Gestation by John Gold (love books to read .txt) 📗

under the overhang, I dig a hole for myself and sit down in the lotus pose, scattering some ash on my head, too. My left arm is pinned to my body under my shirt, enabling me to continually heal myself.

All that’s visible above the surface is my eyes. I just have to avoid suffocating.

Camoflage +230

I’m the king of camouflage! It’ll be hard to see me under all the ash in the Fields of Ash.

And I’m just in time. Two enormous Level 213 gargoyles fly down onto the cliff I’m hiding under.

“Harol api, gorum ehl ishvan.”

“Gul Haros tush hek, zumo aprem.”

“Ushral.”

∞ ∞ ∞

Knowledge area: Demon tongue +0.001%

The more often you hear and repeat languages you don’t know, the faster you learn them.

∞ ∞ ∞

So, that’s how that works! Okay, I’m going to repeat everything they say until they fly away.

The first intelligent creatures appear on the horizon—a whole squad of demons—and start scanning the heaps of ash. It’s a good thing I got myself covered up. Then, a wave of fear hits me.

First, I see the ash heaving as if someone’s crawling under it, and then I see the demon himself.

Demons, Scavenger Worms, Level 117

It’s terrifying to watch as the worms crawl by just two meters away. All kinds of creatures at lots of different levels are out there looking for anything they can find. For four hours, they just cast a good hundred spells before jabbing their weapons into the ash. The whole time, I listen to the two gargoyles sitting above me. The more I hear, the more I understand. I start to pick out more phrases; the capsule must be automatically translating the words I’ve learned.

Finally, they fly away.

The squad of ten demons remains, however. Then, there are the two worms, four minotaurs, three imps, and one demon-possessed creature with a blindfold over his eyes.

Demons, Hell Wailer, Level 172

Judging by the level, he’s in charge, and the worst part is that he was constantly sniffing. Sometimes, he gets particularly close, causing my heart to drop into my stomach.

You got a debuff: Veil of darkness

Effect: Complete loss of vision.

Duration: 23 hours, 59 minutes, 59 seconds… 58… 57…

∞ ∞ ∞

This is my worst day yet in Project Chrysalis. The hair on my head stands up, I’m sweating profusely, and sometimes it seems like the Wailer is practically stepping on my head. I hear him sniffing. My whole body senses where the worms are crawling through the ash, where the ash is compacted under the minotaurs’ hooves. I start clearly hearing everything the demons are saying, even when they’re far off.

New ability: Imp eye

Imps don’t have eyes. They see the world with their skin and catch sound waves from up to one hundred meters away.

∞ ∞ ∞

I’m only too happy to get any new ability that boosts my chances of survival. And it really does let me hear everything a hundred meters away and closer so long as there isn’t a barrier between me and the sound. In that case, it’s harder to hear. My perception reaches out for about thirty meters. It’s actually a good thing that I’m temporarily blind. My head spins a little, and just twelve hours later, I start to control the ability. I just have to concentrate on what I can hear or feel in order to get a better picture of where and how far away my opponent is.

The psychologist decided to start punishing me. Every day, she summons me to a virtual space. I sit in the corner and think about whatever I want. Just for kicks and giggles, I turn on my sound one day to hear her playing the piano. I don’t know the song, but it sounds nice. She plays for the whole two hours.

∞ ∞ ∞

Eliza was sitting at the desk in her virtual space. Moro, her ArtIn, also had access, so he was able to keep her informed of changes in the boy’s behavior.

“Miss Donovan, he just activated the audio channel.”

“Thanks.”

Elizabeth was talking with Moro on a different channel, so Anji couldn’t hear them.

“The sensors say he’s sitting with his eyes closed and listening to the music. He isn’t moving or smiling. I’d call his emotional field enjoyment.”

“Okay, so he likes the music. Let him listen.”

Anji sat in his corner, still motionless. The recordings from his capsule showed that he was suffering physically every day. First, his father threw him into the lake, and he didn’t know how to swim. On the second day, he just about lost a hand to a trap. After that, it was battles in the arena, days of getting beaten, and getting chased around the village by the dogs for three days, occasionally fighting off their attacks. He spent a whole week fighting the dogs in the back yard. It was hard to watch them rip chunks of flesh off the boy, though the wounds closed almost instantly. The worst was that his virtual father encouraged this kind of behavior. Just like the game panel, the psychologist didn’t have access to the audio track. Lunar law forbade that because it was interfering with game process, which is why she couldn’t have it. For the past three days, the boy had been lying on some kind of floor without moving as someone prowled around, and lately, the screen had just been black.

When she sent a query to Lunar about the cruelty of Anji’s virtual parents, she got a simple reply: In-game parents are tuned to meet the desires, needs, and emotions of the player, doing what they can to encourage the player’s own inclinations. In other words, Anji actually wanted what was going on.

∞ ∞ ∞

The third time I show up in the Fields of Ash, I’m convinced that I’ll be appearing where I left my character while I was in Hell. I don’t feel anything, just going back to continually healing myself. My blindness scares me with the unknown, though there isn’t anything out there besides lava a long way off. Besides that, there aren’t any sounds nearby,