The yokai woke up closer to noon, hungry and unrested. Glumly looking at each other, they both realized that they had hoped to wake up in their own beds, hoped that everything that had happened was just a bad dream. But no such luck.
Mr. Gennady tried, out of habit, to blow his nose vigorously and spit—it turned out quite funny, but he couldn't enjoy his youthful body free from age-related problems. Yuri spent some time extracting his own fur from his mouth since he had slept all night hugging his tail.
"Well, what's next, Brother Fox... uh... Sister Fox?" Mr. Gennady began the conversation, businesslike settling by a tree trunk and lifting the hem of his kimono. However, upon once again discovering the absence of an important part of his body, he swore very crudely and retreated into the bushes.
Yuri had some thoughts but held a significant pause until the bakeneko returned—flushed and angry.
"We need to return to the Tree of Wisdom. It's probably the only way to clarify our situation."
"Does it talk?"
"Supposedly, yes... Well, probably—it talked in the game. In any case, we need to understand where we stand. Let's start with the tree."
They had no difficulty finding the Tree. The forest was sparse, and the gigantic crown was easy to spot. The duo cautiously headed towards it, remembering yesterday's encounter.
They were hungry. Along the way, the starving yokai came across appetizing berries, which they ignored for fear of poisoning. They found nuts the size of apples, and here they had to spend time in unsuccessful attempts to get to their contents. But without any tools, everything would have been futile if Yuri hadn't remembered about his double.
He summoned an illusion of himself and spent some more time figuring out its fine motor skills. After that, the illusion began crushing the nuts by squeezing them in its palms. At the same time, she occasionally giggled playfully, casting sly glances at Mr. Gennady.
"Yuri," the bakeneko thoughtfully addressed her companion, "what's with her? And how is she breaking the nuts?"
"I don't know, Mr. Gennady. I can assume that this is how one of her functions works here—to distract the enemy's attention. And with the nuts, I calculated correctly—the illusion has all the original's parameters increased. She managed to throw us onto the tree yesterday. Her main function is to fight the enemy. Kitsune in 'Grind Hell' are pretty good summoners."
"Ah, so you're one of those... I don't like summoners."
The kitsune only sighed sadly. Few people liked summoners, but many considered them [expletive] cheaters (c). Yuri was already used to it. He could have delivered another apologetic speech, this time in defense of solo game lovers, accustomed to achieving everything on their own, like clearing raid dungeons. But he didn't. Finally, having snacked on nuts, the friends continued on their way and soon arrived at the clearing where they had ended up in this world yesterday.
The clearing of the Tree of Wisdom had changed significantly overnight. The flower meadow now more closely resembled a plowed field. As they approached the Tree itself, Yuri noticed that the trunk was scribbled with rude words, drawings, and even an offer to sell some "salts."
The Tree was enormous, appearing much larger in real life than in the game, and it took the pair some time to walk around the trunk to find its face. In the game, you could interact with it from any side, but in the real world, shouting at the back of a blockhead two hundred meters in circumference didn't seem like the best idea to either of them.
Judging by its face, the Tree was asleep. Half an hour of shouting, followed by some delicate cursing from Yuri, confirmed this assumption—the plant was either snoozing or stubbornly ignoring them.
A hopeless situation.
"Yuri," Mr. Gennady spoke up, tired of sitting on a root and entertaining himself by reading the graffiti, "Yuri, do you have any matches?"
"Mr. Gennady!" the student protested, cautiously jumping away from the Tree. It was considered the most powerful being in the world of Grind, and Yuri feared the consequences.
The hint, however, was heard and understood. Somewhere above, the leaves rustled, the Tree opened its eyes, and then its mouth:
"I am the Tree of Wisdom, you rascals! Ooooh! How did you even get back here so quickly?"
The Tree peered at the disturbers of its peace and added:
"Oh. You're not them," it sighed and closed its eyes, clearly unwilling to continue the conversation.
Yuri took the initiative:
"Oh, um, Great Tree of Wisdom! Don't fall asleep! Explain, we don't understand anything! We were in another place, a completely different one, then ended up here..."
"You came from the forest," the Tree muttered wearily, "obviously..."
"No, I mean something else! How did we all end up here yesterday? ... And where is everyone who was here? That's interesting too."
The Tree opened its eyes again and looked at the disturbers with curiosity. The pause dragged on; it seemed to be deciding whether it was worth spending its time on them.
"I am the Great Tree of Wisdom!" the Great Tree of Wisdom finally proclaimed solemnly. "In short—I had a vision from the future. A Great Evil has come to our World. An evil of unprecedented power. And I saw that unfamiliar heroes engaged in battle with the Evil, fighting an unequal battle for our world and peace. A vision from the near future. Therefore, I summoned these heroes to fulfill the predestined... But something went wrong..."
The Tree let out either a sigh or a yawn and continued:
"For the first time, my magic failed me. The summoned ones did not heed my words. Goodness! I explained their tasks to them again and sent them off into the World, far away... I've had enough. What could have gone wrong? This is the first time..."
