Game Changer (Reality Benders Book #3) LitRPG Series

by Michael Atamanov

  The millipede climbed up skillfully to me and stopped to receive orders. I then took my Annihilator from my inventory and showed the mechanical repairman the handle and seven grooves for fingers or whatever the Relicts had. Then I showed it my hand, and even removed a glove to make it clear:

  “Five fingers. Seven grooves. Not comfortable!” I repeated to Kirsan in Geckho, at the same time mentally repeating myself.

  The millipede raised the front part of its body and extended its thin jointed arms to the Annihilator. I internally braced myself, but gave the valuable artifact to the repair bot, hoping greatly that it wouldn’t be shooting me and selling the weapon for parts.

  Kirsan turned the ancient weapon over in its thin little jointed legs thoughtfully, then returned it and my tablet vibrated. I hurriedly took it out and turned the screen on.

  Captain, the Senior Mechanic has sent a list of parts and materials necessary for repair:

  4 RTH-2356 Resonators.

  63 cm of 0.05 mm wolfram thread.

  4 6-mm Boron nitride metal drills.

  1 Plasma welder.

  1 12x12x6 cm carbon fiber bar.

  3 PP-56 Quartz lenses.

  12 OP-5 Power fire extinguishers.

  ...

  4 bolts of fire-proof abrasion-resistant flooring, 150 ft. x 5.9 ft each.

  3 empty 200-liter high-pressure tanks with KKG/78 valve.

  The full list was three hundred eighteen items long. And though the first of them were things I could more or less imagine were for modifying and repairing my Annihilator, the fire-extinguisher and other stuff was definitely not. No, some of this must have been for something else, most likely the ship...

  Here I noticed Uline just in time as she entered the repair hangar accompanied by the Supercargo and a whole delegation of Geckho in base-employee uniforms. Apparently, these were the repairmen the Kung had sent to fix up my starship. I called my furry friend over and showed her the materials list.

  “Gerd Gnat, I’ll look it over and order it later alright? But first, let’s get away from this noisy crowd. We have some very sensitive topics to discuss, and I don’t want any eavesdropping. For example, who should be the owner of this trophy frigate, how much money are we going to spend on repair, and how will we divvy up the profits.”

  Chapter Seventeen. Business Partner

  IT WAS TOO LOUD in the hangar, so Uline and I decided to go inside the starship, where there was no one other than the three repair bots. The elevator wasn’t working, so the only way to the upper deck was via a vertical shaft using chaotically placed metal brackets in the walls. Maybe the eight-legged spider-like Meleyephatians didn’t need a proper ladder here, but for me and especially the hefty Geckho lady, it was a strange and uncomfortable way up.

  “Woah, it’s dark up here,” said the Trader, coming up after me. She turned on a flashlight and led the beam along the metal walls and down the corridor to the bridge. “There’s your captain’s bridge, Gnat! It’s so spacious! Ah, there’s an emergency light over the entrance so we won’t be totally in the dark. Let’s talk here, but close the door so we can keep this confidential.”

  I let Uline walk in front and entered my cabin, covered the thick armored door leading into the dark corridor and squinted when the bright light came on. After that, following Uline’s example, I reached for a special handle in the wall and pulled out an unusual rope structure that was a hybrid between a wicker chair and a hammock. After I figured out how to sit in the hanging and rocking structure, it was pretty comfortable. Uline then, confidently sitting on a legged armchair, took out a tablet and showed me a table she’d drawn up.

  Honestly, I didn’t realize it was a table right away, because this was the first time I was seeing such a thing in Geckho writing. But I followed the lines, and discovered they merely served to contain blocks of digits and texts.

  Astrolinguistics skill increased to level eighty-one!

  “Alright, Gnat. The frigate is seriously damaged, and I estimate its worth in this state to be no more than one million two hundred thousand crystals. That is what’s shown in the first line. Kung Waid Shishish gave the trophy not to one individual, but to everyone who took part in capturing it, so I gave everyone a fair share of that. But as commander, I figured you deserve twice as much. Good thing the Medic left us, because you just got his share.”

