Durability: 17/20
I’d had them for ages without actually knowing what they were. I just loved my new abilities.
Having finished cleaning, I booted up the computer. First of all, I wrote back to my clanmates. Just think of all the sleepless hours we’d spent together; all the days and nights — years even. We’d been playing together since vanilla.
I let them all know I was leaving the game. I thanked them for the great time and wished them luck on Argus. Just a down-to-earth message devoid of sentimental crap. I’d met quite a few of them IRL, anyway, which meant we weren’t parting ways for good.
Task status: apologize to clanmates for my silence
Task completed!
XP received: 5 pt.
+3% to Satisfaction
I donated all my gear and resources to the clan bank. I sifted through all my legendaries one last time, thinking how much time and effort each of them had cost me. I gave the empty Stormwind one last check, then took the Deeprun Tram to Ironforge. There, nostalgia got the better of me. I took a screenshot of my rogue char, exited the game and deleted him together with all the alts. I didn’t even consider selling him. It just didn’t feel right.
I uninstalled the game and heaved a sigh.
Fare thee well, Azeroth.
Task status: Stop playing WoW
Task completed!
XP received: 50
+10% to Satisfaction
Stop playing WoW? I didn’t remember seeing this task on the list. It must have added by itself when I’d made that decision.
Still, its results were impressive. I could use more of the same. The jump in Satisfaction gave me a feeling of incredible relief — the kind of sensation you get when you remove uncomfortable shoes after a day spent walking.
The number of XP points was also considerably higher. Martha had been right saying that the system awarded them depending on a task’s difficulty for a particular user.
True: it hadn’t been easy for me to erase almost twelve years of my life.
I didn’t stop there. I deleted Steam and all the remaining games, followed by gigabytes of guides, TV series, graphic novels, meme collections and other such junk. I sorted through my work files, cleared the computer desktop and checked the email.
Apart from spam, it also contained two very welcome letters. The first one was an appointment for a job interview from some packaging factory in need of a sales rep. They said they’d phoned me earlier but I hadn’t picked up.
The interview was for Monday morning. I’d have to spend some time preparing for it.
The other letter was from some Siberian pine nut distribution company. They’d contacted me via a freelance portal asking if I’d be interested in writing content for their corporate web site.
I immediately replied. Despite the weekend, one of their workers answered almost instantly. After we’d agreed on fees and deadlines, I set to work straight away.
Task status: Check the email
Task completed!
XP received: 1
+1% to Satisfaction
The more time I spent closing the unfinished tasks, the more I liked it. It wasn’t even about all the system buffs. It was more about my newly-acquired feeling of accomplishment. I wasn’t wasting my time playing or watching TV series: instead, I was being useful.
I was so hyped up that I used the short breaks from pine-nut content writing to finalize some other tasks. I gave Boris a good brush, did a quick grocery shopping, wrote a blog post about me quitting the Game and called my parents.
I spent the rest of Sunday finishing the content assignment and preparing for the next day’s interview. I went to bed early. As I was falling asleep, I realized I’d completely forgotten to look into my social status which I’d already begun leveling. I even had an available stat point to show for it.
I really needed to invest it into something useful.
Chapter Ten. An Undocumented Feature
“If at first you don’t succeed, failure may be your style.”
Quentin Crisp
“HI, MY NAME’s Phil Panfilov. I’ve got a job interview at nine-thirty.”
The pretty receptionist ignored me entirely, too busy scrolling through an Instagram page. She yawned, covering her mouth with her smartphone, then finally looked up at me. Her fake eyelashes were so long she could probably fan herself on a hot day just by fluttering them.
“Sorry, what is it?” she yawned again. She must have had one hell of a weekend.
Monday mornings in an office inevitably resemble a disturbed anthill. But this particular company gave me the impression of an ant revolution in progress, with furious worker ants rushing around, about to dethrone the queen. Telephones rang non-stop. The air was blue with cussing. Printers rattled; doors slammed; the coffee machine gurgled.
“Martynov! Get off your ass and mail the proposal to Butchers Market! They’re begging to be closed!”
“Which one?”
“To the Armenians, you dimwit!”
“Who’s taken my coffee?!”
“Which part of ‘cash before delivery’ don’t you understand?”
“Who’s got the Virgil file?”
“Cyril, do you mind? This is my spoon! Kindly put it back once you’re finished with it!”
“No, we don’t do cash after delivery. Only before. Which means we need their money first!”
“Max, the accountant girls are looking for you everywhere! Their printer is down! They can’t process the invoices!”
“How do you do, sir? Yes, I can most surely mark it down...”
“They’re out of printer ink, that’s all!”
Normal. Business as usual.
I looked around me. The spacious office was heaped high with boxes and product samples; the desks groaned under tons of paperwork. The management area looked like an island of tranquility in a raging sea of sales reps who occasionally tried to breach its calm waters.
“Excuse me,” I squinted at the girl’s name tag hovering over her head, “Darya, isn’t it? I have a job interview at-”
“Down that corridor, last door to the right. It’s marked HR.”
