Chapter 10:

After his conversation with the monster — who, as it turned out, was named Margaret — Yuri returned to his cosy office, fitted out as a personal room. In some sense this was Yuri's dream room. A high-performance PC, close proximity to the bathroom and canteen, good lighting from both the window and the lamp, a view of the city park, and even his own refrigerator that he had dragged in from some shop. The air conditioning and heating were excellent, and the carpet was wonderful both in appearance and underfoot.

He settled comfortably into his chair and launched Marvel Rivals. He needed to rest. Although the greater part of his emotions and thoughts were suppressed, his gaming addiction and the accompanying pleasure somehow didn't touch what was considered necessary to eliminate.

Yuri played with his mouth open — mainly because he was condensing "pita." Remarkably, the process itself was so intuitively natural that Yuri performed it without any difficulty — just like blinking.

The sensation of something halfway between air and liquid being drawn out through your own mouth was a sufficiently unique experience. Not as unique as being in inter-space — but memorable enough for the rest of his life.

The game was going well, and his teammates were relatively adequate and even capable of pressing their own buttons — which was a fairly rare occurrence in team-based competitive games.

The substance flowing from Yuri's mouth resembled saliva somewhat — only with a reddish tint. And it accumulated into a pile, forming something resembling a gemstone.

Yuri would probably have played with it in his hands a couple of times once he finished the match — obviously. Nothing could be more important than the game. Well, technically something could — but it would have to be critical, otherwise he was unlikely to budge.

But thinking of places.

Why was Yuri setting up the office rather than his home? The office had a constant and stable Wi-Fi connection. Moreover, although the world Yuri had ended up stuck in was extremely similar to the real one — aside from the absence of anything resembling life, except for plants for some reason — there were nevertheless a number of particulars that had led to his current situation.

1. Although absolutely everything was identical — it was identical to the present moment. Which meant that places where people don't live — as stupid as it sounds — would be identical to places where people don't live. That is, to put it simply: they would be run-down, and obviously no one would be maintaining them.

And the building where Yuri worked? He knew his boss far too well. He was the last kind of bastard the earth had ever had to carry. A single death would not make him change buildings. So the high-speed Wi-Fi was in no danger.

2. If anything was changed here — it would be fixed and would not revert. Yuri didn't quite know how to explain it, but his interventions were registered. For example, this room — it wouldn't go back to how it was the next day.

What was happening to this room in reality — Yuri didn't know and had no particular desire to find out. His gaming experience mattered far more to him than information about paranormal nonsense that wouldn't change his situation in any way.

The extract continued to flow from his mouth, increasingly resembling a gemstone. Given that the match had ended and he still wanted to play, though not as badly as before — he decided to take a closer look at the forming crystal.

It was a fairly beautiful crystal of a pale red hue. Although it was transparent, it distorted images so significantly that it gave the impression of being completely solid. It was mesmerising, but its size left something to be desired — no bigger than Yuri's thumb.

Its shimmer was genuinely captivating, though. The formation wasn't complete, so Yuri had to wait for all the accumulated "saliva" to drain out. Well — for occasions like this he had Dota 2 downloaded.

...

..

.

Yet another deadweight mid-laner, having picked Anti-Mage, was tirelessly demonstrating his mastery of his vocal cords rather than his keyboard. Yuri would have happily started verbally insulting him, but "saliva" was still dripping from his mouth — which prevented him from speaking normally. So he had to keep all the insults to himself. Which was somewhat regrettable.

The crystal had grown in size, but given the quantity of "saliva" Yuri could feel in his stomach, it would need some more time for complete crystallisation. What did the "saliva" feel like in the stomach — well, as paradoxical as it sounds...

It was similar to the sensation of a bladder emptying during urination. Nothing elevated — though a beautiful crystal was forming in the process.

In any case Yuri would have had to crystallise the "pita" eventually, so his current vegetating in online games was not laziness but perfectly justified waiting. Precisely so, and no other way.

...

..

.

Phew, those were five sweaty matches. His teammates were weak and the enemies were strong — but Yuri, like a true hero, had managed to snatch victory through his divine jungle play.

Indeed, he was surrounded by complete no-skills, and only he was carrying the MMR. So what if he finished matches with a score of 0/27/5 — in this game, victory goes to whoever's throne still stands, not whoever has the higher KDA.

Right now, however, games — reluctantly though it was — had to take a back seat. What he had been tirelessly draining from himself for several hours was right in front of him. A beautiful sparkling stone resembling a polished ruby lay on the desk.

Its size matched Yuri's fist. But the moment he saw the formed crystal, a desire arose to get rid of it — either to make someone eat it, or to hand it over to his "boss." It was strange enough that such desires had begun arising instinctively. Yet Yuri was starting to feel that this was normal. Though it shouldn't be normal — he would still lose sight of that thought before long. So all he could do was accept it. Struggle brings nothing. People like to believe it does — but over the course of his life Yuri had been convinced of the opposite more than once.

Speaking of eating, by the way. Why did Yuri even want to feed this pretty little stone to someone? That was suspicious, deeply suspicious...

Hm. Maybe he should eat something. But not cannibalism... [Disgusting. Disgusting. DISGUSTING. DISGUSTING. DISGUSTING. WHY DIDN'T I STOP MARGARET?! WHY DID I LET HER EAT THAT GUY IN THE FIRST PLACE?! But why should I worry about some stranger? DAMN IT, GET YOURSELF TOGETHER — YOU'RE NOT OKAY! And what does okay look like? Isn't it natural to eat when you're hungry? FOR F***'S SAKE, WAKE UP! YOU ATE A PERSON. A PERSON, FOR GOD'S SAKE! Wait — since when did I start calling the monster Margaret...?]

Returning to the subject of food — Yuri hadn't even tried regular human food. Well, he had tried, but back then his body had no head and eating had been difficult. Maybe he should go to a pizzeria? There was one nearby — as he recalled, they made excellent pepperoni there. Just thinking about it and his mouth was already watering. Or was that just the last remaining traces of "saliva"?

...

Well, he wasn't particularly keen on exerting himself, but walking seemed far too long. So he should probably skip the journey.

In this world Yuri vaguely felt as though his abilities were several times more powerful than in other places. However, he was too lazy to check — playing games was far more interesting than burdening himself with unnecessary work.

Predictably the pizzeria looked no different — the interior and menu were exactly as they had always been. Which was somewhat reassuring: stability was one of the few things Yuri genuinely liked. Not that there were many of them.

One way or another he was already planning to order a pizza — but approaching the empty counter, he remembered that there really were no people here...

...

Going into the kitchen, he discovered to his disappointment that there was no pepperoni pizza. He would probably have to move to the normal world and buy it there. But there was a small problem: he had left his wallet in his previous body, and in this one his clothing had transformed into a dress and his face was, obviously, that of a girl.

Not that the female face was actually a problem — but it was still worth mentioning. Consequently, his only option was to return to the normal world. But first he would at least deliver the crystal to his boss. Yuri wasn't sure he wouldn't shove it into some random passerby if the crystal stayed with him any longer.

(I’m out of stockpiled chapters. From now on, new chapters will be released once or twice a week. My exams are coming up, so I need to study (and definitely not play Chinese MOBA games))