  “I understand the first column, but what about the second?” I asked, pointing to the broken lines of Geckho meaning “one hundred thousand” and “fifty thousand.”

  Uline was clearly glad that I didn’t have any questions about the first part, and explained eagerly:

  “Gnat, to repair the starship we need investments, and pretty hefty ones at that. We each got a bag of crystals as a reward for our heroism on the planetoid, so we can use those funds for the repair. I managed to talk with everyone besides Tini and Ayukh and none of them are willing to spend their money for the common cause. I am intending to spend my fifty thousand on the repair, though, which I indicated in the table. Opposite your name, I put one hundred thousand, which is if you agree to add not only the Medic’s money but some of your own as well.”

  “Let’s call that good,” I said not wanting to dispute it, even though I wasn’t happy with all the Trader’s judgements. Then I asked to go to the next column.

  The Trader gave a rumble of satisfaction and made sure the door was closed and no one was listening then set six heavy bags on a shelf.

  “These are the crystals I took off the Shiamiru before it was destroyed. Of course this is probably more Clan Tar-Layneh’s money than mine... But no one is going to find out except you. There are three million four hundred thousand crystals here. Beyond that, I have another two hundred forty thousand in a bank account. And I am prepared to invest all this cash in repairing the frigate. Thus, my total investment in the ship came to three million seven-hundred ninety thousand crystals, and that is no more and no less than seventy-six percent of the total. And thus, that is the share of the future profits I lay claim to. As I do to the dominating portion of votes. Your percentage of the profits comes to six percent. That’s three times more than any other team member! To my eye, it’s all fair. What do you say, Gerd Gnat?”

  Mental Fortitude skill increased to level forty-nine!

  No, she wasn’t trying to use mind control, although it was close. The Trader was speaking so coherently and confidently it pained me. Uline clearly believed she was acting honestly and considered her offer fair and beneficial to all. Before answering, I took a deep sigh and mentally counted to ten to calm myself and not raise my voice to my great but quirky friend.

  “Uline, I won’t dispute your estimated value of the frigate. After all, you are a Trader by class not me, so you know better. However, you’re forgetting one fairly important detail. The ship will be repaired and will grow in value. And that is my personal contribution because I convinced the Kung to pay for it!”

  Psionic skill increased to level sixty!

  Mysticism skill increased to level eight!

  And here I apparently didn’t manage to get by totally without magic as the game algorithms had registered some extrasensory activity. Uline didn’t think for long and eventually admitted I was right:

  “Okay, Gerd Gnat, that is fair. I cannot accurately evaluate the increase in value from that repair yet, but I’d estimate the worth of the maneuver thrusters taken from totaled starships, cheap main thrusters and other second-hand equipment to be... And the hyper wasn’t your doing, so… seven hundred thousand crystals... alright, let’s even say seven hundred fifty thousand. Let’s write you that in your column. That means that your share goes up from six to eighteen percent, and mine falls to two thirds.”

  I mentally checked Uline very carefully and discovered that the furry lady was not lying. Her estimate of the second-hand equipment at its cheapest (and we had no reason to expect anything else from the tight-fisted commander) was approximately in line with reality. Alright, I’d accept this and
continue the conversation.

  “Also Uline, it would be nice to talk with Ayukh. I bet such a respected Navigator has saved up something in his long life and might want a piece of the action. I also need to have a talk with Minn-O. Yes, my wayedda doesn’t have much in the way of money now but she is still a Princess, and her grandfather Leng Thumor-Anhu La-Fin is a very influential and wealthy Coruler of humanity. It is possible that the old mage will agree to invest a million or two crystals in his granddaughter’s enterprise.”

  Uline clearly looked sad, but still agreed. Although she also noted that she would really like these additional investments not to bring her share down below half, because then she would lose control. So seemingly, the time had come to play my trump card:

  “But Uline, that has to happen! No matter how you’d like to be sovereign ruler on this ship, it won’t work because I also have savings. First of all, I have a million crystals worth of Miyelonian crypto in my hands.” Here for effect I took out my wallet and brought up the balance on the screen. “I hope you can read Miyelonian numbers. There are one hundred forty-three thousand crypto here, and that is a bit more than a million in Geckho money.”

