World of Karik: A Game of Villains 83 Hide and Seek

"Undress him," I told the blushing Lena. Semyon took his weapon with him, but he didn't take the armor, so we shouldn't leave it behind.

Undressing the corpse would help the bewildered girl come to her senses.

"Others will gather wood and prepare to make a big campfire." We had left the base at twelve; it was around six now. Nightfall was an hour or two away. It was time to get ready for the second phase of my plan.

You have received 2,000 deception points.

Great! I already began to worry that either Petrovich wouldn't believe Semyon's, or that the latter would mess up something. I just wondered why it took him so long. The sly lancer must've bugged the shit out of the cop until he answered all of his questions. Moreover, it must've taken a while before the keyword home came up in the conversation. However, all's well that ends well.

I was the only one who wasn't involved in setting up the fire, so I could sit back and listen to the frustrated conversations carried by the wind.
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"He's crazy!" Unfortunately, I couldn't make out whose voice it was as they were too far away.

"How does Petrovich stand him?! He'll wake up one night and slaughter everybody!" It was clearly one of the newcomers.

"No, Cat's not like that, though sometimes he goes rogue, he always protects the detachment." Was it my imagination or was a female voice, defending me?

"Yeah, he cut our people's hands and feet off. He was one against all of us, and no one could do anything to him." That one was Cyril. The voice from before had to be Lena's then.

"How does he manage to do all of that at such a low level? He defeated our leader, even though he had armor, when he was only level five. How is that even possible? I was told that he came up to Igor, grabbed him by the throat and then strangled him." People started making up legends about me. I should think about how to make the most of it.

"Strangled?" Another surprised voice. "I was told that he killed Igor with one punch so that he didn't have time to hide his armor."

"That's bullshit." I listened attentively, not yet realizing that I was beginning to panic. "He held him for two full minutes, well, maybe for a minute. Everybody saw that!"

"Yeah, he was holding him," the first voice refused to give up. "But he was already dead! Cat was looking at his empty eyes and grinning."

At this point I jumped up and hit a nearby tree with my fist, scraping my skin; a wave of pain that spread through my body carried my thoughts with it. The issue wasn't that they thought me to be Satan reincarnated, but a simple, even banal fact that I had completely forgotten about. Arcobaleno, the skill that allowed me to hide magic from others by creating illusions, seemed super useful up to this point. But I had forgotten that illusions differed for person to person. Damn it, it was written right in the description!

I remembered Marina and Ravshana's quarrel from a couple of days ago. Although I didn't hear the whole conversation, I now understood that the girls were accusing each other of lying, talking about me fighting in their settlement. Yesterday, Igor, Vlada, and Olga were arguing, discussing my duel. I had heard it all but didn't pay attention to it for some reason. How could this have happened? It felt like some kind of veil had been lifted off my eyes. What changed? Is this the influence of the Forbidden City? Or...? Shivers ran down my spine. Last night I started leveling. Could it be that I was under the influence of, though I hated saying it, my God. If I was right, it was necessary to reconsider if all of my decisions and thoughts so far were actually mine. It was such a disgusting feeling to know that someone could use your mind as they pleased! I now realized why there were no experienced players that decided to focus on leveling up their stats and postpone leveling indefinitely. It would take them months, or even years to do that. Not to mention that they risked losing themselves. How the hell did Baldy put up with that; and how did his relatives let him do that? Although it was understandable. He had made this decision, and they, unable to change his mind and force their way of life upon him, decided to stay away in order to be safe. What a disgusting world this is.

During the next two hours, I rethought all of my former actions and decisions. It seemed to me that all of them were really mine. As soon as I realized that, it got easier to breathe, and I felt as if a huge weight was removed off my shoulders.

"Let's move on," I got up, dusted myself off, and stretched.

Five pairs of eyes stared at me furiously. They had just finished collecting wood and had decided to store it so that we'd have enough to last us through the night. Being absorbed in my thoughts, I didn't stop them in time. Well, let's consider it a therapeutic treatment filled with pointless but much safer work.

Having lit a huge campfire right in front of the Forbidden City, we trotted along the boundary of the ruins. Slowly at first, but then faster and faster as we got accustomed to the darkness.

"Cat," I heard Lena whisper. Was she exhausted already? We had only been running for two hours. "There's someone in the ruins."

I stopped abruptly and looked at the direction she was pointing at. Three figures were coming at us. Should we run? Or stay and see who they are? I was too curious, so I gave a sign to stay still and wait. This was the moment that I had been waiting for. The mysterious trio turned out to be one person, accompanied by two zombies.

His name was unfamiliar to me, but his face... It felt like I had already seen it somewhere.

Chapter end