Chapter 13 Blackening

Whether it was because the sky was overcast, or because of the visit, or because of boredom, I felt somehow devastated.

It seemed like the whole world, you can do what you want, but it was so depressing.

However, I quickly found myself at home and plunged into the phone.

It turned out that, in addition to cards in the bank, there was another option for storing finances - electronic money. Just wallets with the currencies of countries, but on the internet. There was also cryptocurrency, but as the article said, banks weren't tied to them, so they could collapse and leave their depositors with nothing if only tomorrow.

Of course, the general trend of the article was that e-yen is good, cryptocurrency is bad. And all the other talking points and stuff are just an addendum.

Followed the link to the original sources where the information was taken from, it was painted there that the salary in e-currency is paid in freelancing.

I was very attracted by the fact that to receive money and dispose of it on the Internet you did not have to wait until you were 18 years old.

That is, everything is simple: "Are you 18?"

The answer options are "Yes" and "No." But if the goal was to create, not to make peace with conscience, then the answer was yes.

Yes, even if to make peace with conscience and answer "No", where after it will throw you to the start page of the browser, you could press the button "Back" in the browser, and again the options "Yes" and "No" ... well, in my head they no-no yes turned into "Yes" and "Yes".

Anyway, silly.

Having searched a bit more on this topic, I saw that programmers who work on a remote format, only in this money and get paid.

And here it's the same as with the previous check, but a little different. It was possible to lie again, because there they looked at the person by skills.

I took all the savings that I had left from "breakfast" and the rare "payment" for help with lessons, put them on my father's desk, and took his card and paid for the purchase of two books on programming in an online store, ordering delivery to the nearest post office.

In choosing a programming language, I focused mainly on what my employers needed.

Within two days I had already received what I needed and was off to the bakugan game space to explore.

Well, either all books are like that or I had stumbled upon a treasure.

Both books I ordered were about 400 pages each, but there was absolutely no water inside: introduction, base, examples, applications, advanced solutions, attachable modules.

It was fascinating. Low threshold of entry and high payoff - just what you need.

The only thing that was confusing was the title: "The Bible of *the name of the programming language*".

Starting that day, I skipped the next week of school.

Why? What was I doing during that time?

While my dad was at work, his computer was free, so it was the best time to practice.

Starting small, I started to move on to bigger things. I developed paranoia, which manifested itself in the habit of saving the same file 5 times, even if it was already saved. Just because... because you have to!

I should also mention the long hours of debugging in order to achieve a successful compilation. Sometimes a little nasty little thing like a semicolon just got lost! I can already imagine an employee in some team jokingly replacing a semicolon with the same semicolon, but only a Greek character, which is simply not perceived by the compiler and generates an error. This can well bring to a nervous breakdown...

When the week was up, I realized one thing: I needed a computer. Of course, now, when the profession was unpopular and few people wanted to become such, it was just a great chance to find yourself in it.

Well, money, of course, here in the first place ...

The only question was where to get them.

I'm completely powerless here. Lately, our budget has been very modest. Of course, not that my father and I starved, but... in general, meat on the table was not very often. Fish was cheap, but that's beside the point.

We had to figure out how to get money. There was no one to ask.

Classmates? That's a very bad idea. You can ask for a tenth of the necessary, if you borrow from everyone, but to listen then every day some kind of "and when you pay back", even when clearly said that in 3 months .... that's a very bad idea.

Get a part-time job? You can't get a job for such a feeble little thing. Not even an online job as there are no skills.

Thinking from noon to evening, I still hadn't come up with an answer, so I asked for advice.

"Vesta, where do you think I can get money?"

Thoth opened up and was quiet for a while, pondering.

"How much do you need? Can you earn it yourself?" he asked.

"No."

"Still thinking of taking the computer?" guessed Vesta.

"Well, how else am I going to make money from it..." stretched out tiredly, feeling helpless.

"So take it from others" simply, as if there were no barriers here, he said.

"Huh?" I froze and lifted myself off the bed.

My thoughts stopped there too. It felt like the gears that had been spinning properly in my brain suddenly froze at the unfortunate impact of the steel bar inside.

"What do you mean?" I asked him.

He looked at me.

"It's as simple as that. Take them from those who have too many, or someone who won't do anything to you for it."

"Are you suggesting a crime?"

My body collapsed onto the bed and I closed my eyes.

"Why not?"

'How awful,' I said to myself, but still asked another. "Why yes?"

He only laughed at that and turned to the side.

"Shinji, do you think there's a difference in having talent and no opportunity, and having no talent and no opportunity?"

"Talent... it all comes down to whether or not you have it. The difference in the same is the answer."

"Stop it. You know exactly what I mean. An ant will never become something else, but a caterpillar can become a butterfly. The question is whether the other will have the opportunity."

"And...," I hurried him to note the main point.

"If the caterpillar doesn't get food and safety, that is, translating to your situation, you need 'money' to become a butterfly."

"What makes you think I'm not an ant...?" I asked, not really hoping for an answer.

Another laugh burst out again.

"Out of everyone in the entourage, you're the only one who has figured out how to use the 'child's play' space for studying. I'll tell you even more, the others don't even realize how to get there themselves."

That's where he was right. Intellectually I was indeed developmentally superior to my peers.

'A caterpillar that dreams of becoming a butterfly, eh?'

Come to think of it, I figured the idea wasn't actually that bad, but the question was what kind of crime could get me the money.

Like, it was logical to assume that randomly attacking someone was just stupid, since people didn't usually carry a lot of money around with them.

