Over half a week after we left what I’ve taken to calling ‘Pickledebt Farms’, Ross, Mich and I finally make it to another town.

  Though this one is less of a ‘town’, and more of a massive sprawling open-air mall.

  I can even spot some of those same franchises again. Including a few that were in Pickledebt but not the Town of All Beginnings. And vice-versa, now that I think about it.

  [ WELCOME TO NEW GAMESBERG ]

  [ LEVEL UP! — LEVEL: +1=6 — SKILL POINTS: 2 — S.T.A.T. POINTS: STRENGTH=1 - TENACITY=1 - APTITUDE=1 - TILT=1 — NEXT LEVEL: 4,096 XP ]

  The moment I see it, I stop in my tracks. “Hey, guys?”

  Mich stops too.

  Ross practically jumps out of his skin and glances around in alarm before throwing me a panicked look. “What is it?”

  I blink at the overreaction. “I… Just leveled up. So I was gonna stop and get some Skills real quick.”

  Mich turns to face me fully. “Can this wait? I’m sure I speak for most of us when I say we don’t want to stand here for an hour while you figure out all your allocations.”

  Ross looks embarrassed at the misunderstanding we’re pointedly moving past, but nods along with Mich.

  I can’t help but sulk. “I’ve done nothing but think this over for like a week. And I’m making a build. Everything’s planned out, so just give me a sec and I’ll get it done as soon as I can move through the menus.”

  Ross looks confusedly at Mich. “‘Build’? Do you know what she means?”

  Mich’s suddenly scrunched eyebrows are a match for my own. “You don’t? Haven’t you played any RPGs? Or heard people talk about them?”

  “What? Like rocket launchers? Wait, you can get rocket launchers?!”

  Mich looks at me looking back at him before we both look at Ross in utter horror.

  I break the silence. “Oh my god…”

  Mich somehow manages to eventually speak through his own shock. “We had no idea…”

  I gulp. “Yeah… Okay, yeah. Okay, just gimme a minute here, and then we can go eat while me and Mich explain some essential stuff you should definitely know. Stuff like…”

  I gulp again. “Builds…”

  Mich looks back and forth between us, nodding vigorously before his focus settles on Ross. “Seriously man.”

  Ross cocks his head, clearly failing to grasp just how much he needs to know this. “Is it really that important? Why all of a sudden? And why now?”

  Mich and Ross both look at me.

  Unfocusing my eyes from the menu, I train them on Mich. “You wanna cover the super-basics real quick? I’m kinda doing a thing here.”

  Focusing my eyes once again, I blink away the resulting twinge of dizziness before finalizing my STATs.

  [ S.T.A.T.S — STRENGTH: MAGICAL=16 - PHYSICAL=25 — TENACITY: DEFENSE=16 - SPEED=25 — APTITUDE: MANA=18 - STAMINA=23 — TILT: CONTROL=25 - LUCK=16 ]

  [ MP: 384/432 ]

  Now let’s see, where’s that Skill I’ve been eyeing… There.

  [ COMMON C.L.A.S.S. PASSIVE GAINED: ANIME / ELEMENTAL BREATHING — EFFECT: YOUR BREATHING PATTERN IS ALTERED ACCORDING TO YOUR ATTUNEMENT. YOUR SWORD STRIKES GAIN ADDITIONAL DAMAGE AND EFFECTS ACCORDING TO THAT ELEMENT — STRENGTH SCALING: MAGICAL — WARNING: WITHOUT ATTUNEMENT, ELEMENT DEFAULTS TO JUICY ]

  Something changes. That much is clear. But it’s not immediately obvious what. At least until I gulp a few times. Did it just get really humid? Isn’t humidity covered by Central Air? It should be, right?

  I gulp again. But it doesn’t help. Why is my throat so wet? Oh fuck… The Juicy Kingdom… Juicy breathing… ‘Juicy’ is just mislabeled water, isn’t it? Well, double-fuck. So my throat is just wet now?

  “Woah…” This is so fucking weird.