  “But Gerd Gnat, where did you get it???” She didn’t even try to hide her astonishment, but I placed my hand to my lips. Geckho seemed to like that gesture, which called for silence.

  “I’ll tell you later. But that isn’t all,” I assured the Trader and took the trophy tail of the incarnation of the Miyelonian Great First Female out of my inventory. “Uline, I hope greatly for your good sense and discretion, because this is the very item that sparked this galactic war. I have a buyer ready to spend seven million crystals for this tail.”

  “But it’s clearly worth more!” Uline Tar couldn’t hold back, staring wide eyed at the extremely rare item.

  “Doesn’t matter. This trophy is too dangerous for me to keep or to let it go to an unknown or even criminal buyer. I’m going to return the trophy to its owner. I have even spoken already with Leng Amiru U-Mayaoo and said I would turn it in at the first Miyelonian station we reach for one million crypto.”

  Authority increased to 42!

  Uline Tar was clearly in shock and looked at me then at the fluffy pure white tail, then glanced at her tablet and checked something quickly.

  “We won’t even need that much money for the repair,” the Trader said, raising her huge lemon-yellow eyes. “By my calculations, we only need to spend ten million eight hundred thousand crystals to repair the frigate. Now we have potentially more! And it seems to me that isn’t all the surprises you have in store and you could easily get by without any investment from me, and especially without Ayukh or Minn-O.”

  “Yes, that is true. And I have another very interesting and potentially rewarding venture, but who tells all their secrets at the same time?” I smiled happily, then turned serious. “Uline, I might be able to get by without your finances, even though it would be a bit hard. But there are a whole bunch of reasons I would like the starship to partially belong to you. You’re a beautiful Geckho lady I fully trust, and we could be business partners.”

  The Trader rumbled exceptionally loudly, very satisfied at my trust and offer to work together.

  “Gerd Gnat, I have known since we first met that you aren’t like the others and will achieve a great amount. I believed that I needed hold on to you. Unfortunately, my kind doesn’t understand that and will think I lost a business dispute. And if only that was all! I tore up a high-potential engagement with Uraz Tukhsh just a half ummi before my fiancée became a war hero. After that, instead of selling the rights to the video clip from the Meleyephatian base to some news channel, I showed the footage to Geckho military and it was confiscated... My family will think I am making a huge error, abandoning everything to bet on working with you. But the longer I talk with you, the more convinced I become that I am not making the wrong choice! So, I am immensely proud and joyful to accept your offer! Two thirds of the profits to you, one to me. Well roughly, not considering the small shares of the other crew members. Does that work?”

  I was totally satisfied with that, and we shook hands just like people, cementing our understanding. Then I took out my tablet and placed Uline Tar into the captain’s assistant slot. But I asked the Trader not to advertise our agreement to the other team members on the frigate. I told her just to limit herself to the basics like Gnat and Uline got together enough money to repair the ship, but the other team members did not need to know the financial details.

  I had plenty to worry about. Sooner or later, this talk could reach Imran, Eduard Boyko or Dmitry Zheltov, then the leadership of my faction. I did not want one bit for the Human-3 Faction to find out how much space currency I had at my disposal. That would be an additional cause for envy, anger and extra attention from leadership. I preferred to avoid all that. After all, it was not hard to predict how Lozovsky and the other directors and curators would react: “Ah, you got a lot of space currency, so help the faction out and quick share your money with us!” And it wasn’t that I didn’t want to help my allies, I just figured an intact starship would bring somewhat more benefit to humanity than extracting a couple million crystals from me by pressure or blackmail.

  “Don’t you worry about that, Gnat,” Uline reassured me when I shared my worries. “Who knows better than a Trader that finances are best kept quiet. If your factionmates think you a modest player without much money, let them stay mistaken on that account. But if your faction needs crystals that bad, I could offer to buy out Eduard, Imran, Dmitry and Minn-O. One hundred thousand is a very respectable sum, and I bet few of them would prefer a mountain of crystals to a hypothetical share in the profits. And for a small percentage, I could even act as middle-man and arrange for that money to be transferred back to your home planet.”