“Thank you.... Darya.”
With a nod, she turned her attention back to her phone.
I found the HR department. The corridor in front of it was quite crowded. It looked like I would be there for quite a while.
“Hi,” I said. “Are you all interviewing for the job?”
“We are indeed,” a small and lively young guy grinned at me. “Don’t tell me you too have a nine-thirty appointment! You’re interviewing for sales rep, aren’t you? Well, you’re late, man! It’s nine-forty now.”
He squinted his bright blue eyes at me, chatting non-stop. “Only joking. We all have the same time. What’s your name? I’m Greg. I used to sell windows. That bastard of a boss of ours stopped paying our bonuses. And my wife’s pregnant so I need the money real bad. I haven’t quit my current job yet though. I told them I had a meeting with a customer. Clever, eh? And you? What did you do?”
“A bit of everything,” I shook his proffered hand. “I’m Phil.”
The guy was a born sales rep. Talk about skill! He could sell windows for a submarine if he really had to.
He was also a born bullshitter. He wasn’t married at all. I could see his stats, couldn’t I?
Gregory “Bullshit Artist” Boyko
Age: 25
Current status: sales rep
Social status level: 7
Class: Vendor. Level: 5
Unmarried. No children
Criminal record: yes
Current Reputation: Indifference 0/30
Then again, so what if he wasn’t married? He might have a live-in girlfriend.
Losing all interest in me, Greg B.S. returned his attention to a quiet girl standing next to him, resuming the conversation apparently disrupted by my arrival. Her age and clothes betrayed her as a college student. Was I right?
I most s
urely was,
Marina Tischenko
Age: 19
Current status: college student
I peered at all the others. Almost all of the job applicants were younger than me. All of them were wearing office clothes and even ties.
I’d very nearly done the same. I too had a business suit gathering dust in the back of the wardrobe. Still, reality proved quite harsh. No matter how hard I tried to tuck my stomach in, I just couldn’t button up the trousers. So in the end, I’d had to make do with a pair of jeans and the suit jacket worn over a clean white T-shirt.
I curiously studied their product samples which littered the office, peering at their stats. Rolls and rolls of cling film, thermoforming film, anti-corrosion film, water-soluble film, shrink film and air bubble film...
Air bubble film, yes! I just loved popping it. Who doesn’t?
My Insight skill could identify anything within direct line of sight, saving me the trouble of actually approaching or handling any of the items.
“Phil? What do you think?” Greg demanded.
I stared blankly at him.
“What’s the easiest product to sell?” he repeated.
Everyone’s eyes turned to me. Apparently, Greg had been the heart of the unfolding discussion.
I didn’t have to think hard. “The easiest product to sell is the one your customer needs. You don’t even need to sell it to him. He’ll buy it anyway.”
“Exactly! He’s right!” the others chimed.
My Reputation with some of them, including the Marina girl, had grown a little. Now it was Indifference, 5/30.
So easy? They didn’t mean it!
“Aha! You see?” Marina grinned victoriously at Greg. “So much for your windows!”
She wasn’t as timid as I initially thought. In fact, she was very much like Yanna used to be at her age.
I took another look. She was quite pretty, actually. A delicate face with rather thick eyebrows under which sparkled a pair of emerald eyes amazing in their purity.
She met my gaze and gave me a wink. Embarrassed, I looked away, suppressing a smile.
“I don’t think so!” Greg insisted. “How do you know what your customer needs? And you don’t need just one! You need loads of them! And they don’t give a damn that you have a quota to meet! They don’t care if you lose your bonuses! Or if your product is out of season! And this,” he pointed at the rolls of packaging film, “who needs these things? Shops? Supermarkets? Farmer’s markets? Cling film suppliers are one big mafia, man...” he nodded at the office seething with workers.
I froze. He had a point.
I opened the map and sent a mental search request.
Nothing happened. I tried to reword my query several times until finally I had every shop and market in town marked on the map.
Fingers crossed.
I told the system to sort the shops, leaving only those in need of a packaging supplier.
“So windows are big, trust me!” Greg concluded. “They’re something everybody needs!”
The current level of your Insight skill is insufficient to access the information you’ve requested!
Bummer!
The HR door opened, letting out a disheveled job applicant. Frowning, he looked over at us, then left.
“Next please,” a male voice called from behind the door.
They spent no more than five minutes with each applicant. The company’s turnover must have been huge, forcing them to hire everyone who’d agree to work for a minimum wage with a prospect of bonuses.
Finally, Greg walked in. He stayed in the room longer than everybody else and walked out grinning from ear to ear, utterly pleased with himself.
“I’m good! And I don’t care. If they don’t hire me, it’s their loss. See ya, guys! I've got windows to sell!”
He shook hands with everyone, gave Marina a wink and left.
Marina walked through the HR door. I was next.
After a while, she walked out with an embarrassed smile. “I think they’ve hired me,” she whispered.
I walked in.
“Good luck,” she said behind my back.
Thanks, girl.
