded faintly in the negative, saying his suspicions were not justified. No matter how absent-minded and companionable the lieutenant colonel seemed, he still checked the obvious suspicion. They were a strange couple, too suspiciously delayed and equally suspiciously able to get to his car through this snowy hell.

It was also a good thing Elizabeth had cleverly gotten out ahead of time. They managed to get back to their apartments, even packing a little more stuff with them. Igor admired the burst pipes in the entryway and shut off the water in the apartment, draining it from all the tanks. Not that he believed that he would ever come back to live here again, but what if a miracle happened? One way or another, but both of them were taken almost from the house. It took less than a kilometer to walk through the snowdrifts.. With such a distance, the woman and the young man could overcome even without superpowers, on motivation alone. And he didn't block the cold and snow with the amulet, so they fell into the cabin shivering and miserable, and tea from the thermos flowed like divine nectar.

In general, even if Sergei suspected them, they successfully suppressed these suspicions and survived. But the fact that no one searched them was someone else's fault. No, maybe they had a specialist with the Tablet, which allowed them to sense mystical objects, but he shielded himself from it by covering the inside of Elizabeth's purse with another protection. With sufficient possession of the Tablet, there is little difference between the walls of a house and the material of a small bag - both are a closed system, a small part separated from the larger world. And all the Tablets, fundamentally, work with the mystical side of the laws by which the universe exists. The law is like a drawbar - where you turn, there it is. The main thing is to find the strength to turn the laws in the right way.

After about an hour and a half, they were sitting in a separate compartment of the train, having avoided the dubious joy of traveling in a clogged and cloistered passenger car. The snow-covered landscapes of the city, which had turned into something unknown, and which even now seemed to cling to the passengers, unwilling to let them out of its jaws, were passing by. The same train was full of people who had obviously suffered a too strong defeat by the energy of the Other Side, after which it would take them a long time to come to their senses. If the leaky roof could be put back into its grooves at all. The conductors and patrolling soldiers wandered around the carriages, gloomy, angry, frozen, and also subconsciously smelling the ominous stench of the Other Side. If anyone had been sure that this business trip would be a fun walk for them, they had long ago lost that confidence and changed it to a diametrically opposite one.

Snow-covered landscapes rushed past – indifferent, snow-white, cold, and ominous.

Igor and Elizaveta were leaving their small homeland, but both were confident that they were destined to return.

It couldn’t be otherwise. After all, they are still only at the very beginning of their very long journey upward.

In the minds and essences of both Exalted Ones, as in the first seconds after accepting the Lot, the timer, foreshadowing something bad, continued to tick indifferently.

And there wasn't much time left on it.

Post Scriptum

So, the first (and possibly the last) volume of my short hentai story in the urban fantasy setting has come to an end. Well, I tried and even wrote almost two hentai scenes, so it was worth it. Will there be a sequel? I would be glad to know, but right now, the third volume of Superstar, the prologue of "Watch the Bells", the second part of the adventures of skinny Stepan, and two new projects at once are a priority. "Where Dances God with a Million Eyes", which already has about two hundred thousand characters and about the same number of individual scenes. And "The Conquered World", which was previously in the ideas, a kind of RealRPG about the arrival of the System, only many, many centuries after that arrival. The world was successfully saved, conquered, and divided, there is simply no place for new Heroes.

What else can I say?

Well, here are some interesting facts for you:

1. The main character of "Where God Dances..." was also originally called Igor, and maybe he still is; he's just older, more self-confident, and generally a tenacious and deadly effective bastard.

2. The luckiest character in the story, perhaps even its true protagonist, is Borislav Gennadyevich, because he got the most hundreds on the dice. Yes, they (the dice) were here, although not so many, a few dozen throws per chapter maximum. The story of His Highness is by no means finished, and if I continue writing the second volume, he will still participate in the plot. He now also has a Lot and, with the growth of the steps, an increasingly powerful mind will appear, an intellect not human in its nature, but even higher than the average human ICQ.

3. The image of Elizaveta Albertovna was a mixture of several actresses of films for not small, known for the not smallness of their outstanding merits. Like the same Milena Velba, for example.

4. The strongest Lot, namely in terms of "grade rarity" among all the Exalted Ones shown, was Vas-Vas. After normal pumping, his class would have turned the homeless person into something so unkillable that it's even scary. And yes, the fate of this charismatic individual did not end with him dying in a dead city. We won't get rid of his smell so easily. By the way, the second rarest Lot among the presented was Elizaveta's, and Igor's was only the third. The Standard Bearer class is also rare, but not as much as the Seductress or the one that Vasily Vasilyevich got.

5. Vas-Vas himself is a walking reference to an ancient creepypasta from Mrakopedia, where there was a character with the same name who mysteriously disappeared from the Police Station.

6. The first hentai was supposed to happen literally in the second chapter, but the hero managed to miss an almost guaranteed opportunity to meet Elizabeth and be brutally hentaied by her. To the mutual pleasure of both. But no, they missed each other and for a long, long time could not meet again.

7. This was left behind the scenes and almost became another interlude, but that pile of alive pile of rags, which Borislav Gennadyevich almost killed and Igor finished off, successfully devoured that guy with the flashlight. It simply infiltrated the police station and strangled him right there in the cell where the intractable guy, who did not want to confess to what he was charged with, was kept as a warning. Well, and for compliance.

8. Vas-Vas's last name is Vilochkin (Fork), Evgeny's last name is Lozhkin (Spoon). I wanted to make a joke with this, even wrote a suitable scene, but I couldn't find where to insert it. Igor's last name is Khor.

I. I. Khor.

IIiiiiiiiikhor.

Or even:

"Who are you?"

"Igor."

"I?"

"Khor."

Obviously, this scene didn't work either, which is a pity. Well, maybe I'll drag it into the next volume or into Dancing, who knows.

Thank you for reading this humble hentai, all the best, take care of yourself.

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Переводчики: Camrad_RIP