Chapter 17. Reluctant liar

"I like your attitude", Aska said in response to Kaas's confident statement, "the main thing is for you to understand that virtual worlds have become just another space for people."

"But don't they take people away from reality, turning them into those very 'mortal fish' ?"

"Not at all! Have you forgotten that this is a term for those who do not work?" She asked and explained, "in most games, it is enough to transfer the right to collect data and all the player's actions will become part of the accumulated experience for AI systems. And for this, money is paid and it is considered work. Of course, the benefits of such virtual work are much lower than, for example, from real space travel, but it is also important."

"But what if a person, in the game, does not do anything, or repeats the same thing, then this will also be considered work and will be paid for it?"

"How can this be? Of course, there are conditions, the most important of all is activity. Creative new ideas and solutions are rewarded with a corresponding rating and additional income. In addition, there are games in which such a system does not work due to the fact that they do not create useful experience. There are other games that are specially created to collect such experience, and they are constantly evolving taking into account the emergence of new ideas, the development of civilization and technology. One of these games is the school game 'Expansion' which you have already heard about."

"It turns out that Kaas, while playing this game before, was already working?"

"In a way, although students cannot create a business, they can generate income in other available ways, including playing games. The circumstances that are recreated in the game and offered to the players depend on the real and expected conditions from real life, in the case of 'Expansion', these are circumstances associated with space and other planets."

"But won't children stop learning if they are given such a game?" Kaas was surprised, "In my world, children, and adults too, generally could not be torn away from games. And if they are also paid for games, then education can be forgotten altogether."

"How do you propose to engage in space colonization without the necessary knowledge and skills?" Aska said in surprise. "Do you really think this is just fun? The game, of course, is made interesting, and for this, it includes elements of adventure and a lot of things that do not yet exist in reality, but are expected in the future. Otherwise, it is also demanding the abilities and knowledge of the player."

"If this is such an accurate simulation, then how can an ordinary child do something so difficult?"

"It is clear that they learn, both in the real world and in the world of the game! In an interesting environment, players are faced with real challenges and issues that require knowledge, and to be successful in the game, they are much more motivated to learn. There are no boring lectures or anything like that, you have already seen how easy it is to gain knowledge from the network when faced with a problem, in addition, assistants are also present in the game and help to adapt."

"Then, if playing is part of education, it turns out that I have to play while studying? After all, my predecessor played this game!" Kaas asked expectantly.

"You can't do it now", she said with regret in her voice, "without special knowledge and experience, you will simply find yourself there in a completely dangerous situation. After all, if in reality I can change your records, then in the game it will be almost impossible. The game is a completely recreated world and everything that happens is recorded in it."

"Then what should we do? According to the tape, Kaas and his team were planning some big event in 'Expansion'."

"You won't be able to play during the holidays, because you had an accident, so during the treatment and additional 'rest' you missed everything. And for now, you will have to continue to avoid games, and the best excuse would be to practice martial arts, especially since your little rival Bizz also does them." She said, without explaining the details and with a wave of her hand replaced the stage, "Anyway, now is the time to practice the language."

After watching the video and their conversation, Kaas's mood soured. As a result, these activities became even more monotonous and tedious for him. He sincerely tried, but not because he liked them, but because he felt the need for them. The closer the time of meeting with other people was, the more he worried, because the fact that he was forced to take someone else's place in life caused him a feeling of guilt, although he was not involved in the death of the former Kaas. It would seem that what happened has happened, but right now, he really couldn't stop thinking about it.

In his past life, Kaas, or rather, Ivan Stepanovich, was a lonely and unsociable old man. To this state of affairs, he was led by the fact that he took relations between people too seriously. It is difficult to say whether he understood the reasons for his 'deviation' from what was considered to be the norm. But the impetus to everything was that he was a rather weak child, namely, such, as a rule, became targets for novice scoundrels who were looking for self-validation in mocking and bullying those who could not hit back. The school did nothing about this, and his parents did not teach him self-defense, but, on the contrary, taught him that you cannot fight and you need to be kind.

