Silence.

From the thin fabric of the sack that was covering me, I could faintly see two city guards standing in the room, royal policemen. They wore the usual white and red leather armor with black armbands. On it, the face of a gold lion was imprinted. Longswords dangled at their waists. They smelled like old milk. Assface, the young girl, and their father all stood quietly around the room.

Though not a word had been spoken, they were terrible liars.

"Well?" the first guard asked. Crumbs and crust lined his week-old stubble. "Yer not gon' tell us wot's 'ere then?"

"Answer the man," the younger guard said. He was the young, enthusiastic type. Equal parts blond and annoying.

"Goods," said Assface. "We're considering on opening a business."

"A business," echoed the old guard. He stepped over a small crate to get closer. "A business fer wot?" He waved his hand around the clutter of the room. "All's I see is a buncha trash in 'ere, innit?"

"An all-purpose shop," said Assface. "We're new to this sort of thing."

Old guard tilted his head in amusement. "Ya don't say?" He stepped closer with wild eyes. "Suppose we had a gander 'round 'ere, don't think we'd find nuffin, eh?"

"What?"

"Don't mind if we take a gander 'round 'ere, don't suppose we'd ain't find a lick a nuffin, eh?"

"What?"

"Answer the man!" barked the young officer.

"I don't know what he just said!"

The young guard answered. "If we were to search your goods, would we find anything?"

"Yeah," Assface said. "You'd find simple, ordinary goods for sale."

The young guard winced and rolled his hand. "Like?"

Assface squinted his eyes as they slid across the room. "Paper... cups."

"Paper cups," the young guard echoed. "You're starting a business selling--"

"And napkins. The good kind. Not the kind you'd get from a downtown hotdog shop."

The young officer shivered in confusion. "Those are good napkins. What's wrong with hotdog napkins."

"An' good cups, innit?" said the old guard. "Too 'ard to mistake dat one, ya?"

"What?"

"He said–"

"Look!" the father interrupted. He kicked the lid off a nearby crate. It was too high for me to see what was inside, but the others in the room all peered in from their now-designated spots in the room. The father waved out his hands with reason. "It's a trade secret. It's gonna make us great money, and we can't have anybody running around and snitching."

"Snitching," the young guard echoed. He looked back down into the crate. "I don't even know what this is."

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

"Good," said the father. "You shouldn't."

"Heavy secret ta 'ave," said the old guard. "Bit costly ta keep 'er dat way, innit?"

"What?" said the father.

The young guard answered. "He said, it's a bit expensive to keep such a secret."

"What?" said the son.

"What do you not understand?" the young guard shot out. "He's suggesting that maybe he'll have a few pints at the tavern later, and his lips will all get loosey-goosey and start slipping around all over the place."

Assface shook his head in tired desperation. "What does that even mean? What are you even saying?"

A disquiet passed over the room like a thick veil of self-hatred and linguistic doubt. A dog barked in the distance. A far door opened and shut. The young guard held a steady iron gaze, but his head moved almost imperceptibly as if the gears inside were churning out a universally understood sentence. With a faint nod to himself, he shared it. "Bribe."

"What?"

"What do you not understand?" the young guard shouted. He marched over, gripped Assface's collar, and shoved him into the wall. Dust fell from them and caught the sunlight slipping through the window. He spoke through his teeth. "Give us money to keep our mouths shut. It's that easy. You pay us, we won't snitch on your little bullshit potion selling."

"Fine," said Assface. He glanced nervously at the others. "I suppose 50 gold would be good for your troubles for keeping us and our business safe."

The young guard glanced at the old one, who nodded with crossed arms, then the young guard backed away. "Our rates just went up. It'll need to be a bit more."

Assface sighed. "How about 60?"

I stopped listening. The gripping conversation had melted away into a boring duel of bartering between rebel thieves and crooked cops, and frankly, I had much better things to do. I had 1 class point that I needed to put somewhere, and now would be as good as a time as any.

My choices were this:

Sensory > Taste

Can taste things.

Utility > Vend: Alchemy

Enables the ability to craft and sell alchemical-based products.

Efficiency > Efficiency 1

Raw Materials acquired by recycle increased to 30%.

If I were leveling normally, I would probably take the efficiency boost. That was a no-brainer and being able to create food and snacks would be a viable option just about anywhere. Taste, of course, was the dumbest skill I had ever heard of in my entire multi-century existence. Why, just why, would a literal garbage can need to taste things? Was this the final frontier of bad design?

I once considered that those Grand Magi who created the world and its systems were geniuses, their wisdom unattainable, their comprehension elusive by all--but this shit? Why? I had so many questions, and I soon found myself having an existential breakdown as I stared into the abyss of an unnecessary sensory option--and the abyss stared back.

"Unlock: Taste."

"Taste Unlocked."

Immediately, I could taste a hint of warm metal combined with the faint texture of dry paper and rough napkins. It was... interesting to say the least, but now I knew why this was a skill. Some of this stuff tasted outright good, and if an artificial intelligence had been manning a recycler, it would've never known the pleasures of fine dining. It would hunger for the taste of scrap metal and leftover mustard. It was weird, but I couldn't imagine having anything worse thrown into me.

When I looked at my skills, I could see that the next one was Manipulation. Finally. It gave me a shining glimmer of hope that I would be able to have something as hands and arms, and hopefully, legs and feet. This was progress. Shitty progress, but at least I was getting somewhere.

The sack was yanked off me.

I looked at the others in the room. They were shouting about this or that, counting on their fingers as if that could help their arguments, but they were still going on about how much a bribe should be when considering the economic viability of an anti-aging potion. The guards were gripping the hilts of their longswords and throwing pointed fingers, but my presence wasn't something out of the ordinary for them.

"Alright!" shouted Assface. "I'll give you 150. It's all I have." He reached for his coin purse, fondled it a bit as it clinked around, then tossed it at the guard.

The young guard caught it, then nodded in satisfaction. Then, the unexpected. With well-practiced dexterity, he yanked down his trousers in a single motion, showing all his dangly-bits in their rawest form. "And this is for being such a pain in the ass." He scooted over to me with his pants around his ankles and spun around.

Before me stood another abyss. It stared into me. A pale set of ass cheeks with a smell that I wouldn't describe, a gaping maw of something so terrible--yet I couldn't look away as it hovered over me, taunting me, pulsing with malice and looming disaster. The light in the room darkened, the wild shouts faded away to muffling. The abyss widened, and I could only stare in powerless disbelief as the worse happened.

+1 Human Turd.