17 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…

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"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 was 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 one 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 shown 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.

Dmitri spent another five minutes reminiscing, and then suddenly admitted that the only things that Baldy did at the base were sleeping and eating. He spent all of his spare time outside.

"Everyone was surprised at first, given that he didn't level-up. Then we tried to get the truth out of him. We even threatened to banish him, and then, after the rebellion against Max during which he remained neutral, we got used to it." Dmitri fell silent, realizing that he said something he was not supposed to. As I understood, Andrei and Suren did not want this story to become public. "However, that was a long time ago. Okay, I have to get back to work, stop distracting me! Spikes for pit traps won't make themselves."

Leaving the forge, I thought about what he had said. Had I not been able to see the time everyone had spent in this world, I could take that "a long time ago" at face value. But considering the "age" of the old-timers, the riot redhead happened to mention was two or three weeks ago. Some conspirators they were. However, all of this could be dealt with later.

More importantly, I seemed to have figured out how to improve my attributes.

Or rather, one thing was clear — upgrading my stats was possible only beyond the perimeter of the base, in an unsafe area. I was willing to bet that you could do it only in combat. So, how could I do this without killing myself or the monsters? My death would bring me nothing but frustration, and theirs would get me experience I didn't need. I tried to go back to sleep, replaying this thought over and over in my head. The Major snored next to me, the cop breathed heavily and shifted in his sleep. My head was a kaleidoscope of spinning images of spells, skills, and monsters. The last thing I remembered was the skeleton that came out of the darkness, picked up a stone and cracked my head open with it.

I opened my eyes and looked around. I had rolled to the side in my sleep and hit my forehead on the stone wall. What a weird dream… Stretching, I carefully walked around my sleeping neighbors, and got out to the surface. The morning air was still damp, although the sun had shown its edge on the horizon.

"Breakfast?" turning around, I noticed Olga standing near the big pot. She was mixing something in it.

As it turned out, in addition to night duties, there was also a cooking schedule. Soon enough I would have to get up at five in the morning, so that everyone else had something to eat. I ate my breakfast quickly. It was surprisingly tasty and it even smelled good. I asked our business lady to tell the others that I had gone into the forest. She only shrugged. Good. Less questions, more time for useful things.

I thought of a place no one could find me in and went to the swamp. Given the local insects, none of my neighbors could reach me, and I could continue my research. Reeds, moss, and the constant smell of something rotten… The place hadn't changed at all since last night. I didn't pay attention to the gnats trying to reach me through my magic defense and moved to the center of the swamp. Within five minutes, I was facing an opponent.

Ordinary Drowned Ghoul

Level 7

Great! Just what I needed! A slow, low-level monster. I could test my theories on it. First things first, I tried to cut off its right hand and slightly reduce its attacking potential. It took me three tries but it became clear where Baldy worked out this blow.

But my opponent was still too quick. Fortunately, I had an idea how to deal with that, too.

Stone Spikes

I waited for the right moment and used my new spell. Two small spikes pierced the Ghoul's foot, literally pinning it to the ground. Two inches wasn't much, but its effect was great, one of the mud covered limbs stopped moving. My opponent was stuck in place.

With bated breath I took a step forward, putting myself under the blows of the hand that started hitting me right away. Step back. Don't forget to exhale. It's not that scary. Cure and Regeneration should be enough to survive.

I moved forward.

After four hours, I couldn't stand it anymore and, breaking a promise to myself to "not look until you get the first level-up," I opened my stats. Everything was just as before: 10 strength and endurance, 15 agility and 25 intelligence. The only thing that had changed was that now I had a progress bar next to the figures — 2% in front of strength and almost 70% in front of endurance. Did it really work? The only thing was, it really took a lot of time. Will I be able to stay at this level for a few years as Baldy did and reach my maximum?

Maybe there is an easier way? Should I try to find stronger monsters? Inspired by the sudden idea, I cast another Cure on myself and added a Curse to it. After dropping to level 1 it became single target spell again, but it had a higher chance to hit, so it wasn't surprising that it worked right away.

Regeneration has been replaced by Fatigue.

Duration: 60 seconds

My body immediately began to move slower and the Ghoul's blows started to take more health. I had to keep healing myself. To be honest, it was a miracle that I didn't die. When the effect of Fatigue finally ended, I could barely resist temptation not to smash the head of the Ghoul that was still trying to rip my head off. What's stopping me? Am I that reluctant to violate my new rule? Or maybe it was a short line that popped up in front of my eyes.

Endurance: +1

In a minute, the attribute development bar was up by more than a third. Sure, it had almost cost me my life, but it had taken me two hours to achieve the same result before. With the help of magic I was able to perfect Baldy's tactic and develop faster than he did.

The ghoul was still quivering next to me and whatever had been holding me in its death grip before finally let go.

Can I really handle all of this?