This led to the fact that while still in school, he became a detached loner and was afraid to interact with others. He wasn't a coward, but what's wrong with not wanting to be beaten? Most of the hooligans, having received their minimal education, left school earlier, and he spent the last two years relatively calm. And when school was over, he entered the institute via extramural education in order to be away from continuing his school days, which did not leave him any good impressions. What can be sad that for all these reasons, he did not communicate with girls and, accordingly, did not even know how to even get to know them. Instead of this experience, he developed idealistic notions of love and relationships, partly taken from books and partly from anime, which painted the most beautiful picture of all, and which were too far from the reality in which he lived.

His first acquaintance with a girl was on the Internet, he never saw her live, and perhaps that is why he could communicate with her in an interesting way and without complexes, and not without reason, he fell in love with her, and from her, he received his first emotional blow, which completely ruined the next two years of his life. And at 24, he was still a virgin. Disappointed, he tried several times to seek out casual encounters for fun and sex, and almost never succeeded. Several times he met girls he liked, but received several painful life lessons in a row, ranging from separations at the initiative of girls, for reasons unknown to him, and ending with the case when he broke off relations due to banal betrayal. As a result, he literally swore himself out of communication.

And where was he to communicate? At home? At work? No one particularly aspired to become his friend, and he did not like noisy drunken companies and got used to loneliness, which he even began to consider a more correct state. And as a result of the fact that he could not learn to understand people, he became more demanding about what is true. His parents taught him honesty, however, as a child he was ordinary and had a wonderful imagination and knew how to both tell the truth and deceive. But these lessons yielded results later.

He felt for himself what the lack of knowledge and understanding leads to. He did not know how to feel the attitudes and expectations of people, and even if he succeeded, then due to lack of experience, he was never sure whether he understood correctly. And people, and especially girls, acted out of their expectations. Therefore, he preferred to act honestly and sincerely, naively hoping that they would do the same to him. He did not even imagine that this honesty would become one of his curses. Honest, non-drinker, without friends, without a girlfriend, he looked, to put it mildly, suspicious and strange, in the eyes of others he was a typical loser. These qualities did not attract people to him, but on the contrary, repelled, which only aggravated his situation. Although he was called a good man, but even when the girl faced a choice between him and the narcissistic hypocritical scum, such a choice always ended in favor of scum.

He did not blame anyone for him being alone. He knew about the reasons, but there was nothing he could do about them. In fact, acquaintances often tried to introduce him to someone. But he was not an idiot and understood that they would not offer good things. And he was right, usually these candidates were his peers, who, having gone through too many adventures in their lives, as a result could not find a couple, either because of their reputation, or because they already had children, or because they already had come to the limit of their age, when they were still given flowers, but not offers. And to whom to palm off such options other than to the one who is considered a 'sucker'? The ugliest case was when his married former friend tried to introduce him to his mistress. But one way or another, he was not going to create a 'compelled coexistence club', he was used to being alone and did not need anyone, just not to be lonely.

Ivan Stepanovich was a proud man, he was not a friend zone player, and would not accept the role of a substitute. He looked at young girls, and this was understandable, because he was completely deprived of this stage in life and could not refuse it, this was not the most rational decision, because with age, even with a difference of 5-10 years, for many he became simply too old or even an old man, the very 'toad who wants to eat the meat of a swan'. This choice was not his decision out of a whim, it was a feeling. He just stopped at that age when he was 20 years old and full of hope. He didn't need just a person nearby or an object for sex, he wanted true love and he needed a partner with whom they could make plans and develop.

As a result, he was left alone, with his pride and honesty, which he would never allow himself to get rid of, because he had nothing else. He was very self-critical and realized that perhaps he was not worthy of the girl of his dreams, which he never had. But that is precisely why he could not afford to become even less worthy, because if he rejects the last that became the basis of his personality, who will he become? He felt that he would be the one to betray her. The most important, nonexistent person in his life.