It seemed the Tree was now talking to itself, lamenting the wasted efforts and how tired it was. Apparently, it was preparing to fall asleep again.
Yuri was thinking hard.
"So you summoned all of us to defeat the Evil? And what will happen to us next?"
"Having fulfilled the contract you signed, you will return home."
"What contract?!" the bakeneko jumped up.
"The one you signed."
"We didn't..." Mr. Gennady burst out and started toward the Tree in attack, but Yuri, showing unprecedented courage, picked up the girl in his arms and covered her mouth with his hand. The dialogue with Captain Obvious continued:
"According to the contract, we are entitled to gifts," Yuri's brain was once again working at full capacity, combining knowledge of the world of Grind and vague guesses. "We agree to fulfill the contract!"
"Yes!" Genuine relief and hope were clearly heard in the Tree's voice. "These are, in part, very unusual gifts. But the enemy is strong. Accept them."
At the yokai's feet fell two hefty backpacks.
"Go on the path of your adventures. May wisdom be with you. I'm going to sleep!"
The Tree of Wisdom closed its eyes again and even seemed to sag a little, apparently plunging into a deep sleep that did not invite further conversation. The yokai were left alone in the clearing. It was time to calmly think over what they had heard.
"What contract?! Darn it! Are you crazy, darn it?!"
Yuri sighed, sat down next to one of the bags, and began to sort through the goodies hidden inside.
"Mr. Gennady..."
"Just Gena, darn it!"
"Gena, everything that has happened to us—it looks very strange, but there's definitely some logic here."
On the moss by the tree lay a pouch with jingling contents, then a strange painted wooden box. Continuing to take out items, Yuri went on:
"From what I see—we are not literally in 'Grind Hell.' But in a real world that resembles or tries to resemble Grind. Oh! This is my bag."
A small Japanese sword lay on the moss.
"Well, the lore of Grind... there... The Dark Lord is up to something; he sent his minions to stir up trouble in Moon Bay, and you need to collect 500 gonads of googly-eyed carps so that the sage Ren... Sorry, anyway, the world of Grind is in danger, and heroes from all worlds flock here to test their strength in the fight against evil. They make a contract in the introductory video. Then you find yourself at the Tree and get the first quest for 500 gonads, darn them..."
Yuri laid out ten fairly large boxes from the bag in turn and seemed surprised himself at how they all fit in there. Such boxes could be found under a Christmas tree.
"The Tree didn't give any quest for gonads and said it had foreseen the future. What if this future is just a vision of the ordinary life of our server."
Reaching into the bag again, the kitsune pulled out several very ordinary bottles of potions. Finally, she shook out some kind of amulet from the bag. Now the bag was empty.
"Maybe it was foolish to agree to the contract. But for the Tree, it's a given, and for us, the most obvious way to return home, if it's not lying. I don't know... In any case, we got our starter kit."
Yuri was being disingenuous. Of course, he wasn't eager to return home, but he was afraid to state it directly. He was attracted to the contract only by the opportunity to receive starter items.
"So let's figure this out. The Tree sees our server and our 'Good versus Evil' struggle, takes it for its future. It sees our contracts and goes like, 'Go, I created'? Yuri, Evil might not be here since it only saw it on the server, and I don't think it invited it here along with us."
"Yeah, that's right."
"Darn it! Yuri! We won't be able to fulfill the contract! You can't defeat what's not there!"
"Exactly. Last night, I managed to summon the character status window—there was no system menu with an exit. So without outside help, we can't get out of here. The Tree is our only option for now. We'll figure something out."
The kitsune spread her arms sadly. The sullen bakeneko leaned against the tree and began picking her teeth with her finger.
"We'll have to ask it more when it wakes up. Does it always sleep like this?"
"How should I know? Maybe it's tired—after all, it summoned an entire server and then scattered it across the world. Maybe it overworked itself."
"By the way, what do you think about our level? Where's the leveling up?"
Yuri was very flattered by such serious questions addressed to him. Perhaps it was the first time in his life that someone so mature listened so seriously to his words and sought his advice.
"There's only a very, very... shaky assumption. The Tree saw what was happening on the server and summoned heroes from there. But the heroes from there are just code on a server and pixels on a screen. The real heroes are us. But we're humans, not the mythical creatures we play as—we don't have skills. I don't know how magic works; maybe the Tree said something like, 'Bring me these ones so they can defeat the evil.' Magic combined its vision of the heroes with those who could defeat evil. And this is the compromise that came out. Essentially, we're starting a new life in the bodies of our heroes."
"Let's accept that as a basis," Mr. Gennady nodded. "Then the next question, or rather, request. I need a crash course on the game. I don't know anything about it. By the way, do they sell underwear in the shops here?"
"About the underwear, I think they will—the game is for those who like to dress up their characters. As for the game, hmm..."
