Game Changer (Reality Benders Book #3) LitRPG Series

by Michael Atamanov

  “What, it’s my room, I can do what I want! Legally, I’m of age, and our staff psychologist Irina Chusovkina is in shock after every time we talk. In her words, my emotional and psychological age is double my biological one, and all her tests put me around thirty-five.”

  I don’t know, I don’t know... Too many ghastly tests had fallen on this little girl’s shoulders, which could have turned her character harsher, warped it and made it rough. But personally I saw her as a silly little teenage girl, barely out of childhood and striving to become an adult. Tamara, beyond all doubt, was my type physically. Basically dead on. But there was something wrong in all this. Both that she was drunk and young, not in control of her actions and that I now had a travelling wife Minn-O La-Fin, even though it wasn’t in this world and my relationship with the Princess was still quite far from intimate.

  As if having read my thoughts, or guessing them surprisingly accurately, Tamara went on:

  “I know what you’re thinking, Kirill, but a wayedda is merely a favorite, a lover who does not stand in the way of you having other girls. I am not trying to make a play to be your wife either. I saw my future in my visions and I know that it is not fated for me to marry, and that I will die very young. But like any other lady, I want to be desired! Just tell me, am I not good enough? Do you not find me attractive?”

  I answered that, beyond all doubt she was attractive. Tamara was clearly encouraged by that answer and, holding the plaid in embarrassment with two hands at neck level, she sat up in bed.

  “Kirill, if you’d be so kind please go out to the fridge. On the upper shelf I have some vermouth and juice, just what you like! Make us a couple of cocktails. I’m already back to my senses, so I suggest we keep celebrating my birthday!”

  To be honest, I thought the cocktails were too much. She had only just sobered up, so this was just making things worse. I didn’t go anywhere and just kept sitting and looking at the domestic and red-cheeked Tamara covered in the plaid. She didn’t look one bit like the fearsome war chieftain I was used to.

  “What?” she asked, looking even more embarrassed, although it seemed impossible. “And what do you... want from me? Say it out loud! Or at least mentally send it!”

  The birthday girl had gathered her courage and raised her big dark eyes to me, which now had none of their usual severe coldness, just timid hope. Our eyes met, and the girl didn’t turn her gaze, inviting me to mental connection.

  “Sleep!” I gave a mental command, repeating it out loud.

  Tamara’s eyes closed obediently. Without letting the plaid out of her tightly clenched fingers, her last defense and barrier, the girl’s head fell on the pillow. I then gave a heavy and pitiful sigh. It was very hard to get through the Paladin’s mental defense both in the game and the real world unless she wanted it and was open. Yes, I had taken advantage of her trust and good opinion, and that was low. But it still seemed to me that I had done the right thing, not taking advantage of the inexperienced girl’s temporary weakness.

  I adjusted the mermaid pillow under Tamara’s head, brushed the disheveled dark hair off her face, gave her a tender kiss right on her lips and headed to leave. In the hallway next to the door, Roman Pavlovich was sitting on a folding stool with glasses on his nose and a book in his hands. When I came out, the gray-haired man shuddered, closed his book, removed his glasses and raised his head in surprise:

  “Did you two have an argument?! Or do you not like my daughter for some reason?”

  I could hear offense in the gray veteran’s voice, and I hurried to reassure him:

  “Quite the opposite. I like Tamara a lot. But your daughter is too unique and pure a creature to simply sleep with a man spontaneously when drunk, or simply because she saw something in her dreams. So I didn’t ruin her life, instead I just used my magical abilities and made her fall asleep.”

  Roman Pavlovich’s thick brows shot up in surprise. The veteran went silent and answered thoughtfully:

  “Oh, Little Tamara is going to be so mad... but actually it’s for the best. She’ll have more fury for the war with the Naiads. And you’re a good guy, Gnat. You did the right thing. Thanks for treating my daughter so tactfully! And now where are you going, your room? Anna is waiting for you there. I just saw her walk past.”

  I was actually planning to go get some sleep in my room which was on this floor, but Roman Pavlovich’s words stopped me. Anna? A great girl, but now was not the time... If I went to go see her now, Tamara would not only get mad, she would want to kill me. I had left her naked in bed to go have fun with another girl. No woman could ever forgive such a thing!