  My heart drops as I start to grasp the implications of what I just did. I mean I guess it makes sense now that I think about it? But that does nothing to lessen my resentment over having just confirmed the choice I made last week. All in all, this has to be my quickest turnaround on buyer’s remorse ever.

  Seeming to take my ‘woah’ and uneven breathing as some kind of sign, Mich stops midway through explaining the concept of HP. “You done, then? Good timing, I could actually use some help with this one.”

  Ross looks at me pleadingly. “So… Our entire stability here is based on these ‘health points’? That has so many spiritual and physiological implications that I think I really just need to talk through right now or I’m gonna have a panic attack.”

  I raise a finger.

  I open my mouth.

  I close it.

  My finger curls down.

  My eyes unfocus. “Nope. Sorry for interrupting.”

  Mich takes a ripe tomato from his inventory, crushes it in one hand, and shotgun-splatters me with the juice.

  I have to focus so hard on not reacting in any way that I don’t immediately snatch up the Uncommon Skill I’ve been eyeing. Instead, I notice something odd. Apart from no longer being divisible by two, my total number of available Skills has more digits than before. But I’m not seeing any new ones in the list, so… Where’s that number coming from?

  It takes a good bit of ignoring the two boys to realize the problem is my filters again.

  Disabling most of those, I see that my Core Uncommons are back! Not since the Rosenhold Inn have I been able to… Wow, was that really just two Levels ago? Since then, I bought two CLASS Commons, an Uncommon, and a Rare… Not a Core Skill in the lot. So why can I suddenly get an Uncommon?

  Actually… Huh. I feel like another piece of the puzzle just snapped into place. But I need more data. Not getting any CRAFT skills though. If I’m right, that’ll be the whole point.

  Although, I could maybe use something to widen the lip of a katana’s sheath and make it easier to slide in and out… But do I really need that? I’m already getting pretty good at sheathing and unsheathing as it is. And if I use those training wheels as a crutch, I’ll be hopeless at using katanas without them. Gotta keep the big picture in mind…

  So what’s a good Core Uncommon?

  [ UNCOMMON PASSIVE: XP SHARE — CONFIRM PURCHASE? ]

  Panicking, I decline the prompt.

  My near heart attack from the almost-accidental purchase drives home a truth that my subconscious already knew. Someday, I’m gonna be max-level. XP is useless at max level, right? So it’s the same problem as the sheath thing. Would it help me at the moment? Sure. But it’ll be useless later on. If I pick this now, I know I’ll hate myself then.

  So I read through the rest of my Uncommon Core options, looking for something with a bit more staying power.

  But before I’m even halfway done, Mich gets close enough to where I can see his hand waving in front of my eyes through the menus.

  Focusing back on reality, I glare at both guys as just staring at me. “…Yes?”

  Mich folds his arms. “Oh, don’t ‘…Yes?’ me. We’re nearly a half an hour into your ‘just a minute’. You done or what?”

  That’s when I notice the clock. “Holy fuck. I really lost track of time there, didn’t I?”

  “You don’t say…”

  “Yeah… Sorry about that. I have more stuff available than I thought, so I wasn’t sure what to get. I’m still not. But I guess I’m done.”

  Walking through the pleasant ambiance created by speakers playing Hawaiian guitar out of every other surface in the open-air mall, we pick literally the first spot without ‘pickle’ in its name.

  By the time we sit down, our conversation encroaches on a topic both Ross and I are ignorant of.

  I close my slackened jaw. “Hold on… You can wear clothes… And armor? Like, at the same time?”

  Mich starts buttering some bread at me. “What? Of course you can.” Then, he drops the knife, seeming to notice for the first time that I’m not wearing anything under my incomplete armor.

  I look down, relieved that it never broke. Which it apparently can. Mid-existential-nightmare, I glance back up at a loss. “Seriously? Did I really take off all my clothes… For nothing?”

  Grumbling to himself, Ross clicks his tongue. “Shit…”

  Mich squeezes the roll he didn’t finish buttering, and glares at Ross. “What’s that?”