And right now, he was faced with just such a problem. Yes, he may not have to become a hypocrite or throw away his pride. But no less disgusting was the fact that he would have to lie to everyone in the world except Aska, who would be his accomplice in this matter. And it will not be a lie for the sake of winning a girl, or getting a benefit, or some kind of social adaptation, which he lacked so much for success in a past life.

It would seem, what could there be a lie about? Will he be asked, 'Are you an alien who has occupied someone else's body?', And he will have to answer, 'Of course not!' This question may never arise, but lies have many faces. For example, to call those whom he sees for the first time in his life parents or friends. Or the reason why he doesn't play Kaas's favorite game 'Expansion' can be the fact that he took up martial arts. If it was just one of the real reasons, it was not. In the case of talking about the past, he will only have Kaas's past, and of course, everything that concerns his assistant will be hidden by a veil of endless lies.

At lunchtime, Aska put off the video, allowing Kaas to rest and eat in peace.

The second lesson passed, like the previous one. Only the overall result of 65.2% was satisfactory. Now he could pretend to be Kaas better, and that was also a way to lie to everyone around him. Kaas didn't think about it that deeply, but the little nasty feeling of wrongness didn't leave him.

"If tomorrow your classes are as effective, then your result will already exceed 70%", Aska praised him.

In response, Kaas could only sigh and smile in silence, he had long since learned to hide his real feelings and emotions well. At least he thought so himself.

There was an hour ahead for food and rest, and Aska turned on the video of school for him again. From it, he learned that his friend was called quite earthly, Konrad, and saw Bizz, who was really an arrogant jerk and literally begged for a good kick. But in fairness, it was necessary to understand that although they were in the same class, this Bizz was really far ahead of Kaas, taking second place in the class rating.

An attempt to repeat experience of combining breathing and nutrition, this time failed. Observing events from the recent past of his predecessor, Kaas could not shake off his bad mood and concentrate.

Therefore, when it came time to go in for sports, he chose both a simulator and a dynamic suit immediately and gave himself at the mercy of Adri, who clearly took into account today's improvements and, as if deciding to take revenge for the fact that Kaas did not suffer enough in the morning, increased the load, which is why, in just half an hour Kaas was already lying on the floor without any desire to get up.

"Aska, what if we leave my overnight shower for the next 4 days? It won't be too expensive, will it?" He asked.

"It makes no sense", she replied, "I studied your state when you fell asleep in the shower, after 5 minutes it was the most ordinary dream, and external influence, as long as your mind does not interact with the body, does not play any role. You even got a little harm from sleeping there all night because you fell asleep in an unfortunate position and your circulation was not optimal."

"And why then the morning training on the Zemtsu was so easy?" Kaas could not help but ask.

"It's simple. You really became stronger and more enduring, albeit not by much, but this was enough so that with such a small load you did not get tired as before."

"There will be no more videos today, so rest well." Aska said, frowning her perfect eyebrows as she studied the data in the terminal.

Four days before going out, Kaas thought as he laid in bed and analyzed his mood.

Yes, I will use Kaas's life for myself, but he is already dead. The question is, how could I repay him?

In the books, a guy like the previous Kaas died at the hands of enemies, and the main character, an 'immigrant', avenged his killers and improved the lives of those who were kind to him.

But this guy died by a very stupid accident, there is absolutely no one to avenge him and there is nothing for that.

His only enemy is this Bizz. But he's just a local stupid, arrogant, emotional tyrant. If I overtake him in the rankings and make him look at my back, will that be considered a compensation?

No, it's unlikely. He answered to himself.

Money is of great importance here and at the same time has no meaning. I cannot help his parents if they are not rich, even if I become rich myself.

You just have to be yourself, get used to the role of this guy and do what you would have done anyway. Anyway, I'm not going to be mediocre.

The only problem is pretending to be someone else. But if I hate to lie, that doesn't mean I don't know how to do it. For that matter, I can be the best liar in the world. This my chronic antipathy to any lie and deceit made me a real expert.

It's important not to cross the line and become an ordinary scum that benefits from dastardly methods. He reminded himself.

