He wasn’t impressed. “This isn’t an Internet chat, dude. You’d better behave yourself.”
He grinned, enjoying Yanna’s attention. He was clearly winding me up. “Take your junk out, get a protection cover from the trunk, spread it on the seat, then put the stuff back in.”
“Really?” I faked surprise. “WTF? If you’re Yanna’s new-”
“Leave him, Vlad,” Mrs. Orlova intervened. “Just go!”
“What do you mean, ‘just go’? This is leather! I really don’t want him to-”
“Hi Phil,” Alik’s unmannered voice resounded next to us. “Problems?”
He stood behind Vlad in a relaxed, slightly stooping pose, hands in his sweatpants pockets, cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth, his eyes squinting predatorily, his lower lip slightly bulging. He looked like the epitome of a street thug if ever I’d seen one.
Your Reputation with Vladimir Korolev has decreased!
Current Reputation: Dislike, 15/30
Vlad cast a nervous glance around him. “Get in the car,” he snapped at Yanna’s mother. He jumped into the driver’s seat, slammed the door and stepped on the gas.
Yanna leaned out of the open window, “Tonight Dad will come to collect the TV! Make sure you’re at home!”
“Tell him to call me first,” I began. “I might be out-” I fell silent, realizing no one was listening to me.
“Is she gone?” Alik asked. “Like, gone gone?”
I nodded.
He offered me a packet of cigarettes. “Have a smoke.”
I took one and turned it over in my fingers for a while, then gave it back to him. “No, thanks. I haven’t smoked for a week. I want to keep it that way.”
“Nice job,” he said. “Wish I could quit too. Costs me an arm and a leg...”
“It does, doesn’t it?” I agreed. “Thanks for helping me out. It would have been a shame to have had my lights punched out by my ex’s new acquisition.”
I paused. “If you don’t mind me asking... you’re not following me, are you? It’s just that every time I come out into the courtyard you’re always around.”
Alik’s face darkened. He took a deep drag on his cigarette and chuckled, chewing his lips. He heaved a sigh and prepared to speak.
A yellow exclamation mark appeared above his head.
He was a quest giver!
“You could say that,” he admitted. “I don’t have a place to stay, do I? So I just take it one day at a time. Sometimes I sleep in the basement. Or at one of the guys’. And when it’s warm like this I just sleep on a bench in the yard.”
“No way? I thought you had a home?”
“I did,” he faltered. “Basically, my Dad took out a payday loan. Just to celebrate his fiftieth birthday in style, if you know what I mean. He kept up with his payments at first. And then he got fired. And we still had to pay off the loan. So we’re subletting our flat to some migrant workers. My parents have moved to their allotment shed in the country. We have a garden allotment, you know, so they live there now. Mother is really sick now. Worse than before. And Dad just drinks all day. I have to handle the bailiffs...”
“Why don’t you find a job? Or just move in with them? You could help them with the garden...”
“There isn’t much to help, man. Also, it’s a shed as I told you. Normally we keep garden tools in it. And as for finding a job, nobody wants me. I worked at a building site for a while but their foreman, the bastard, fired me for being on the bottle. He never paid me,” he turned away.
We stood there for a while, each thinking his own thoughts.
The yard was getting busy with people leaving for work. The sounds of starting motors filled the air as cars began pulling out of their parking spaces. The day was slipping into gear. I had lots of things to do.
“Is there any way I can help you?” I asked Alik point blank.
“I don’t think so. I know you’re broke. Crashing out at your place isn’t an option, either. But if you hear of a job...”
Help Alik Find a Job!
Your neighbor Romuald “Alik” Zhukov is in bad need of regular employment.
Rewards:
XP: 400 pt.
Reputation with Romuald “Alik” Zhukov: 30 pt.
Current Reputation: Amicability 10/60
No Accept/Decline buttons anywhere, just like it had been the last time with old Mr. Panikoff and his sports newspaper quest. Apparently, the only way to accept the quest was by saying it out loud.
“I’ll see what I can do, man.” I said.
The quest window disappeared.
“Thanks,” Alik proffered me his hand. “It means a lot to me.”
I went back home, had breakfast and began cleaning up. Having finished, I picked up the full trash bag and took Richie for a walk. We headed for the park so I could put in a bit of jogging too.
As I jogged, Sveta Messerschmitt called me. “Hi, Phil. How’s Richie?”
“Like a dog with two tails,” I replied, panting. “He’s actually running next to me. Richie, speak!”
“Oh sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
“That’s all right. You don’t need to worry about him.”
“Thank you. Dad wanted me to tell you that he’ll make sure you get the reward for finding him.”
That was good. I could use some monetary reinforcement. Having said that...
No. It just felt wrong.
“Sorry, Sveta,” I stopped to catch my breath. “I didn’t do it for the reward. Just promise me that when he fathers some puppies I can buy one.”
“You can have one! Of course!”
“Deal,” I suppressed an involuntary smile. “I’ll be off, then.”