  “No, I guess I’ll go into the game,” I sharply changed my plans, which made the deputy leader of the Second Legion nod approvingly. He took his book back out. The Way of the Shaman. Book One, is what I managed to read on the vibrant cover. I wonder what kind of book that is? Some kind of “DIY for dummies” book? I wasn’t expecting the Grenadier to feel inclined to the occult, although people had been surprising me a lot lately so it could be.

  And then, as if the heavens were rewarding me for good behavior, Roman Pavlovich’s radio turned on, and an unknown hoarse smoky voice said:

  “Pavlovich, this is Artyomov. You wouldn’t happen to be in residential building five, would you? Dmitry Zheltov just climbed out of his virt pod. He says he needs Gnat at once. Also, no one is answering the phone in Gnat’s room.”

  “Tell Zheltov to wait outside corncob fifteen,” I said to Tamara’s adoptive father and hurried to meet the Starship Pilot, who I hadn’t seen for quite a while.

  Chapter Fourteen. Not Just a Dream

  I COULD TELL FROM AFAR that Dmitry was upset. I couldn’t sense any joy in his demeanor when he saw me accompanied by my now ever-present bodyguards. Dmitry just lowered his head and sat on the lowest step of the corncob’s spiral staircase, waiting for me and not even trying to come say hi. Up close, it became clear that my friend was fearfully tired. His eyes were sunken, his gaze was absent and the fingers on both of his hands were shaking slightly. I walked up and sat down in silence next to him on the step, letting him start the conversation.

  “It’s all gone wrong, Gnat...” Dmitry started, but waved a hand in vexation, lowered his head and went silent.

  “What went wrong? Was the frigate destroyed?” I asked, voicing the first thought that came to mind. That only made him more despondent:

  “It’s total shit with the frigate too... No, it wasn’t totally destroyed, but after the explosion of the planetoid, it can hardly be told apart from useless wreckage. The explosion threw us out into space, turned us over and slammed us into the nearest cliff, breaking and tearing everything that could be broken or torn. There are no engines left at all. The main thruster was torn out ‘with the meat,’ along with the maneuver drives, and there never was a hyperspace one. You might as well say there is also no power unit, because it’s all shot to shit and the repair will cost more than buying one new. All that remains is one forcefield generator of three. All the electronics need replacing, there are no cannons, guidance or navigation systems, the climate unit was destroyed... It would be easier to just tell you what we do have! Even the hull was pierced and dinged up. Only two sections can still hold pressure. Basically, in this form it is no longer a frigate, but a piece of composite flecked with glass and metal scrap.”

  Hrm... Zheltov was painting this joyless picture with too much verve and detail, so I was also upset imagining an uncontrollable heap of trash drifting around in space. Seemingly, the dream of owning my own starship would have to be set aside...

  “We got lucky and Ayukh managed to set up and turn on the friend-foe system, so we weren’t turned to ash by our very own fleet. Around an hour after the battle, our frigate was caught by a gravity crane and brought into a huge mothership of the sixteenth auxiliary flotilla along with a bunch of other broken ships, both Meleyephatian and Geckho. Ayukh spent a long time arguing with the repair-guys, but still insisted that our ship be
classified as repairable. And now the navigator is trying to draw up ownership documents for himself. I don’t know if he’ll manage or not. They say it’s hard to do that now and such questions are decided only by the fleet commander.”

  Dmitry was repeating what I’d already heard from the Supercargo. Captured trophies would be handed out at Kung Waid Shishish’s personal discretion and only he could decide who this or that captured ship would belong to.

  “So, what else went wrong?” I asked the Starship Pilot. “I mean, you started out saying everything had gone wrong including the frigate.”