  “Nothing. I mean it’s just…” Ross seems to think better on elaborating. “Nothing.”

  But I’m too deep in thought to pay much mind to hidden meanings behind anything so subtle as an avoidance of a topic.

  Instead, I remember back to three weeks ago. I was running through the woods… All my clothes got torn to shit. But how? Equipment doesn’t work like that, does it? The time my legs were crushed, I came back with no underpants… Or shoes. I definitely had those before. But all my armor regenerated every time I died. And… I can’t believe I didn’t clock this, but I’m pretty sure it’s been slowly regrowing itself whenever I’ve been at full HP. And the way my Total Defense changed after my arm got cut off that one time… I guess with so many new things, I just didn’t put it together.

  So if they’re treated that differently by the System, then… “Are clothes… Environmental?” I don’t actually have to run around naked except for armor?

  People’s reactions to seeing me the last few weeks suddenly make a lot more sense. “Oh god…”

  Never more thankful for that poncho, I cup my mouth in my hands and muffle out a question. “Why didn’t either of you say anything?”

  Mich holds his own hands up in surrender. “Don’t look at me. The System auto-censors everything individually, based on cultural upbringing and comfort level. No matter how you dress, no one can see anything they don’t specifically want to be seeing. And I don’t… Want to…”

  Starting to sweat a bit now, Mich unconvincingly shrugs. “I thought you were just, you know… ‘Expressing yourself’. And it’s your right to. Far be it from me to police that. Especially where a teenage girl is concerned.”

  Ross’s laugh sounds even more nervous than Mich looks. “Yeah… Expressing yourself. What he said. Far be it from me, er, us, to, um…” He gulps. “Police you on that…”

  I narrow my eyes at them both. Kinda skeevy… But I guess I am the one dressed like this. I know what kind of body I gave myself. Can I really blame them for being gross? Yes… Yes, I can. But is it up to them to do something about it?

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  On that note, I wolf down the rest of my food, groan to my feet, and transfer $2 to Mich. “For the grub.”

  At that, I promptly turn and march out of the building.

  Mich calls after me. “Where are you off to all of a sudden?”

  I neither turn my head nor break stride. “Shopping.”

  Ross mopes in his seat, despite the free meal.

  Mich turns to him. “Really man, why don’t you just go get laid?”

  Ross brightens hopefully. “You think she’s willing?”

  The last thing I hear before I’m out of the bistro is Mich smacking Ross upside the head.

  Out in the main mall, I immediately realize my mistake. Where are all the clothes stores? Wasn’t that over half of what they used to have in malls? Wait, does it even have a clothes store? I assumed it did. But that’s all it was. An assumption. Who would know the answer? Should I ask Mich? Now? After that? No, I’d rather just wander around until I find one.

  So that’s exactly what I do.

  A few mall-streets into the search, I spot a woman apparently looking for someone. Unlike mine, her hair is just the right shade to be accurately called a ‘ginger’.

  Of course, that doesn’t mean we know each other. Nor does it mean that I have either method, or any particular desire to help.

  So I just watch as another, long-haired blonde woman freezes mid stride when their eyes meet.

  Taking the blonde woman in, the panic practically emanating from the redhead is replaced with something far more hopeful. A tiny, hesitant relief that makes itself known more and more by the second. “It’s… It’s me, Rachel. Are you..?”

  A torrent of emotion passes over the blonde woman’s face before settling into an unmistakable wash of pure relief. Almost robotically, she unfreezes, no longer walking the way she was, but instead tentatively reaching out to Rachel, arms wide for a hug.

  Tears well up in Rachel’s eyes. Then she lurches, almost zombie-like, towards the blonde.

  By the time they crash together, Rachel is openly sobbing into the blonde woman’s shoulder. “Oh thank god… Phoebe…”

  She trembles in Rachel’s arms. The trembling transitions to shaking. And from shaking to laughter.

  Through that laughter, the blonde loudly proclaims her first word into the other woman’s ear. “Nope.”