An analysis of today's training, morning and evening, gave him an understanding of what exactly he was missing and where he needed to move. Book knowledge from science fiction, he recognized as 99% useless. All these techniques with beautiful names like 'Imperial Fist of Nine Suns' or 'Thousand Palms of the Brooding Buddha' were just fakes, without a basis that can be applied in reality. And there were very few useful ideas in these books.

The only benefit would be from meditation and the most common practices. And perhaps in the motivation that these books convey, instilling the idea that if you try, something will definitely work out. To the challenges of developing strength and speed, he added flexibility and stretching to give him freedom of movement in a duel.

He had liked the concept of winning with one blow from karate for a long time, and it seemed like an interesting and useful idea to implement it. For a duel, to have such superiority over the enemy would be ideal, quickly, without spending energy, safely and most importantly - fun!

But even if you cannot win with one blow, you will not be able to knock out the enemy. Then you can continue this with the principle of jiu-jitsu, inflict this very one blow and take advantage of how the enemy reacts to it, twist him and carry out such a painful technique that will leave him no alternative but to ask for help.

Kaas rested and thought about his plans until dinner.

After seeing Aska, he was successfully able to combine breathing exercises with the not very tasty food that he got this time. But technique is technique, he felt a pleasant tingling sensation in his body, indicating that there was some effect from his exercises.

In the shower, although he did not feel the same mystical sensation as the last time, it was not far away. He imagined that he breathed with his whole body, not just his lungs. Inhale and exhale. It was an extremely comfortable feeling. In a strange way, it was this way that allowed him to focus on breathing so that he was not distracted or even fell asleep.

As soon as the shower turned off, Kaas sat there for one more local minute, coming to his senses and then went to bed.

The next three days passed in the same way. Kaas studied, watched videos and listened to the comments of Aska, who became more and more beautiful every day.

He noticed this along with the fact that the people he saw on the video stage began to seem less perfect. Yes, they all looked good, health and excellent body condition of course reflected on their appearance, but their appearance began to be perceived more familiar. Kaas began to better see their differences and even those features that he liked more or less than others. And now, only a few people seemed truly beautiful to him.

Except, Aska was getting better and better. It is possible that this was some kind of trick from her creator. But one way or another, although he only knew her for 2 weeks, gradually, this only person close to him, took more and more place in his heart. But if you think about it, then she could be considered the first person with whom he became close in the last 30 years of his life. And so far, nothing bad, except for the occasional embarrassment at the very beginning of their acquaintance, has happened between them.

As Aska promised, at the very end, there was a record of Kaas's death. It was at his grandfather's private residence. Hoga Vix was in the control room at this time to complete the experiment and restart it. Where Kaas 'penetrated' was an ordinary corridor surrounding a small room in the experimental laboratory. Yes, this corridor had many functions, including a system for counteracting to all kinds of troubles that could occur in the laboratory, but not at all in this corridor, which was supposed to isolate the room from the rest of the house.

Coincidentally, between experiments, this corridor was open. Kaas followed his grandfather, but out of curiosity decided to enter the open doorway. What kind of malfunction led to the fact that the doors opened and Kaas was not noticed by the security system, as a result, having closed him there, was unknown. It is possible that this was an unexpected effect from a previous experiment. Kaas, having found himself locked, simply walked along this corridor, where he got sick of the consequences of the explosion literally a second after the start of a new experiment.

After the explosion, which was accompanied by a bright flickering flash and the sound of the zipper being opened on the jacket, amplified a thousand times, the walls of the laboratory were transformed in a chaotic manner, redistributing the load and emissions. As a result, everything that was in the laboratory itself simply evaporated, the lower half of Kaas's body was literally flattened, and the head and shoulders only miraculously survived.

Kaas's grandfather ran to the laboratory almost immediately, clearly not understanding why a distress call with Kaas's mark came from there, where no one was supposed to be. The walls were closed and it was not possible to get inside. A local minute after the explosion, a medical bot arrived. It looked like a normal human-sized, monolithic capsule. How exactly it got into the room was not clear, but it immediately flew up to the wall of the laboratory, behind which Kaas was trapped, literally fused with it and absorbed Kaas's body into itself. The bot didn't wait a moment longer, illuminated by an annoying red light, it instantly disappeared from the field of view.