  “Yes, Gnat. But the destroyed frigate is not the main thing that has me upset,” Dmitry continued hitting me with bad news. “It’s good that you’re sitting down. Here’s the news: our former Captain Uraz Tukhsh has become a Gerd and was officially recognized as a war hero. He even got a purple ribbon of honor to wear on his shoulder from the ruler of the Geckho race Krong Daveyesh-Pir. It is kind of like the Gold Star medal in Russia. Just imagine! Just so you appreciate the scale and rarity of the honorable trophy, after the grand battle there was only one other person who earned such a ribbon: Commander of the Third Strike Fleet himself, Kung Waid Shishish!”

  I was sitting with my mouth gaping in surprise, unable to believe my ears. How was that even possible?! Uraz Tukhsh was not known for his bravery. In fact, it was more the opposite. Also, he had died due to his own stubbornness and poor foresight long before the battle ended! Or had the young ambitious Aristocrat gone all out and put his life on the line not only in the game but also in the real world by moving his respawn point to the deadly enemy planetoid, then finished his mission to deliver the mine. If so, there was no disputing it. It was a truly foolhardy and heroic feat, which merited the very highest award.

  I asked Dmitry Zheltov to tell me in greater detail about what our former captain had done, given all his close companions thought he was a cowardly loser. My friend was eager to explain, trying to convey the tone and pathos of what he’d heard in the news as much as possible:

  “According to the official story on the galaxy’s news channels, Uraz Tukhsh was in the reserve flotilla on a noncombat auxiliary Shiamiru shuttle but saw the Third Strike Fleet’s difficult position and decided to sacrifice his own ship to secure a victory for the Geckho. To that end, Uraz Tukhsh ordered his crew to grab a thermonuclear mine with the gravity crane and personally stood at the shuttle’s helm, preparing to pass through the planetoid’s forcefield and blow the mine, destroying a terrestrial battery and clearing a path for a landing team. He told the commander of the Third Strike Fleet his plan and the wise Kung Waid Shishish immediately approved it and even ordered his fleet to push back the Meleyephatian interceptors to the opposite side of the planetoid to cover for the lone forgotten cargo ship. Using his amazing piloting abilities, Uraz Tukhsh gracefully dodged dense fire from many Meleyephatian batteries and sent the starship right into an enemy cannon. The mine blew and destroyed not only that turret but the neighboring ones as well, and detonated the ammunition warehouses in the underground base. Inside the planetoid there was a series of high-powered blasts, after which the field generator switched off and the shield dissipated both from the planet and its satellite. The Meleyephatians were thus forced to surrender and it was all because of the courageous young captain Gerd Uraz Tukhsh and the wise fleet commander Kung Waid Shishish.”

  When Dmitry finished his story, I was still sitting with my mouth open, not knowing what to say. What kind of crap was that?! Where had this tall tale even come from? It had nothing in common with reality! I was simply choking in panic and indignation, not able to digest the fact that our little squadron’s accomplishments had been swooped up by the cowardly Aristocrat! Full of righteous indignation, I asked who had come up with this nonsense, to which the Starship Pilot answered cautiously:

  “I don’t know, Gnat. But it doesn’t seem like Uraz Tukhsh did it alone. Our former captain is not high enough caliber to do something like that without the agreement of more influential Geckho. What’s more, they’d never just take him at his word. If I understand correctly, this story was first given by Fleet Commander Waid Shishish, who used it to explain the abrupt end of the battle to his subordinates. After that, the news about Uraz Tukhsh’s heroic self-sacrifice was trumpeted around the whole galaxy, and now any story other than the official one is quashed by influential Geckho.”

  I also understood that perfectly. The severe and quick-to-anger fleet commander Kung Waid Shishish had told his version, naming himself and his relative war heroes. That got picked up by news channels and thus gained official status. And now the great ruler of the Geckho race Krong Daveyesh-Pir had confirmed it by giving awards to the two much-vaunted heroes. And now, after it was all over, if I or some other member of Team Gnat started saying it was not true, and that two glorified war heroes had merely ascribed others’ actions to themselves... It would hardly be taken positively, especially by the two “heroes.”

  On the other hand, my squadron had twelve soldiers of three different races. How could Kung Waid Shishish be so sure that none of us would talk, and that the truth behind the Meleyephatian fortress’s explosion wouldn’t leak? Did he just think no one would believe us? I mean, after all, we had a video from the underground base and the Meleyephatian trophy frigate, and those were iron-clad proof that the official version didn’t add up. And without this material proof, the unanimous voices of twelve players backed up by Truth Seeker testing were also a serious argument.