  Rachel’s grip slackens, even as the rest of her goes stiff. “W-What?”

  The blonde reluctantly lets go. “Try to target me.”

  “How do you target-oh…”

  I do as well, a little embarrassed at having gotten so caught up with the drama between random strangers that I forgot it was a thing.

  [ HERO TARGETED: URSULA ]

  Rachel’s face reddens as she backs off from the woman who’d given her hope. “Then why would you..?”

  Ursula smiles beatifically. “I just love hugs. Yours was wonderful by the way.”

  “But why..? Why would you do this?”

  “Because… I wanted a hug?”

  Rachel pushes her away. “Well, I retract it!”

  Ursula barks out a different kind of laugh. “What?”

  “That hug wasn’t meant for you. It’s not yours. I’m taking it back!”

  “I see… Yeah… No, your hug had more feeling than your subsequent denial of it. Sorry.”

  Rachel snarls. “I miss my wife, you bitch!”

  “Excuses… Thank you for the hug, pretty lady. For what it’s worth, I hope you find your wife. You really do love her. I can tell.” She turns and starts to walk away. “That was a good-ass hug.”

  Oh fuck! This is my chance, isn’t it!?

  The moment I see where this is going, I line up my sheathed sword like a pool cue. This is the third time this week someone’s pulled this shit in front of me.

  The first time, it just pissed me off.

  After the second one, I came up with a reply.

  I just need a few seconds to aim…

  Eyes practically boiling with hate, Rachel’s open palm alights and gets brighter and hotter before it shoots out of that palm. The first honest-to-god fireball I’ve ever seen.

  Impressive as it looks, it also flies wide, looking to hit nothing but a mall directory.

  But Ursula seems to see that too, deliberately stepping into the fireball with a very different smile than before.

  A red ‘45’ rises out of her as the explosion of flames quickly fizzles into nothing but a few stray burning 1’s rising from the top of her head.

  As with the fireball itself, Ursula ignores it, grinning ear-to-ear before closing the distance.

  With what I instantly recognize as a Dash, Ursula shoves her arm forward to impale Rachel onto all three prongs of the metal claw she definitely didn’t have a moment ago.

  [ COMMON ACTION: IAI QUICKDRAW ]

  [ UNCOMMON ACTION: COUNTER SHEATHE ]

  [ RARE TOGGLE ON: EXTEND-O-SWORD ]

  [ POWER BLESSING: DASH ]

  Between Ursula’s claw and Rachel’s throat appears an extremely long, mostly unsheathed, oddly wet katana. It nearly whips away its housing when the blade clangs against a gap between Ursula’s middle and rightmost claws.

  Just like that, the sword disappears.

  At the same moment the water from my disappeared sword splashes her face, all of Ursula’s momentum vanishes. She seems confused. She clearly knows her attack landed.

  But Rachel just as clearly isn’t dead.

  Ursula looks on in wonderment, surprised by the loud, wet clang behind her. But it’s already too late.

  As soon as I resheathe my now permanently drenched sword, a red number rises from Ursula equal to six times the maximum damage of that claw attack she also clearly expected to kill Rachel.

  Ursula dies that same instant.

  [ UNCOMMON DEFENDER REPARATION GAINED: MOD STONE ]

  I just stare wide-eyed at the unmoving body now riddled with almost comically large puncture marks. ‘Almost’ only because of the partially disassembled human involved in the joke.

  I look from the mutilated corpse, to my sword. Back to the body.

  My mouth drops open.

  Rachel just stares at me, horror-struck. “You… Killed her?”

  I wince in an odd mix of triumphant embarrassment. “I… I guess..? I honestly didn’t expect it to do that much damage. Or kill her. Hell, I didn’t even expect it to work. That was my first try…”

  Rachel seems lost in a daze at the sudden flipping of the status-quo. “Oh… Thank you?”

  For my part, I’m lost for words on how to deal with this whole situation. I’m sure Rachel thinks I’m just as crazy as Ursula. But aren’t I? That asshole was just pissing me off so much I didn’t think beyond how to set up the shot.