It was not difficult to imagine how Hoga Vix felt, who, holding on to his head, watched the bot pull out Kaas's body and fly away with him. This was the last shots Aska showed.

***

Speech imitation training reached 82.51%, which was very close to Aska's ideal of 90%. But, of course, such a result was not without the help of Aska herself, who prompted Kaas to text in the form of subtitles in his augmented reality window, along with an indication of the necessary gestures and facial expressions that he received in the form of an image.

Aska was pleased with Kaas's performance these days and even took the initiative to order a rather tasty specialty for him for breakfast for 25 golds as a reward. Although it was the same synthesized dish, its visual, texture and flavor design were special, and it looked like a set of 20 small cakes, each with a different flavor. It was absolutely delightful and Kaas benefited greatly from this 'training'.

Synchronization at the time of waking up reached 14.84%, and yesterday evening showed that it was already accelerating to 43%. The ratio was comfortable, and this time he woke up without any particular inconvenience.

Is it possible that my perception of people and surroundings is so heavily dependent on synchronization? thought Kaas.

Mind and body adapt to each other and to their surroundings.

Only if Aska's beauty continues to progress like this until I reach 100%, then none of the worlds will be worthy of her. It's good that my body is only 10 years old, otherwise the hormones would have already driven me crazy.

"Try to make your sports less tiring today", Aska said in her melodious voice.

"Okay", Kaas answered simply, he already knew that today is the day when there will be the final training session before going out.

Today he wore a dynamic suit only for comfort and did not include it in his training plan, so even with all of Adri's 'bullying', Kaas easily coped with the morning program in half an hour, doing a full 20 cycles of work with the simulator.

"Great, we still have an hour before lunch", Aska praised him, and without giving time to rest she began her lesson.

"Look at your virtual interface", she said, and after that, a new icon appeared in front of him, "this is a miniature avatar of the assistant. When you look at it and think, it will be tantamount to the fact that you will address me out loud."

"This is a very important feature that allows the user to communicate with the assistant without using voice. In all other cases, until you look at this sign, then I will not be able to hear your thoughts."

Fuhh, calmed me down, you never know what will come to my mind, Kaas thought carefully, looking away from the icon.

- Today, practice to talk to me only in this way, it is important that you get used to it, - she admonished.

Kaas stared at the icon and thought, Aska.

"What?" she asked.

"Why do I hear your voice and not your thoughts?" he asked in response.

"You will always hear my voice, but others will not always hear it. You have already forgotten, think by looking at the icon." She reminded him.

But how do I know if the others hear you or not? he asked her mentally.

"There are several possibilities, the first is that when the icon lights up as it is now, it means that you hear my voice only in your head." she said, and the icon did glow with a soft silver color.

"Another possibility is for me to change my voice and then you can distinguish it, even if the icon is hidden." she said in a slightly lower and softer, but pleasant voice, similar to a whisper.

Better not, I'm already used to your original voice, and I like it the most. Kaas dismissed.

"This may be necessary if the interface is going to be disabled, so this feature should not be dropped at all."

"In addition, you must learn to use this method of communication using the Kiva language. After all, you will often have to communicate with your parents and other people without using your voice." continued Aska, "let's try right now."

Before Kaas appeared a small interface with two texts, the original in Kiva and the translation.

"So, I will suggest what exactly you have to say during conversations, when it is required."

Hi, my name is Kaas, he read obediently to his mind, looking at the mate's icon.

"Exactly!" she praised, clapping her hands.

"Aska, can you help me with the tests?" Kaas asked.

"Think, do not speak out loud. I can and I will. But this cannot be done all the time, but only while you are studying, in order to hide the abnormal gaps in your knowledge. After all, if you get used to it, you will not learn. In addition, knowledge that you do not possess will be expected of you. Do you remember? After all, I still need to move to another body, and an ordinary assistant will not be able to give prompts during the tests."

I realized this will be enough. he thought in the direction of Aska, and turned his gaze to the side.