“Thank you so much! Can you please send me some more pictures of him?”
“Absolutely. Bye!”
I took a few more pics of Richie, sent them to her and resumed my jogging.
My Vitality bar caught my eye. I knew for sure it used to be red — but now it was yellow. Yellow.
I focused on it. I had 80,00173% Vitality. Did that mean that anything below 80% was in the red?
In which case, everything over 90% was probably green. Oh well. That was something to work towards.
Having finished my run, I dropped onto a bench. I really needed to check my stats. It had been exactly a week since I’d discovered the interface.
I opened the stats window,
Philip “Phil” Panfilov
Age: 32
Current status: unemployed
Social status level: 6
Unclassified
Married
Wife: Yannina “Yanna” Orlova
Children: none
Main Characteristics:
Strength: 7
Agility: 4 (+1 bonus from the Stinky Chinese Sneakers of Nimbleness)
Intellect: 18
Stamina: 4
Perception: 7
Charisma: 12
Luck: 6
Secondary Characteristics:
Vitality: 80%
Satisfaction: 78%
Vigor: 47%
Metabolism: 103%
In order to access more data, you need to level up Insight
Aha. My “gamer” status was gone, replaced by “unemployed”. Hopefully, not for long. The sneakers’ bonus to Agility was quite impressive. I just loved their name-generating engine! Luckily, it didn’t seem to have any negative readings. Otherwise I wouldn’t be surprised if the word “stinky” detracted 1 pt. from Charisma, and the word “Chinese”, from Durability.
The rest was more or less clear. I’d brought up Strength by investing the available point I’d had. As for Stamina, I’d leveled it up by running non-stop the night Yanna had walked out on me.
That was the extent of my last week’s accomplishments. Never mind. I’d spent a lot of time working out the interface. Now I had to concentrate on Insight as well as social status, all the while improving the main levelable stats and whatever skills cou
ld make a difference in real life.
Just out of curiosity, I checked my skill list. It would be a good idea to copy them all to an Excel file and ponder over them.
I scrolled through the list until I came to a weird line at the very bottom written in pale gray ink,
Optimization: 0
What was that? Some yet unblocked skill the system had bestowed on me?
I tried to open it. Pointless. A message popped up,
In order to access more data, you need to level up Insight
I summoned Martha. This time she was glitchy as hell, answering all my questions in a grave tone,
“In order to access more data, you need to level up Insight!”
This Insight seemed to be increasingly important. Almost as important as the new debuff I then received on my way back home,
Sexual frustration!
You’re suffering from lack of sex! It negatively affects your general health. Continuous sexual frustration and arousal may lead to prostate problems and neurotic disorders.
Warning! High probability of spontaneous erections!
Warning! Your aggro radius has increased!
Warning! High probability of receiving a Depression debuff!
Warning! The Sexual Frustration debuff cannot be disabled by self-gratification!
-5% to Satisfaction every 12 hrs
As if to please, the street seemed to be packed with girls in skimpy summer clothes. Trying to blank them out, I hurried to my front door. Just as I crossed the doorway, I got the mother of all spontaneous erections.
Chapter Thirteen. A Box of Chocolates
“Of course I don’t believe the lucky horseshoe superstition. But I understand it works whether you believe in it or not.”
Niels Bohr
“Charisma is something you’re born into.”
Victor Chernomyrdin[5]
PEOPLE HAVE a habit of starting a new life now and again. The only difference is in how they do it. You can turn a new leaf by quitting smoking and drinking on a New Year’s Eve. Or you could buy a gym membership starting next Monday. You could even get a new lease of life on your favorite Internet forum by registering a new account.
You could delete your old game char and create a new one from scratch, then level it up using the knowledge and experience you already have.
You could do it in real life too, by changing your job, your appearance, your habits and even your lifestyle.
The older we get, the stronger our desire to rewrite our lives, deleting all our failed relationships, expired contacts and stupid actions. It’s probably why readers love the stories of characters going back to their youth and reliving their old lives by taking a different, mistake-free route.
Today was the perfect chance for me to turn a new leaf. Everything seemed to fall into this pattern: my final decision to break up with Yanna, my first day at work and the mysterious gift from the future whose boosting mechanism allowed me to compensate for some of the wasted time.
As soon as I walked back in through the door, I gave Kira a call and told her about Yanna and her mother’s visit.
“I’m afraid it’s the end,” I said. “Next Tuesday we’re meeting up to file for divorce.”
My sister heaved a sigh. “I see. Never mind. Just one of those things. Keep your chin up, li’l bro. It’s not the end of the world, is it?”
“It’s not. I’m starting a new job tomorrow. In sales. I got a funny feeling they’re gonna give me a run for my money. I just won’t have the time to be depressed.”
“Did they hire you? No way! Excellent, well done! Listen, what if we all have dinner at our parents? Would you like that?”
“Good idea. How about Friday?”
“Okay. I need to go now. See you on Friday!”
I smiled. My heart felt strangely warm.