  Still, I try to center myself and adopt a somewhat responsible tone. “Sorry, but… It’s Rachel, right? Do you know what just happened?”

  Rachel glares bitterly down at Ursula’s body. “That horrible woman pretended to be my dead wife. No… It’s the other way around, isn’t it? I’m dead and she’s… I saved her. Didn’t I?”

  Rachel’s tears are back. “Oh god… Phoebe’s really gone, isn’t she? No… I’m the one who’s gone… Aren’t I..?”

  I don’t know quite what to do with that. “So, yeah… Um… The thing is, a lot of people will want you to attack them so they can take your stuff. But if you can trick them into throwing the first punch, you can kill them instead and take their stuff instead. That’s pretty hard though. I only just did it thanks to three separate Skills all working together. But for you? Seems like what would’ve fucked with that Ursula bitch the most is…”

  Getting an idea, I snap my fingers. “What if, next time, you just thank them for the public display of affection? And tell the asshole it truly meant a lot to you.”

  Rachel just gapes uncomprehendingly at me. “Who the hell..? What are you saying..? Killing people..? The next time..? Why would I want to..? And… I mean, how would that even work? What if they reciprocate?”

  “Then you did a good deed, I guess? But I’ve seen a lot of these fuckers running around pulling that shit. What pisses them off more than anything, seems to be the thought that their victim profited from an exchange that didn’t profit them.”

  “So I should’ve thanked her for using the memory of the love of my life to screw with me? Isn’t that just a lie?”

  “Of course it is. What, do you owe these fuckwads the truth? Hey. You do you. But if it was me, whatever makes their day worse is exactly what I’d do.”

  Rachel blinks at that. “Oh. Yeah, I mean… I guess? Wait, let’s circle back. Who are you?”

  “I’m Jessie.”

  “Hi, Jessie, I’m Rachel.”

  “Sooo…” I scan the street, namely the crowd of people all staring at the two living women standing over a dead one. “Yeah…”

  I look past them, to the various little shops lining either side of this mall’s street-equivalent. None of which are what I’m looking for. “Whelp…”

  I head in the direction I was walking when this all started. “Bye, Rachel. Good luck with… Stuff.”

  Seeming to finally notice the crowd as well, Rachel calls after me in a badly disguised minor panic. “Hey wait, where are you going?”

  I look back and pointedly ignore the body disintegrating behind her. “Shopping.”

  “For what?”

  Raising an eyebrow, I run my hands along my frame covered only by sporadic bits of mismatched armor. “Clothes..?”

  Rachel seems disappointed for some reason. But not disappointed enough. “Can I come with?”

  I shrug in a bewilderment that fails to overshadow my overwhelming desire to get away from the oglers. “I guess?”

  A few hours and several sets of clothes later, Rachel and I meet up with Ross and Mich.

  The latter of which looks from one redhead to the other. “I see you’ve multiplied. So that’s your new Skill?”

  Ross nods along. “I’m still rather new to this. Is there a Skill you can get for mitosis?”

  I ignore the lame redhead jokes and gesture to the other woman whose hair is different from mine as anything can be while still deriving from the same primary color. “This is Rachel. She’s coming with us, I guess.”

  Rachel’s head snaps from the two strangers, back to me. “I am?”

  I feel my legs stiffen. “Aren’t you? I mean you don’t have to. I just assumed…”

  Rachel waves her arms in negation. “No, no, I’ll go! Not like I have anything pleasant keeping me here. In fact, I’ll take literally the first excuse to leave. So where are we headed then?”

  Mich chuckles. “Not like I have much ground to stand on saying ‘no’. Nor do I have a reason to. Nor will I. Nice to meet you, Rachel. Welcome to the team. To answer your question, we’re taking the roundabout path to Central.”

  “Oooh, what’s Central? And, just to make sure I’m not signing up for something I shouldn’t, why are you going there?”

