Unfortunately, in telling everyone that I wasn't going to go easy on Carlo… I had given my word.

I hated going back on things I had said in the past. Especially things like that.

So, when an entire team showed up to my new apartment, asking to join my party… I actually had to put effort into beating the dungeon and winning the duel. I was always going to do my best, but I figured the numbers would be against me and I could pull back and throw the competition without actually throwing it.

If I was seen doing my best but also no one supported me, then my losing wouldn't be obviously some kind of Ploy. And you could argue that I had indeed 'done my best'.

"So why'd you choose this one?" Marisol asked.

We were all seated on the floor in my living room, Sophia playing in the bedroom by herself. I didn't know they were coming, so I hadn't set up a playdate ahead of time, to entertain her.

"I'll tell you," I said. "As long as it doesn't leave this room. I have to at least put up a good fight so that Carlo won't look bad when he wins."

"You don't think you'll win?" that woman from before asked me. The Gunslinger. What was her name? I surreptitiously checked my system notes and found the name Patrice.

"Of course not," I said. "Leadership and tactics aside, you need people skills to be a leader... and not just the type that gives orders really well. Not to mention, I'm not a combat type. People like when their leaders are not only kind and smart, but also strong physically if it's needed. And I'd say it's needed in this new world, wouldn't you?"

"But you're still going to try your hardest?" Toria asked. She wanted to join the party, though I wasn't certain in what capacity we were going to use her. She wanted to fight, but she had nothing but a slicing skill.

"We can't have anyone crying foul," I said. "If I'm a candidate chosen by the system and I just bow out, people are going to suspect I was bullied into it, no matter what I say."

"Yeah," our newest addition said. "I can see that being suspicious." Her name was Annika. Brunette, slender, hair in twin dutch-tails... those were pretty much her only defining traits. As all 'pretty' people, she looked pretty much the same as anyone else with a symmetrical face, to me. I preferred people with imperfections, easier to recognize.

She was also an Ossifer. A Chirurgeon subclass specifically for the mending of bones. Though she was a bone specialist in general, her class was centered on healing...

"Alright, we're sworn to secrecy!" Marisol said, bouncing on the couch. "Now tell us why you chose it."

"It was the dungeon with the rarest resources," I replied. "Not only do you gain dominion over the dungeon for the whole month, in which time you can strip it bare of resources- you can also then do it again when it 'refreshes'. Even if only for the monsters and not the trees and such, though... I'm not entirely certain that whatever is there won't just grow back while it's 'resetting'. Not to mention, nothing else on the list said 'cursed' and I'll bet cursed creatures are somewhat rare, as are their body parts and organs. I looked it up afterward and we could likely make anywhere from two to three hundred Coin for just the pelts. Apparently Cursed type magic users can use them to make great cloaks for their armor sets."

"But you don't know about the body parts and organs?" Annika asked. "It seems like a huge risk. We might get the pelts for two to three hundred each, but how many pelts even is that? Meanwhile, the other team will be getting at bare minimum, fifty coins for every pelt, one hundred for every hunk of meat, seventy-five for the organs that can be used in potions. And that's the bare minimum. If we only have to fight six enemies, we'll only make twelve-hundred Coin. If they fight six enemies and they get pelt, meat and just one organ that's used for potions out of each one, that's thirteen-fifty. Even if the pelts themselves are expensive, we might end up short."

I make a mental note to tell Carlo to appoint Annika as Treasurer and then move on to my most convincing argument. "It wouldn't just be for medicine. Cursed animal parts can probably be made into poison bait for other monsters. So even if we can't find organs that can be sold as potion ingredients, we'll be able to use it as poisoned chum, which we can then use to make our fights easier in the future. If it works that way. For all we know, the curse is broken upon death. In which case we'll be able to sell the meat."

"So we have to wait and see," Marisol said and huffed. "I wish the System would just give us a skill to know how much stuff is worth."

"Oh!" Toria straightened up. "I do! My Gold Subclass! It has an appraisal skill in it."

"Let's go and appraise, then," Marisol said and grinned.

"First," I turned to her. "Toria, have you practiced with the skill, yet?"

She tangled her fingers together in her lap and frowned. "I'm sure it works just like magic."

"Yes but, how does it work?" I asked. "Does it give the worth in coins or does it just say 'normal' versus 'rare' or 'legendary'? Does it take into account how beat up the thing is, or does it just give the base value? We'd need to know all that, first."

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"Yeah, if you've never used it, it might just say 'this thing is valuable!' and we'd have no idea how much," Marisol said and turned to Toria. "I got a perfect one for ya. This is 24 karat gold on my watch." She proffered her wrist. "If you can guess the real value of the Watch from your skill, then we can use it on the creatures later. If you can't, then you probably need to level it up, first. Or the System bungled something."

"I-" Toria huffed and tightened her hands in her lap into a grip that made her knuckles white. "Color Change. Gold!"

There was a slight glowing effect as the gold took over the rainbow pattern on her outfit. It seeped into every crevice, like a marker on a paper towel. Just because it did it quickly, didn't mean we couldn't see the whole process. Like it bloomed across the entire canvas of her outfit until it was the only color left.

