This was probably the hardest stage of my life so far — more from a moral standpoint.
I had to pull myself together, take a huge step forward, admit my shortcomings and fight them.
Not right away, and only through trial and error, but I managed it!
Yes, on my third attempt I actually managed to cook myself food using Emiya Shirou’s cookbook!
Oh, and right, the conversation with my mother’s side of the family was rough too, but I managed to own up to my mistakes and ask for forgiveness, and somehow…
it immediately got easier.
But this damn cooking…
I’m not giving up, obviously, but I should think about optimizing the process — it’s eating up way too much time that I could be spending on literally anything else!
And even working from the perfect cookbook of a superhuman (which is how I regard him no matter what — plus, the protagonist of a shonen is a superhuman by default), I still managed to botch the cooking twice (!).
Twice!
I have a talent…
for ruining food, apparently.
It remains an open question how you even manage to burn something in a slow cooker!
The pot’s got a nonstick coating, and I wasn’t even making a roast, just soups…
but no, somehow I pulled it off.
Okay, maybe it’s not a talent for wasting groceries so much as the fact that I was a hopelessly sheltered kid — while everyone else learns to cook under family supervision way earlier in life, I’m facing this one-on-one for the first time only now.
On the plus side, now I can clearly see the difference between a set of instructions, however good (the cookbook), and actual hands-on knowledge (Gennadiy’s skills at cooking simple everyday things).
Besides, the framing here isn’t “I’m a failure who screwed up twice and barely scraped by on the third try at the simplest possible task” — no, it’s “hey now!
With zero experience and nothing to go on, I still managed to cook edible food on just my third attempt, and it’s only going to get easier from here, since I won’t be making rookie mistakes anymore!” That’s the mindset I need, so let’s stay positive!
I also decided to actually put effort into the job I already had.
Sure, “contextual ads manager” is about as cushy a position as they come, but since I’ve got it, I should put in the work rather than slack off on my duties the way I did today.
So I combined the useful with the useful.
Since the gym equipment I’d ordered hadn’t been delivered yet — what with my, ahem, meltdown in the bathroom, the phone call with my grandparents that ran a bit long once, after all the apologies, it turned into an ordinary family chat where the older generation fretted over the younger one and tried to talk me into visiting them (and I nearly agreed, but caught myself in time — I will go see them, but not for another six months, because that particular branch of my relatives remembers my old condition and won’t buy that I bulked up like this in a couple of months) — and then after the failed cooking attempt I went and ordered the gym equipment, it was already getting late.
So delivery’s only tomorrow.
But was that going to stop me?
No!
I dug up my old dumbbells (I don’t even remember who gave them to me, but the moment I first laid eyes on them, I stashed them away for good, apparently in one of the boxes down in the basement) and combined ad editing and checking how much a campaign had eaten in a day and when engagement peaked — because reports to the boss wait for no one, and neither does a proposal to optimize spending or, alternatively, to launch a strike campaign and compete with some other outfit’s targeted ads — while curling a dumbbell one-handed on the side, switching hands as I went.
I figure if I keep this up for even a week, I’ll get decent enough to do everything at the computer with my left hand too…
becoming ambidextrous through the strangest, most roundabout method imaginable.
As for the gym equipment, I should really focus on cardio — time to “cut.” My physique’s gotten a bit conspicuous, and I don’t especially want to balloon up to Helltaker proportions.
So, definitely, cut as aggressively as possible.
After that, wrestling my consciousness back from sleep, I still didn’t forget to comb the internet for some decent club or other.
I hadn’t really decided on anything yet.
On one hand, I need to be able to fight back right now — to hell with this feeling of helplessness — but on the other, wouldn’t a poorly-learned fighting style actually work against me once I start assimilating the Ax-Man card?
And he’s next, right after I finish with the current one.
Although…
I could pick boxing and just explain the situation to the coach — well, not my actual situation, obviously, but something like “I’m not here for sport or trophies, I’m here to learn how to defend myself,” I could even bring up what happened today, no details, as motivation, and ask him to drill my punch.
I think that’ll come in handy.
And of course, beg him to run me hard.
That’s some experience for me right now, too.
Though something in the back of my head keeps insisting that fighting with fists isn’t really “our” style, and that an enemy can always just be kicked down.
Now why would that be?
And so my entire evening went by in a pile of errands.
And not just the evening — the whole week turned into something unbelievably packed; I admit I’d never been this busy before.
Gym sessions in the morning (and jogging — I’ll admit this borrowed habit turned out to be pretty useful, and with a treadmill it became even more accessible).
I set up the equipment on the first floor in the small sitting room, by the way — I never got crowds of guests anyway and probably never will, so converting the space into a training area got me a decent little home gym.
Thanks to the movers for the help — I tipped them extra and got all the equipment hauled in and rearranged the room a bit in the process, otherwise I’d have spent a couple of days alone just dragging that couch out of there (though with my old body, I couldn’t even budge it).
Then breakfast prep…
no particular progress yet, aside from that very first disaster — now I’m paying closer attention to everything, so the second attempt already turns out fine, and even the first one is edible…
probably.
On the side, I caught up on everything I’d missed at school…
and that part, at least, was easy — I’d already been a nerd, running a bit ahead of the curriculum even before all this.
Nothing that happened changed that, and with a bit of extra effort, over two days I didn’t even fully dedicate to studying, I calmly closed the gap in my knowledge.
Meanwhile I also delivered a cost-optimization plan that bumped two of my three companies up in ad ranking; as for the third, it turned out I’d already done a solid job there, and there were simply far fewer competitors running contextual ads in that niche.
I could probably even cut its ad spending.