  Or was Kung Waid Shishish hoping that we would be afraid to contradict him? Maybe that was so. As vassals of the Geckho it would, to put it lightly, not be smart for anyone from Earth to call our Kung a liar. But after all, there were members other Geckho clans with me, and Tini the Miyelonian, who didn’t depend on the fierce Kung one bit, so it would be hard to keep all the witnesses quiet.

  Or did the commander of the Third Strike Fleet think he could censor us, so we wouldn’t be able to tell anyone? In the game, sure, it was totally possible because all twelve of us were now located in space under the Kung’s control at a Geckho military base or on an immobilized frigate inside a huge mothership. But in the real world, how could he get to all of us? Especially, once again, my ward Tini who lived in Miyelonian space. Or the Geckho lady Uline Tar, who came from the influential and rich Clan Tar-Layneh, which did not depend on Waideh-Tukhsh in the slightest and was not subordinate to them.

  There was, truthfully, a radical option to force us all to keep quiet in the real world. A series of instant deaths in the game that bends reality would cause level and skills to fall, then stats as well. And every subsequent death was punished more and more. While Fox was giving athletic training, she told us that it was enough to kill a player with an empty progress bar five to seven times in a row. Then their level would fall to zero and their skills and even statistics would be blanked. That meant death, and a final one. After that, a player would never again leave their virt pod. And the Morphian assassin for hire was an authoritative source in this matter, so I didn’t doubt what it told me.

  But even such a harsh method was not a one-hundred percent guarantee of silence. In the breaks between respawns and deaths, the victim would be in the real world sometimes and could talk with their friends there, so the information would spread a bit no matter what. Also, I didn’t believe in the slightest that the famed “leader of many divisions” Waid Shishish despite his quick temper and harsh ways, would commit cold-blooded murder. In one way or another, our squadron had brought him victory, and he would have to be a real psycho freak to repay that with calculated murder.

  So what did that mean? If neither threats nor force were enough to keep us from talking, the only remaining option was to buy our silence. And that meant very soon someone would be getting in touch with me or my squadron. Either the Kung himself or a trusted individual, maybe even our former captain, the now vaunted war hero.

  I glanced up at the rings of the spiral staircase. Seemingly, like i
t or not, I would have to go up to the fourteenth floor of the corncob and enter the game so a potential envoy would have someone to talk to. Standing from the stair, I shook the dirt off my track suit and patted my comrade on the shoulder as he sat in silence picking his nose:

  “Dmitry, go get some rest. You can barely stand. But I’m going into the game. I bet that very soon some very important people are going to try and get ahold of me with an offer I can’t refuse.”

  The graduate of the space military academy gave a short nod, stood heavily and started heading for the residential buildings when he suddenly stopped, turned and asked with renewed interest whether I had seen his girlfriend Lydia Vertyachikh. I answered no even though I had seen the Journalist at the Second Legion ball. But Dmitry wouldn’t be let into that closed-circle shindig. What was more, when I had left the party hand in hand with Gerd Tamara, Lydia Vertyachikh was red from wine and dancing, sitting in embrace with one of the young athletically-built handsome lads of the Second Legion and whispering something. So there was a great probability that my friend would no longer be finding his debauched girlfriend at the party.

  * * *

  MY CONCLUSIONS were not wrong. Just after I appeared on the Geckho military base, Gerd Ost Rekh walked up to me. This was the same Shocktroop who had flown in with a boarding crew to “arrest” me before.

  “Gerd Gnat, we’ve been waiting a long time. Please follow me into the sound-proof meeting room,” the Shocktroop pointed down a long corridor.

  Authority increased to 37!

  Despite the respectful address and totally peaceable sound of what he said, the envoy was on guard and holding his hand on his belt holster. And I had no doubt that the Geckho had been ordered to bring me to that room, regardless of any possible resistance. I of course would never have dreamed of resisting and was impatiently awaiting the upcoming conversation myself.