The very next morning was like every other. Diff woke up to the sunlight washing over him. He sits up on his bed. He looks at his hands.

  The memory of grabbing that black crystal resurfaces. He can still remember the pain of getting his fingers blown up.

  Then how?

  How the hell is his fingers intact, like nothing ever happened to them.

  He gets out of bed and gets ready for the day. A while later he sits down in his chair. He stares at his turned off monitor.

  Lately he was able to play some games here and there. But no matter if he is beaten by a bullet resistant snake, or a literal dragon he is still at the bottom of the leaderboard. Even though he won't admit it.

  He gets up and walks out of his room. The hallway is empty, no one is here. As he walks along the red carpet he glances on the numbers, listed on the doors.

  His number is 12. He shruggs and closes the door. He turns on his right, seeing the distant end of the hallway.

  Diff has no reason to turn left here. But he do turns left. The very next number is 13. Locked with a key, probably someone's or not in use.

  He goes further and reaches the weapon storage room. Instead of number, the door says: Weapon storage room. The place where Johnny picked up his weapon. The random short sword. What got replaced by the sword he found in the dragon's nest.

  "Right..." - Diff murmurs under his breath.

  He murmurs as he realizes that he still has the book he found to even open it. The book he just throw into his closer next to the Rome and Juliet, that he still did not opened ever. And never read.

  He reaches out to touch the handle.

  Ruttle ruttle

  The door is locked.

  "Why did I do that?" - He murmurs under his breath..

  He turns and walks away from the door. As he walks he keeps touching his fingers that shouldn't be there with you the other fingers.

  Once he arrived to the stairs leading down he slowly makes his way down. The building is really quiet so he takes a look around.

  Diff walks into the commission room. There, he sees Paul browsing the commission board. They fought a literal dragon yesterday. And today he is browsing commissions. Paul sensing Diff's gaze turns to him.

  "Oh, Diff. Morning." - Paul greets before looking back at the board.

  "Morning... We fought a dragon... Yesterday. Why are you searching for another job?" - Diff asks. He is strangely in the mood for questioning things this morning.

  "I feel bad for not being able to help more in that scenario. Doing these are actually great at getting my mind off things." - Paul answers.

  "I wasn't much help either." - Diff murmurs under his breath.

  Diff stays silent for a while before walking into the kitchen. In the kitchen he sees Erica disassembling her wrench at one side of the table.

  On the other side of the table Johnny and Clara are playing cards. Entire kitchen is quiet. Except for the occasional card flipping, placing and pulling. On the other side of the table Erica silently does her tech thing.

  The first the notice Diff was Johnny.

  "Diff, morning." - Johnny greets.

  "Morning. Are you feeling better?" - Clara asks, putting her blonde hair behind her neck.

  "Morning. I'm feeling fine. Who is going to win?" - Diff speaks.

  "This surgeon is good at playing cards." - Johnny speaks, pointing at Clara with the cards in his hands.

  Diff walks to the coffee machine to make himself a cup. The coffee machine. Easily the most important thing in everyone life. This machine is white with two purple line on each side. Probably it was Yunyan's idea to put those lines there.

  As the machine is doing it's thing, shaking, purring, spinning, and letting out steam. All at once, like it was barely holding itself together. An overworked little machine pretending this was normal. Diff remembers his fingers, that shouldn't be, but still are.

  "Clara. Don't mind me asking, but you were the one who treated me. Correct?" - Diff asks, turning back to face the others.

  "Yes, I was the one. Have I missed any injuries?" - Clara asks.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  "No, it's nothing like that. I just wonder how did you get my fingers back in place." - Diff says, leaning against the kitchen counter.

  "Magic." - Clara speaks as she puts down a card.

  Diff just nods quietly. He turns back to the coffee machine. The machine is shaking, purring, spinning. But now it doesn't let out any steam at the moment. Then it stops shaking, spinning, purring. And the stream of coffee is falling into the metal holding cup.

  Yunyan appears out of nowhere. She grabs the holding cup, pours into her iconic, coffee is the best mug. Then she walks to the fridge, pulls out the milk and pours into her mug. Then she puts it back. And disappears into thin air. Only a second later her mug also disappears.

  "What just happened?" - Diff asks

  "Yunyan. Yunyan happened." - Erica shrugs, turning her screwdriver in her wrench. Popping out a green rod in a metal casket.

  She examines the rod before sitting up and walking away from the table. Diff also pours himself coffee and walks over to the couch.

  The TV is showing a 'YOU DIED' text in red with full capital letters. It quickly disappears as the character starts moving again.

  Diff looks at the couch, to see Yunyan sitting cross legged with the controller in her hand, eyes glued to the TV. A headphones in blue and black colors are on her head. The microphone part is pointing to the ceiling.

  Vaska laying on the couch, reading a magazine, her legs are thrown over Yunyan's lap.

  "Morning." - Diff says as he sits down at the floor, sipping his coffee, also looking at the TV.