While still inspired, I concentrated and made a new task list. This was how it looked like now,
Tasks available:
- visit parents;
- level up Insight;
- get accepted for the Ultrapak job;
- finance my new start in life;
- downsize;
- finish reading the marketing book;
- buy some decent work clothes;
- buy some workout clothes and gear;
- buy a gym membership;
- return Richie to his owner Ms. Svetlana “Sveta” Messerschmitt;
- remove the Sexual Frustration debuff;
- meet up with Yanna and file for divorce
The old task Make up with Yanna and move back in with her had disappeared from the list, replaced by exactly the opposite. Interestingly, the program had classified the divorce application task as the least important, giving top priority to my upcoming family dinner. The thing that worried me the most, however, was how to get some money without having to borrow it, least of all from those close to me. Still, subconsciously I must have missed my parents a lot, realizing the importance of some quality family time.
I also needed to move into a smaller apartment. Another important step in my quest for a new life which required more cash injections.
Unhesitantly I put my state-of-the-art gaming computer up for sale, widescreen monitor and all. I priced it at 25% less than its analogs: I needed the money pronto.
By my estimation, it should fetch me enough to rent a studio, buy some clothes and guarantee a month or two of Spartan life, including gym membership. I had some ideas about starting to level up combat skills and even signing up for various classes and seminars that might improve my professional skills — but that would depend on my first sales results. Ultrapak’s earnings were bonus-oriented so I had to work hard to earn a decent wage.
I called my landlady to tell her I’d move out as soon as the rent ran out. She wasn’t pleased. I listened to her anxious objections about me not having warned them a month in advance as the contract required. Still, I explained the situation to her and managed to solve the problem in my favor. People like it when you’re honest with them, and the mention of a divorce invariably stirs up their sympathies. It’s almost as if they project your situation onto themselves, feeling sorry for you and empathizing with yet another broken dream.
Immediately afterward I received a phone call from some stuttering guy asking about my computer. When I told him that yes, it was still available, and yes, it was indeed the latest mega-machine good enough to launch shuttles into space, he wanted to come straight away to take a look and possibly to buy it on the spot.
I started copying all my personal files onto an external disk, preparing the computer for sale. It took quite a while — long enough for me to rustle up a proper pasta meal.
Just as I was about to sit down to lunch, the potential buyer finally arrived. It was a puny guy wearing a pair of shorts and a hugging T-shirt one size too small. He looked a bit jumpy and restless.
He spent about ten minutes checking the computer’s characteristics, ran some sort of performance test, then reached for the money and started thumbing through it without even trying to haggle over the price.
What, just like that? “Wait a sec,” I said, trying to keep up appearances. “It’s been a while since I cleaned it. I won’t be long.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he interrupted me. “I can do it later.”
He was so impatient to get away and start using the machine he even forgot to stutter.
“Mind if I format it?” I asked.
He heaved a doomed sigh. “I took time off from work to come over here.”
“Just a quick one,” I said, “to delete all the data and restore it to factory settings.”
He nodded and started pacing the room, casting impatient glances at the formatting progress bar and giving Richie a wide berth. What a fidgety individual.
I checked out his stats. Maxim Travkin, age 24, social status level 3, criminal record: yes. Just out of curiosity, I looked him up on social media. By the time I scrolled through his feed, the computer had almost fin
ished formatting.
I took the money and counted it, focusing on each note. The mysterious game system obligingly identified them,
5,000 rubles
A bank note issued by the Bank of Russia
Nominal value: 5,000 rubles
Issue date: 1997
Last modified: 2010.
I thumbed through the wad until I came to a note whose stats were different,
A piece of paper covered in artistic design
Size: 6.1811” by 2.71654”
Excuse me? A fake?
I felt it in my fingers, then peered at it against the light. It seemed to be perfectly genuine, watermarks and all.
Only apparently it wasn’t.
I set it aside for the time being. “You wouldn’t tell the difference, would you?” I said matter-of-factly to my buyer.
He got even more fidgety.
I turned to the dog. “Richie, watch him!”
“Eh, I... you know...” he began, stuttering.
“You know what?”
“I must be on my way. I need to get back to work... they’ve just called me,” he showed me his phone making sure not to expose the screen, then rose and reached for the money.
“It’s almost finished!” I insisted. “It’s 97% done, look!”
“Sorry, I really got to go,” he squeaked. “I’m off now.”
“Wait a sec,” I said, investing all the 12 pt. Charisma into my voice. Had I had my Derby shoes on, it would have been 13 pt.
“Could you tell you dog to keep away, please? I’m a bit scared of dogs.”
He didn’t lie this time. I could hear it in his voice. Well, so much the better.
“He’s not aggressive, don’t worry,” I said. “If you don’t make any sudden movements, he won’t attack you.”
Leaving him with the dog, I walked over to the front door and locked it. Having returned, I studied the remaining notes. I found three more identified as “pieces of paper covered in artistic design”.
Restart (Level Up Book #1) LitRPG Series Page 14