Given that on top of all that I’d also managed to find a boxing club, and my evenings were spoken for too, then…
seriously, the whole following week turned into this blur in my memory, one that nonetheless carried a certain working rhythm and a sense of satisfaction from a job well done — and it didn’t matter whether I meant the ads or the self-improvement.
Every effort, even a small one, pays off.
Every victory over myself motivates me to keep moving forward and become better.
Just so that I never again feel disgusted with myself.
Not for anyone else’s sake — not even my late parents’ — just for my own.
But I think it’s worth dwelling a bit longer on the day right after the failed mugging.
Because at least two events set it apart from all the other days.
And no, I don’t mean setting up the gym equipment and starting to use it, or getting back to studying, or the first attempts at cooking something successfully on the first try.
The first: I finally looked through the documents Uncle Russell had given me…
“A small little pharmaceutical company!
Yeah, wow, way to capture the essence of it!
Although, sure, they do develop and manufacture medicine, and they do supply hospitals and pharmacies, so technically Dad wasn’t lying to Mom and me,” I sighed, pressing my forehead against the cold kitchen table.
Processing and accepting that my father had worked, in part, for the military (and very indirectly for the government) wasn’t going well.
But here it was, right in front of me — documents (copies, really) plainly stating that my father developed and quite officially sold combat stimulants to the army.
Just great.
Given how easily my uncle handed over these papers, I could draw two conclusions: first, this isn’t even a secret, and every interested party already knows about it; second, if the conversation is starting with papers like these, something a lot bigger might be lurking in the “undisclosed clauses of the contract.” I really hope my father wasn’t working on some super-soldier formula.
Or, to put it better, I hope this has nothing to do with the “Sym-Soldier Program”!
Or with Weapon X — and I really hope that “Trigger” compound didn’t come out of the labs I just visited.
And I hope my father had nothing to do with any of the other experiments out there either.
Because Marvel sure has no shortage of those!
Come on, please, I’m not asking for much!
Let it just turn out that he made combat stimulants.
Made, past tense.
Sure, a prestigious business, one that draws attention, but not nearly as terrifying as some of the other ways you could get tangled up with the military.
And one that promises a lot fewer headaches.
Anyway, I didn’t spend long dwelling and processing the new information…
I simply don’t have time for lengthy soul-searching these days.
“All right, fine, I can talk specifics with my uncle.
I don’t know how forthcoming he’ll actually be, but he did give me the documents, didn’t he?
That’s already a gesture worth trusting, unlike my other two dear relatives,” I sighed, setting the folder aside.
After that I went and did what I’d planned all along, namely not waiting around for Gacha Points to accumulate naturally and just buying more of them instead…
though you’d think, what does the Gacha even need money for?
Given its capabilities…
hell if I know, you could genuinely break your brain trying to figure out how any of this works.
And a moment later my brain did get broken anyway, when after depositing 500 bucks I found actual change sitting in my palm…
which, on one hand, made sense, since I’d accumulated a few points naturally over those days, meaning the five hundred dollars covered more than the points I was allowed to have in a month — but on the other hand…
how does that even work?
I want to bang my head against the table, and I can actually feel a ticklish sensation inside my skull.
Fine, no point racking my brain over it if I’ll never get the answer anyway, and at my “current level of existence” I can’t exactly poke and prod the Gacha to find out either.
So let’s leave this question open for better times and deal with problems as they come — and right now, this thing’s quirks are nowhere near the top of my problem list!
And-d…
here we go, ten pulls exactly.
1) Diluc (Genshin Impact).
“Gacha…
not funny!
How many more angsty orphan avengers are you going to throw at me?
What kind of filthy hints are those supposed to be?” My eye was definitely twitching.
No, judging by the feel of it, my whole cheek was twitching.
Though, looking at him and drawing on both the Gacha’s information and Gennadiy’s knowledge, a serious question occurred to me.
As I understood it, aside from the gods, power in that world belongs to holders of a Vision — and without that fancy-named little trinket, they’re barely distinguishable from an ordinary powerless human.
And given that what I got wasn’t a “Diluc bundle” but just Diluc himself, would he even have any powers at all?
Turns out he will have some, though — that mystical Gacha-given understanding hands me something like a quick summary.
So: served in a knightly order.
Considerable combat experience.
And after leaving the order, he became the local Batman, catching criminals by night, fighting Abyss mages and the Fatui, and occasionally cleaning up stray monsters and anomalies.
By day, he’s a tavern and winery owner, a sort of aristocrat-businessman.
A genuinely walking Batman reference.
Also a decent, level-headed personality, which would give me some courage and skill with greatswords — as for Vision powers, that’s a complete blank, but even what he does have is solid.
Although…
assimilating him might saddle me with a hero complex.
On the other hand, summoning him would be more worthwhile than assimilating him.
Seriously, this is nearly the first card where I actually lean toward summoning — except he’s a bit underpowered for Marvel.
All right, I’ll think that over later.
One thing’s clear right away — for assimilation, he’s not exactly first in line, and as for summoning…
his usefulness is questionable, so I can shelve the question for now.
Moving on.
2) The Great Book of Names of All the Daemons of the Warp (Warhammer 40k).
“Contains summoning rituals and the true names of every daemon in the Warp.
Hmm…
people in one particularly notable universe would probably tear each other apart over this thing, but f*ck, seriously?
I’m in Marvel!
There’s no reaching the Warp from here at all, and even the Gacha itself says as much, feeding straight into my perception of the item that in this particular multiverse the book is completely useless!
Where does the Gacha even get off handing me junk like this?” I couldn’t help blurting out.
“Although…
given that one-day ticket to another world, items that don’t work here might work in some other one.
Makes sense!” I answered my own question.
That’s insane…
look what I’ve become.
Ha, just kidding, being sarcastic.
My mood’s still a bit off after yesterday.
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