"'Grind Hell' is a new word in MMOs. Maybe it's not very important in our situation, but I'll explain. The game developers thought of selling not just the ability to play, items, or ultra-power-ups, but the game characters themselves. And selling them by attaching a gacha system to the MMO. Therefore, the game lore was compiled in such a way that new types and races would logically fit into it. All players are adventurers, and it's not necessary that they're from this world. They just responded to a call for help and decided to test their strength and luck in the fight against evil. Therefore, among the game characters, there's a wild mix of everything that's in demand, that can be sold. That is, mostly anime adaptations of various mythical creatures. There are free ones too, but as you can imagine, they don't look so good, and their skills aren't great."
"Speaking of skills. There are innate skills—tied to type and race—and there are, and this is the main thing, skill lines tied to classes. Moreover, although any race and type can take any class, their synergy will be different. The available sets from the general skill list will be different. Get it? A human paladin and a yokai paladin have completely different skill sets. I've never seen a yokai paladin. Also, race and type give buffs or debuffs to skills, which is also important."
"And how good are our, um, characters?"
"Well, yokai are essentially a premium race. Bakeneko is a very expensive character; I got my kitsune in a nerd competition; otherwise, she's not cheap either. By the way, free types have good synergy with working classes like blacksmiths, miners, dung cleaners. Which kind of hints at something."
"How... natural."
"Well, yeah. In the game, there are 100 experience levels; you get a few attribute points at each level, but there are fewer points than attributes. Well, you get it. There's mana, stamina, health. They grow from level to level—everything's standard here. Skills have levels up to ten. That is, for every 10 levels—one skill level, but that's abstract, generally. What else? Oh! You can't just raise and unlock skills; they drop from mobs, then you craft them—very complicated—not in a few words. Maybe I'll remember something else important, but I've already told you the main thing. But that's how it was in the game; how useful will this knowledge be to us here?"
"Well, at least there's the Oak Tr... Tree of Wisdom. How did you open the status window?"
Yuri showed him. He opened his own and was very surprised—the window looked 'healthier' than it did at night. The jumble of text foretelling the arrival of ZALGO was gone—perhaps it changed its mind. The student was interested in the skills, as well as whether Mr. Gennady would be able to see someone else's status window. He could.
Race: Yokai
Racial Skill:
Life Drain – all attacks that hit the target drain additional health, mana, and stamina points. The drained points are added to the attacker. Drain ignores defense.
Type: Kitsune
Type Skills:
Master of Transformation – the kitsune can take the forms of a fox, fox-human, or human.
Master of Illusions – all illusion skills are enhanced.
Master of Mind Control – all mind control skills are enhanced.
Class: Illusionist
Class Skills:
Create Double (Level 1) – the illusionist creates a copy of themselves.
Distraction (Level 1) – the illusionist is ignored by the enemy.
As for Mr. Gennady, after several unsuccessful attempts, he managed to open his window. The racial skill was, of course, the same; the rest looked like this:
Race: Yokai
Racial Skill:
Life Drain – all attacks that hit the target drain additional health, mana, and stamina points. The drained points are added to the attacker. Drain ignores defense.
Type: Bakeneko
Type Skills:
Shape Shift – the bakeneko can take the form of a cat, human, or a killed enemy.
Reviver – the bakeneko can revive someone who has recently died.
Cuteness – the bakeneko increases the attributes of players in the party.
Class: Martial Arts Master
Class Skills:
Enhancement (Level 1) – the martial arts master uses spiritual power to increase combat abilities.
Acceleration (Level 1) – the martial arts master uses mana to speed up.
"Listen, Sister Fox. You say my character is more expensive than yours," the bakeneko's voice had notes of doubt. "Then what's with the crappy skills? You have some master-level abilities, and mine look like crap."
'Sister Fox' tried to keep a serious expression on her muzzle. Yuri had anticipated such a question but would have to reveal a terrible secret:
"Your character has a beautiful model and kimono. Bakeneko have unique emotions in the game; they cutely say 'Nya'. And also..."
"Are you kidding?"
"No. Besides, 'Reviver' is rare and useful."
Mr. Gennady sat down on a root and plunged into gloomy thoughts.
"And I have... a lantern in the shape of a physalis..." the kitsune tried to console her companion.
"Yuri..."
"I'm silent, Mr. Gennady!" The kitsune began to peer into her status window while the bakeneko muttered something about how "his daughter on maternity leave spent a lot."
Yuri examined the floating text for a while, maintained a tactful pause, then said:
"I don't understand some things, or rather, their absence: where are the attributes, health points, and so on? The skill descriptions are a bit different from those in the game, as far as I remember. I don't know what to think—is this where the similarity between the world and the game ends? Okay, if there are no more questions, let's move on to the inventory. I can't bear it any longer!"
The kitsune turned to the items previously laid out on the ground from the bag. Her tail began to beat the ground furiously.
"And let's start with the most important thing," Yuri said energetically, pulling a painted box toward himself, "BENTO!"
With a quick, decisive movement, he laid out the Japanese lunchbox in front of him and began to eat it right with his clawed hands. Hunger is no joke; Mr. Gennady had no choice but to follow his example.