She turned to Marisol and grasped her wrist where the watch sat, then stared at it. "Uh... I dunno how to activate magic skills or whatever," Toria said, turning beet red.

"But you were going to come on a mission?" Patrice asked with incredulity. "Why the hell weren't you practicing?"

"I was putting energy into the marble- Flector things!" Toria said and turned her eyes to me. "You told me to!"

"Yes," I replied and frowned. "But you could have simply made one or two Flectors a day. What about the rest of your casts?"

"You never said that!" she said in a somewhat hysterical tone of voice.

"Why should she have needed to tell you to be sure to practice your own skills?" Marisol asked. "I keep hearin' from everybody that Lila is 'weird' or 'blunt' or even 'mean' but I've never seen that. Is it just that she won't 'mommy' you?"

Toria's mouth dropped open.

"That's not fair to say," Annika protested. "We're all civilians. Just because some of us took to this better than others, doesn't mean everyone should be expected to be perfectly functional right now-"

"I'm functioning fine!" Toria argued. "And you haven't seen it cause you don't know her well enough! She's mean! She doesn't mean to be, but she refused to just tell polite lies and shit! If you ask her how you look in something, she'll tell you your hips look fat and your boobs are poppin' out and won't just say 'you look fine' or nothin'. She'll tell you that you're bad at a thing you've been training to do for ten years! She has no tact."

"I'd say she has tact," Patrice said. "That just sounds like brutal honesty. And not the fake kind where you lie in the other direction. It might be annoying sometimes, but that's not mean. Why do you ask for her opinion if you know she's going to offend you?"

"I should be able to ask my friend how I look and just have her compliment me!" Toria said. "I even told her to just focus on complimentin' the positive and ignorin' the negative-"

"You told me to focus on what you did right and what looks good," I interrupted. "However, you balked when I asked if you wanted me to stop saying anything negative at all."

"Yeah, cause it's a question that's meant to make me back off!" she retorted. "Just because I don't want you saying anything negative when I'm feeling vulnerable, you ask me if like 'should I never say anything negative at all then?' and-"

"We were speaking in a specific context," I replied, my brow beginning to furrow, though I try to remain calm. "I was asking if you wanted me to not say anything negative about your appearance."

There was a long pause.

"Oh," she said in a small voice as her eyes filled with tears.

"And that, my friends," Marisol said. "Is why communication is Key."

"Now we can-" I started to speak but Toria leapt up to her feet and ran from the apartment.

"I think that was a bit too much for her," Annika stated with a frown.

"But we didn't even ridicule her," I replied with a sigh. "How am I supposed to talk to people when simply mentioning things makes them cry!?"

I hadn't realized, but I was gripping my own arm hard enough to leave depressions when I removed my fingernails.

"I'm pretty sure it was just a feeling of embarrassment that we had nothin' to do with," Marisol said and I think she was trying to console me. It's always hard to tell if it's not accompanied by touch or a certain facial expression. "Toria seems like the easily embarrassed type, sensitive to rejection and judgment. She might've thought we were judgin' her just because she was judgin' herself."

"Well, obviously we can't count on her," Patrice said. "Not responsible enough to know to practice her skills on her own and then gets mad at other people for giving her suggestions she chose to follow to the letter. Not to mention, she only had one attack skill and one heal skill. It might be versatile, but in a battle environment, versatility is only useful if you've got the skill to use it."

"We'll just take her some cookies later," Marisol said. "Maybe she's just feelin' extra sensitive and needs emotional support?"

"At the moment, we don't have the resources to be doing that," I replied. "We have to focus on surviving and providing. She can sort out her emotions herself with all the Coin and business we bring in. She can do jobs that involve one of her subclasses, it's not like Combat is her only ability."

"Sure," Marisol said. "Do you really tell people their hips are fat?"

"If the outfit makes them look that way, then why not?" I replied. "I was under the impression that when they asked, they wanted to look a certain way. If they don't look that way and instead look a different way, am I not supposed to tell them? It's like asking someone to evaluate your blue painting with 'Is it blue enough' but the whole painting is purple or red. Do I just say 'sure, seems blue' when that is untrue?"

"Well no," Marisol said. "But in the future, maybe consider that they want to know what they're doin' right, not what they're doin' wrong. They probably know what's wrong already, they just can't see the 'right'. People are self-conscious and see the flaws more than anything. You just need to point out the positive things, because those are the things they actually miss."

"Ah," I said. "Alright, then."

"What, that's it?" Annika said with a gaping mouth. "Why didn't you just do that before?"

"No one explained what was expected of me," I said- and I knew was being defensive. But after thirty years of this, I was just tired of it. "Everyone just kept telling me to lie."

"Right," Patrice said. "Just so you know, that goes for everythin' but things that actually count for life or death. If someone is bad at something in a fight and you know how they can improve, you gotta tell the truth."

"But you've gotta ask first," Marisol said and gave Patrice a look. "You have to ask 'do you want concrit?' and then take no for an answer."

"Fine," I said. "In the meantime, we should find someone else with an appraisal skill and find out how valuable Cursed things are."