* * *
I LEFT THE PACKAGING office feeling good. I had a funny feeling I’d made it. They said they’d call me — same thing as they’d said to everyone else, I suppose. In any case, the day was so good, the air filled with the bountiful aromas of summer blossoms. The sun touched my face, heating my shoulders. I removed the jacket and slung it over my back.
I turned my head this way and that, identifying everything in sight just to level up a little. I was curious, too. A concrete trash can; a Porphiry Govorov, age: 12, middle grade student; a curb, a car, a Lyudmila Voronina, age: 72, retired; a LED streetlamp, a Vita Balashova, age: 24, a fortune teller...
Wait a sec. Age, 24? The person looked like an old woman!
I took another look. A street beggar, most likely a Roma judging by her traditional Gypsy garb: several frilly floral skirts worn on top of each other and a matching flounced blouse peeking from under a filthy woolen cardigan. A torn knitted shawl was wrapped over her shoulders for a bit of extra warmth. She indeed appeared ancient.
The likes of her — whether begging, selling counterfeited goods or simply offering to tell your fortune — were a common sight on Russian streets. I couldn’t see her face from under the black headscarf. Still, her hands betrayed her: filthy but smooth, definitely not the hands of an old woman.
I knew of course that not all of them were genuine Roma. Many of them were rip-off merchants of any nationality, making good money on people’s sympathy to the underprivileged. But posing as an old woman? What an actress!
A skeletal dog lay on the soiled tarmac next to her, resting his filthy head on his paws. A dirty washing line was tied to the collar constricting his neck.
Richie. A German Shepherd.
Age: 6
Current status: pet
Owner: Svetlana “Sveta” Messerschmitt
I stopped next to them. Without raising her eyes, the fake “Gypsy” mumbled monotonously,
“Cross my palm with a few coins, dearie! Just for a crust of bread for me but mostly for the dog, he needs feeding... Cross my palm with a few coins, dearie! Just for a crust of bread...”
“Excuse me,” I said, not knowing how to begin.
She kept mumbling, ignoring me.
“Excuse me, is this your dog?”
“Of course it is. Spare a few coins for the dog, dearie, he needs feeding...”
I chuckled. Her dog, yeah right. “Richie? Richie my boy!”
The dog raised his ear. He opened his eyes and lifted his head, looking at me curiously with his intelligent eyes. He was a handsome dog with an off-white patch on his chest.
“Richie, good boy! Come!” I slapped my leg.
The dog scrambled to his feet, intending to walk over to me. His short leash pulled tight.
The fake “Gypsy” tugged at it sharply. Whimpering in pain, the dog dropped to his side.
Panting heavily, he kept staring at me. His tearful eyes were caked in some filthy goo.
That was the last drop. I loved all cats and dogs indiscriminately (Yanna’s departed Chihuahua being the only honorable exception). I couldn’t watch them being hurt.
“Stop torturing the dog now,” I said. “This isn’t your dog. I know who it belongs to. I’m calling the police,” I pulled out the phone, pretending I was dialing the number.
The fake Gypsy exploded into some desperate screaming.
Heavy footsteps resounded behind me. A godawful whack on the head sent me to the ground.
Damage taken: 93 (a punch)
Current vitality: 77,64501%
The edges of the system message turned crimson. A new warning appeared,
You’ve received a Bleed debuff!
Duration: 30 min
-0,01151% to Vitality per sec
Current vitality: 77,53350%.
The fake Gy
psy stopped screaming. I clutched at my head. My fingers touched something wet and sticky. My attacker must have had a signet ring or something on his hand.
I tried to scramble back to my feet. Immediately I received an almighty kick in the ribs which knocked the wind out of me. My throat seized with an agonizing pain.
Damage taken: 126 (a kick)
Current vitality: 76,17388%.
Holding my stomach, I rolled onto my side to see my attacker. The “Gypsy” was busy dragging the struggling dog away, followed by a man in track pants and a leather jacket[4].
Georgy Balashov. Age: 29
Current status: Unemployed
I submitted this data to memory.
Gradually, the pain began to release me. My Vitality began to rise. That was good news, meaning I hadn’t received any internal damage.
What a bastard! He'd stripped me of nearly 2.5% health with just two hits!
Staggering, I climbed to my feet and brushed the dirt off my jeans and my good jacket. The street was quite busy — but no one had approached me, offering help. That was all right. How many times had I ignored people lying unconscious in the past, thinking it must have been some useless homeless drunk? Oh well, welcome to the club.
Wonder if it had something to do with my low social status? Some sort of karma effect? And how many times had I myself attacked people from behind in the game, shamelessly raising my Honor (or should I say Dishonor) point count?
What a shame I’d lost the dog, though. To pay my attacker back in kind would have been nice too. But it looked like their wrongs would never be avenged.
Still, there was something I could do.
I opened the map and submitted a query.
Immediately I saw all three of them: the dog, the fake Gypsy and her back-stabbing sidekick. They seemed to be back at the farmer’s market which is usually the center of petty criminal activity in most Russian towns.
Restart (Level Up Book #1) LitRPG Series Page 10
