But the problem solved itself. Tissa easily rebuffed both Ed and Hung, although they hadn’t really tried — they got plenty of attention from girls, both in Dis and real life. But Malik, who concentrated on Tissa, got more of her attention.
Once, she invited him round to see her. Her father, Mr. Schafer, had just finished another long drinking binge and was now locked in his room with an equally long depressive hangover. Tissa was going mad. She needed someone to talk to.
Here it is, this is my chance! Malik realized as he sat down on the sofa with the girl. His heart tried to beat out of his chest, his throat went dry… He was panicking.
Tissa brought him some cold beer and sat down next to him, and they started talking about things so familiar and understandable to Malik that his uncertainty evaporated. He listened carefully and sympathized, even sincerely, understanding her perfectly well.
As he said good-bye, he even worked up the courage to kiss her, though it was just a peck, their lips just touching. Tissa ran a hand over his neck and smiled.
“Message me when you get home.”
They say things like that make you grow wings. If that were true, then a whole helicopter rotor would have sprouted from Malik’s back.
But the story got no sequel. For a few days, Tissa behaved like she usually did, and Malik lost confidence, got too eager, came on too strong, and then…
Then Alex came into their lives. And everything changed.
First Sheppard took Tissa from him, then Ed and Hung. And along with them went the hope that one day Malik himself would win the respect of his friends and classmates.
You can’t compete with an A-class Threat, even if you’re as smart as Einstein.
* * *
Tissa messaged first. She asked how he was doing, how the clan was doing, but the girl’s true motive became clear toward the end of the message. As if in passing, Tissa asked him to help her unlock a route to a zone with level 40 mobs. I think I can handle them. My stats are super high thanks to the Sleepers. Just the few seconds before I die from Exhaustion should be enough, she wrote. Will you help me?
Malik thought about it. Alex had mentioned that he himself had given Tissa the idea of how to break the sandbox record, which belonged to some guy from Seoul. To achieve that, the light priestess would have to reach level 31, which she could do very quickly if she could kill mobs over double her level. It was obvious why Tissa wanted that. Unique achievements always came with hefty rewards, and plenty of Fame. Malik wouldn’t mind those bonuses either; it was a shame he hadn’t thought of it when he was stuck in Tristad. But Sheppard made his position clear: Tissa had betrayed the clan, even if not by her own will. Interestingly, Alex hadn’t taken the girl’s departure for the White Amazons as a betrayal, but her relationship with Liam… It was clear that the girl had no fault in Mogwai’s attack on Kharinza — anyone could have been in her place, even Scyth himself!
It didn’t take him long to decide. He agreed to help. In principle, not much was being asked of him; he just had to teleport Tissa from Tristad to a zone that suited her aims. She’d do the rest herself — teleport there and try to quickly take out a mob before Exhaustion killed her. Anyway, Infect couldn’t help her even if he wanted to — Tissa wouldn’t get any experience from mobs below the bard’s level, and he wouldn’t be able to deal with any above. His was a support class! He ground his teeth at the thought, angry both at Scyth, who made him change his class, and himself for giving in.
Her message had come in the day before, and today was last day before the Demonic Games. Who knew how long they’d last? It might be that Infect would return to ordinary Dis too late, after Tissa was already gone from the sandbox.
That meeting when Alex had been eating those strange pastries (blya-shi, Malik remembered) and declared that he had been sentenced to the Ordeal was the last straw for Malik. The signal that it was all going to the Nether.
As soon as the Awoken left the sandbox, the clan and its leader had so much to reckon with that every day as he fell asleep, Malik was sincerely grateful that everything still seemed to be going well. The status of class-A ‘subthreat’ had tempting rewards, but getting them was another matter. Developing the maximum possible potential to the limit was impossible. But the penalties if Scyth was eliminated promised to equal the rewards. It might even involve losing characters. And what then?
Would the fairytale end? Would Malik have to go back to his parents’ slum and live with his idiot cousins? All of them, even his uncles, aunts and other relatives — they all dreamed of becoming millionaires. Thanks to Malik, of course. Thanks to little Saghir. That’s just what got to him. The contempt in their eyes was real as can be, but