  Mich points off past one of the smaller roofs in the shopping center. “See that big city sprawling just a bit above that store? That’s Central”

  Rachel’s eyes boggle at it. “Oh, that? Of course, I’ve noticed it, but… It’s a city? How? It’s so huge! What’re the rings for?”

  Ross cocks his head. “What rings?”

  Rachel points to Central. “You don’t see the three concentric rings floating above that place?”

  He squints, seeming to examine our destination for the first time in at least half a week, to the bronze, silver, and gold rings respectively hovering at different elevations above and around the far-off metropolis. “Oh yeah… Hey Mich, what’s with the rings over Central?”

  Mich squints over at them too. “Huh… Sorry, I’ve got nothing. Jessie?”

  I flinch at the sudden attention from the other three. “What? How should I know?”

  Ross looks to Mich, then me, and finally, Rachel. “Oh, um… Hi, by the way.”

  Rachel grins back. “Hi yourself.”

  Mich claps his hands. “Great! Let’s get going, then.”

  Breaking eye contact with Rachel, Ross looks at Mich in alarm. “Woah, woah, woah, hold on now. I thought we were staying the night.”

  Mich deflates a bit. “Oh… Somehow, that entirely slipped my mind. I guess between the beds and the Central Air, I’m not really feeling the road-weariness. Alright. Meet back up in the morning, then?”

  Rachel hedges. “I dunno, man… I kinda wanted to get out of here. Won’t we get in trouble?”

  “Trouble? Trouble for what?”

  “The, um… Murder? Last I checked, that was a crime.”

  Ross grins wryly at her. “Have you checked since you got to Heaven?”

  “N-no?”

  “Then you’ll be surprised to learn a lot of things have changed since you died. That being one of them.”

  “Wait, really? So we can just run around killing people with no consequences at all?”

  “Seems that way, yeah.”

  Mich jumps in to pump the breaks on the speeding train of insanity this conversation just turned into. “Now hold on just a goddamned second.”

  He glances over at me.

  I nod in agreement. “Yyyeah… Let’s go through this whole thing one more time.”

  So we do.

  But Ross seems confused about something. “It’s just… What did you say earlier? What’s ‘Central Air’?”

  Rachel cocks her head. “Oh wait, Does that mean you have air conditioning?”

  Ross gapes at Rachel with newfound understanding.

  Mich and I look at each other.

  Then, I beat him in looking back at the new converts as I practically vibrate. “Holy fuck it’s the best Skill ever, get it now now NOW.”

  Several minutes of ranting later, we all break off and go to sleep at an inn for a price that frankly, astonishes Rachel. To the point of needing a night’s sleep just to come to terms with the economic disparity between her current life and the one she’s used to.

  Meeting up the next morning, we exit the inn and make our way out of the mall-town alongside one more party member than we came with.

  But camped just outside the mall entrance, Rachel and I spot someone we were hoping to avoid and see respectively.

  Having spent the whole night hoping this would happen, I walk straight up to Ursula and give her a little warning. “Now then… You’re gonna stop pulling that shit. Right the fuck now. And forever. This is non-negotiable.”

  Ursula’s expression goes through more variations than I can keep track of before she folds her arms with a scowl. “And what if I don’t want to?”

  I don’t suppress a snarl. “Then I’ll come back here and make you.”

  Ursula scoffs. “Oh? And how, pray tell, do you plan on doing that?”

  I shrug. “Dunno. Haven’t really thought it through yet. Unless I get a better idea, I’ll probably just follow you around and counter you at every turn.”

  “What would that accomplish?”

  “Basically the same thing as yesterday. Thanks for the Mod Stone by the way. It’s the first one I’ve owned that wasn’t a Random.”

  Ursula pales as her eyes unfocus, presumably to check her inventory.

  After several seconds of them darting up and down and back up again, she growls. “You bitch…”

  I grin with no small amount of catharsis. “Oh good, so you do know how it feels… Now stop pulling that shit, or I’ll find out, come back, and kick your ass from here to bankruptcy.”

  Ignoring a shotgunned myriad of racial, sexual, and even a few benign slurs, the other four of us leave.