  It was quite an intriguing offer. I was sure that the several tens or even hundreds of thousands of crystals being transferred from deep space would be a massive boon to the Human-3 Faction. Although in Minn-O’s case of course, I would first have to wait for her to transfer to my world so that the money she received would not be going to the enemy. However once again, all these issues would have to be dealt with later. And so I suggested that Uline wait until the frigate was done being remodeled because our priority mission now was getting the ship into working order, so we had to save our funds for that.

  Chapter Eighteen. Propaganda and Diplomacy

  IT WAS THE MIDDLE of the night under the Dome, and I didn’t catch Lozovsky in his office. In theory, that was predictable, even though fairly often there was work underway in the admin building at such an ungodly hour. And it wasn’t exactly abandoned now. I ran into Alexander Antipov in the hallway having left his office give a tour to a large group of shadowy outside military men. One of them, a plump middle-aged officer with major patches, unexpectedly walked up to me and extended a hand in greeting:

  “Kirill Ignatiev? I’ve heard so much about you. You turned it around brilliantly with the Graveyard node! You neutralized quite a large threat to the Capital! I recommended your leadership to pay you a bonus for that!”

  The major slapped me on the shoulder good-heartedly and rushed to catch up to his colleagues, leaving me to stand in confusion. Who even was that? How did he know me? Unfortunately, there was no one to ask, because Alexander Antipov had left with the rest. Now there was only one light on in the whole gloomy hallway. It was coming from the cracked-open door of our former Leng Radugin’s office. I walked up closer and listened to bits of the important meeting going on there, which must have included at least a dozen people:

  Grain crops for dry soil... not enough fuel for the combines... we need to plow the virgin soil of the Centaur Plateau... move the third grain elevator further away from the front...

  I had always respected farmers and their difficult work, but I was pretty far from understanding it both in the real world and the game. I asked a guardsman, who told me the faction leader had gone to his room just ten or fif
teen minutes earlier. I figured Lozovsky wasn’t sleeping yet so I hurried to his place. I had a bunch of issues I wanted to discuss, and I needed to take advantage of the opportunity.

  Based on the sour face Ivan Lozovsky opened the door with, I immediately guessed that I’d come at a bad time, and he was not too happy at his unexpected midnight visitor. I was especially clued in by the sound of his shower running. Clearly the faction leader was not alone. I did not know who the secretive Diplomat was dating and I suspected that few in our faction were privy to such information.

  Not wanting to ruin my boss’s date, I was intending to turn and leave, but Ivan Lozovksy pointed me to two chairs inside. There was romantic dim lighting provided by three candles in a pretty candelabra on the newspaper table. Nearby there was champagne cooling in a bucket of ice and two flutes waiting to be filled. All that only reinforced my conviction that I had poked my head in at a very bad time. Wanting to get out quickly, I set out my recent news as briefly as possible: the talk with Kung Waid Shishish, the Graveyard node, Minn-O wanting to join our faction and the trophy frigate.

  The faction leader had no reaction to most of the information as if he already knew it all from other sources. He answered the question about Minn-O changing factions extremely curtly: “not opposed,” but when I told him about the trophy frigate, he lit up:

  “A starship? And you’re its captain and even co-owner? I’m both intrigued and surprised! Although... We’ll have to tell the Geckho very delicately. First, we have to ask Kosta Dykhsh if a starship that partially belongs to a member of a different race is even allowed to enter the Geckho’s exclusive economic space. You see Kirill, most Geckho flew to our newly discovered earth with a clearly defined goal — to get fat trading with us backward outworlders. I have seen how our suzerains underpay for all our stuff and crank up import prices for theirs! Just look how many middle-men every transaction has to go through! And each of these greedy cheats wants a piece for themselves! If us outworlders get our own starship, all these middle-men would be cut out, which would take profit away from the Geckho, so they would give it a hostile reaction.”