I wasn't a bastard either, and I didn't want to take every last bit of money out of people, nor did I want to burn them to death.

But the problem remained, I needed the money.

Having decided that taking was better than taking away, I began to look through the possible options.

I realize that this is very, very bad, but I only did it once. After all, I'm no worse than anyone else, right?

Even so, I'll pay it all back later once I earn more, and more than I had.

If I do the math, I need... somewhere around... 30,000 yen, or just under 200 dollars. Well, I wanted to buy the cheapest stuff anyway, so yeah.

Deciding that my borrowing would be almost fatal for the poor, I switched to the homes of the rich.

Here in my neighborhood, most people have their own house, it's easier than with an apartment building.

So I started thinking about who to choose, writing out addresses of people away from me on a sheet of paper.

After a day, I started to watch them, and in order to reduce suspicion, I decided to do it while coming back from school.

Of course, at school I was reprimanded by the class teacher, she even said that she had called my father, but as I understood, no one answered, but she left that part out.

I then simply said that I was periodically suffering from severe headaches, as I had always said. Of course, it didn't lessen the anger on the teacher's face, but I could only throw up my hands and honestly say that it wouldn't happen again.

Anyway, I took a different route back from school.

I noticed which houses looked richer and which looked poorer. Where there are no dogs and where there are.

I also went here in the evening.

After 3 days, when I saw which places were mostly empty, I went to the case in the evening.

A black hooded sweatshirt, a medical mask, a small flashlight, bandages for my left arm and more chutzpah.

The fence in many places was often metal, the same aluminum siding, a laughing matter. Anyway, I quietly snuck into the fully overgrown area of one empty gray house, and in the bushes tried to start a fire on my palms, putting them clearly against the fence so as not to set my shelter on fire.

I had my doubts, of course, and thought that my flames might not have been that hot, so I took that into account before hiking and tried to burn a metal ruler. Well, as it turned out, that one lasted about 4 seconds, no more.

What was also strange was that if the object I was burning was engulfed in my green flame, I didn't feel the heat. Up to my limits, of course. It was like magic of some sort...

In fact, I couldn't have my flame actively glowing here, and I didn't want to set my sweatshirt on fire, so when I'd made a hole big enough to fit through, I waited a minute or two for everything to cool down a bit, and then carefully climbed in.

There I looked around - not a soul in sight.

To be honest, this particular mansion seemed to have been abandoned for some time now.

Sneaking in quietly, I found myself at the entrance. I opened the flashlight I'd hidden in my pocket to dim the glow.

My nerves were on edge. Every step I took increased the shame in my soul.

It seemed that all it would take was one loud shout, and I would run out of here, heels blazing.

But I was lucky, and it was quiet inside, too.

I tried to open the doors with my bandaged left hand.

I don't know why I'd decided to touch everything with my left, but it was just a stupid thought.

The door wouldn't budge.

It was locked.

I quietly put my index finger on my right hand to the base of the lock, intending to fuse it, but on second thought I jerked my hand away.

'There's a window, and if I just fuse the lock, it'll tip people off to the strange method of entry.'

'As a matter of fact, it will.

Quietly he crept over to the nearest window. They were plastic.

One was on airing.

I was surprised to note that I could try to pry it open with a ruler, the same one I'd fused the other day.

Returning to the aluminum fence where I'd come inside, I heated the piece and lifted it off the ground, shaping it into the desired shape. Of course, putting it down wouldn't lift it, so I decided to keep the temperature at a minimum and walked to the window with it.

The green glow was minimal.

Standing up comfortably, I put my invention into action. The plan was to just bring the lock down to the open position, but... well, the temperature was too high and the lock just melted, merging with my invention.

'Idiot' I thought to myself. Nevertheless, it was necessary to get rid of it afterwards.

Goodness, the goal was achieved - the window was open and quiet.

I made my way inside.

The tension seemed to have reached its limit. I realized that this fate was not mine, it was simply not for me.

So, saying to myself that stealing is bad, I went looking for somewhere to steal.

First I decided to go around all the rooms to see if anyone was here, I also looked carefully in all sorts of tricky corners, looking for cameras.

There were no cameras, the dim light of the flashlight and my restlessness seemed to make the shadows longer and any rustle became simply terrifying.

Bedroom, common room, bedroom, kitchen, bathroom and toilet - no one.

It made me feel better and I relaxed considerably.

Started looking around for where to find the ill-fated $200 that had pulled me through.

After about 10 minutes I found a safe by the painting, but my goal was not a big robbery, I just wanted to take some change.

After searching around the house, I found somewhere around 62,000 yen in one bedroom drawer. Of course, after taking the right amount, I decided to leave.

Climbing back out the window, I tried to use fire to pry the lock off the aluminum invention, but in vain.

In the end, I just closed the window, as if on a good faith that the first strong gust of wind would probably open it.

I started walking back to the hole in the fence, listening to the sounds of the night.

The "what if they're waiting for me there?" thoughts were weighing heavily on my mind, and I couldn't help it.

I clutched my invention, which looked a bit like a piece of rebar, and moved forward.

Fortunately, it was all over.

I got out and fixed the hole in the siding. It wasn't too hard. The bottom, of course, was now missing a piece because of my invention, but it was better to leave it that way.

A step, another, another, a third...

The restlessness was leaving and thoughts that the dream would soon be realized began to fill my head.

Passing the bridge, I threw away my invention unwanted by the creator and went home.