World of Karik: A Game of Villains 18 Hit in the Heel

"And the guy who came with us, will he return?""Vadim, they've told you that he won't come back," Olga mourned. "He's dead. You said that the Cadaver ate both him and his tombstone."

"That's right," I nodded. "I saw it. Vadim, you have to let it go. And don't be a dumb hero like him if you don't want to suffer the same fate."

"When will we be trained?" asked Dasha.

I looked at her attentively and found out that she was much prettier than when she had come out of the shadow world. Good. I could focus on her now. Staying focused was difficult after what had happened the day before. The world was constantly trying to fade into one shapeless spot. One thought kept ringing the alarm in my mind—had someone been playing with me like with a puppet? If only I could understand what for.

"Soon," barked the ex-cop, and hugged Dasha's shoulders familiarly. She didn't resist. Damn, I had just noticed the girl, and he was already ahead of me. I have to get my shit together… Ordinary life and thoughts should help with that…

"For security reasons we won't leave the base for another day," Suren said, looking at the emboldened cop with displeasure. "So 'soon'… That is, tomorrow at least."

"You can relax for now," added Andrei. "This meeting's over. Remember: don't leave the base."

Everyone jumped up immediately, stretching their muscles and joints. The guys took turns coming up to me and firmly shaking my hand. Olga even hugged me.

"I'm glad you're back," she said.

"If I had been killed, I would still be here," I smiled back.

"Right," the business lady agreed. "At least you came back in one piece. Suren lost his arm forever. Now he looks angrily at everyone."

"What the hell?!" groaned Vadim.

I squinted at him and once again wondered how this coward had survived his deadly trial.

"Vadim," I asked him. "What is your special ability?"

"Shield block," the fat man said cautiously and looked at me.

A common skill, that was good. After Fox, strange abilities arose legitimate suspicions. To be on the safe side, I found out which skill the athlete had. She turned out to be an archer. I cheered up. It was much better to have ordinary people around.

Making sure that no one else wanted to talk to me, I put some burnt porridge from the pot into my bowl and climbed back into the cave. I should try to sort out what really happened that night.

For starters, Fox. I would have never believed that someone like her would do anything at random. She knew something and someone must've told her what to do and how to do it. So the question was—who? On hand, my number one suspect was Igor; but on the other hand, he never missed a chance to lecture Lera in front of everyone. And what about me? Considering everything that had happened, I could assume that nothing random had happened either. Mental Suppression and the suggestion to return level 5... Was that the Reaper's idea or Baldy's? Both were suitable candidates, and Igor had once showed his ability to influence people's minds. It must have been him. That then meant that the scythe was probably not a random drop either, but another part of the plan that should have made me do... Something. Hell, I had no idea.

Okay, calm down, Vasily. Try to look at it from a different perspective. What would have happened if everything went according to their plan? Constant deaths and the order not to stop... Without my portable tombstone it would've taken weeks if not more. Leaving the base, death, resurrection... What would everyone think of me? I would have been thrown out onto the street... That is, outside the base. Nobody would keep a damn psycho next to normal people. This world has enough dangers to voluntarily get another pain in the neck. Not to mention that I got no idea where all of this is going. Baldy couldn't have just wanted to make crazy, bloodthirsty psychos out of Fox and me, could he?

The most important thing now was to decide what I was to do next. I was alive, I was sane and I was level 5 again. I could develop as before. Or I could take advantage of all of this and follow Baldy's path. Scum he was, he had power. Even the Reaper admitted it. Well then, it is settled. No murdering, I will try to get better stats in a different way. I only had to figure out how to do it.

Having thought it over, I spent the whole day on various experiments. I did push-ups, pull-ups, I ran, and I even tried to beat the walls, but my stats didn't rise. The guys tried to get me involved in conversations and discussions about future plans a couple of times, but I quickly curbed all of their attempts to make me talk and ran to a quieter place where no one would bother me. In the evening it, ironically enough, dawned on me that I was an idiot. After all, Baldy had been here. He knew how to level-up the attributes, so the only thing I needed to do was to find out what and how he did it.

"Dmitri," I sneaked into the forge. He would tell me everything that interested me. He was always at the base. If anyone had noticed anything, it was probably him. "Do you know how Baldy, Igor, that is, trained?"

"I also called him Baldy," the guy immediately put the hammer aside, taking advantage of the opportunity to relax. "He didn't like it all that much, though I had the feeling that he didn't like his own name either."

Of course he didn't, considering it wasn't real. Back to the point.

Chapter end