  "Morning..." - She mumbles as she stares at the TV. Her fingers quickly pressing down the buttons on the controller. Like if she could do more damage by pressing it quickly.

  The character on the screen has a long, carved sword with a basin on its head as a helmet and chainmail armor from shoulder to toe. After fighting with skeletons the character stops.

  Yunyan stopped playing. Now phone in hand. She stares at the screen before putting it down and picking up the controller.

  She saves the game before closing the game. She gets up and walks upstairs.

  "She left suddenly." - Diff notes.

  "Yeah. She probably start writing the report now." - Vaska speaks, turning a page in her magazine.

  "The report? Aren't we all supposed to write one?" - Diff asks, putting down his mug on the coffee table, right next to Yunyan's mug.

  "No. Black commissions require only one report, provided by the captain or by the vice-captain." - Vaska points out.

  "So you shoved the work at Yunyan." - Diff notes.

  A while later Clara and Johnny finished playing cards. Clara puts a bowl on the table and prepares like three carton of eggs. Johnny on the other hand grabs a cutting board.

  With that, they started to cook. The aroma of the delicious food slowly and steadily fills the kitchen.

  Erica walks back with a blue rod in a metal casket in hand. She sits down and puts it inside her wrench.

  Then she assembles the wrench. Not really caring that there is cooking coming on near her.

  Once the food is done, everyone sits around the table with a plate of omelette. Sprinkled with a lot of cheese.

  Paul eats quietly, head down, not a word. Clara eats, chatting away with others. Johnny eats silently, his cowboy hat placed on the arm of the chair. Erica eats slowly, chatting away with Clara.

  Diff eats quietly, listening to the conversation going on. Vaska eats silently, or she did before pouring a generous amount of spicy sauce on her food. Yunyan on the other hand starts with coffee, sipping slowly enjoying the flavor.

  The next few hours are nothing interesting. Everyone found something to do. Even if that activity are not productive.

  Diff just plays and plays, blaming his teammates for loosing, like everyone did at least once. He even went down in ranks after a big loosing streak.

  It's nighttime, the room is completely dark, except Diff's monitor showing the defeat scene in bright colors. He slams a hand at the desk and starts looking at his teammates stats. Three of them were in 0/11/0. One of his teammates was in 7/4/9. Not the best ratio, but still so much better than his other teammates.

  He decided to send a friend request. To this teammate, named AfterCare. It surprised Diff that AfterCare accepted his friend request.

  AfterCare: Hi!

  StillLoading: Hello

  AfterCare: Even though you carried, we couldn't win.

  StillLoading: Yeah, got braindead teammates. Again.

  AfrerCare: I feel u. I healed them so they could survive. What they did? Went back into the fight with low HP. Anyway. Want to duo?

  StillLoading: You bet!

  Just simple conversation, but still it made Diff smile. Maybe the fact that now he only has to deal with three bad teammates made his lips curl up. Or the fact that this stranger on the wide seas of internet want to play with him.

  After a long game the chat got lively again.

  AfterCare: WE WON!

  StillLoading: WE CARRIED!

  AfterCare: I healed like 100k. But I still outdmg the jg.

  StillLoading: You healed so much I felt like a final boss straight from a videogame!

  AfterCare: Supp gap

  StillLoading: Fact. Another one?

  AfterCare: Sorry, not today. It's already midnight.

  StillLoading: Midnight? Oh shit you are right! Gn I guess.

  AfterCare: Gn

  Diff walked downstairs to drink a glass of water. The floor looks surprisingly scary in the dark. Empty rather. Just quietness and shadows. Even the TV is turned off. In the kitchen Yunyan is hunched over a laptop.

  "Yunyan?" - Diff asks, but gets no answer.

  He is walks behind her, just to realize that she is sleeping. He pulls away the laptop and stares at the screen. It's the written report about the black commission. The professionalism is so strong that it could kill an elephant.

  Commission Report Division 1111

  Operation Type: Rescue Mission

  Location: Mining Site Twelve

  Primary Target: Subterranean Dragon

  Summary:

  Division 1111 was dispatched following reports of a dormant hostile entity located beneath an active mining operation. Upon arrival, the target was confirmed to be in a dormant state.

  During preliminary operations within the site, the target became active and engaged both civilian personnel and Division members.

  Engagement Details:

  Following activation, the dragon demonstrated high resistance to conventional weaponry, aerial capability, and sustained fire-based attacks. Fire output was successfully contained and redirected to prevent further structural damage to the site.

  Target mobility was neutralized through coordinated damage to wings and lower limbs. Final termination was achieved via direct strike to the cervical region.

  Casualties:

  Civilian casualties occurred during the activation and engagement phases.

  Division casualties: non-fatal injuries sustained. The rescue needed Division and workers sustained fatal casualties. All injured personnel received treatment on site.

  Outcome:

  Primary threat eliminated. Site secured.

  Remaining civilians and Division workers evacuated.

  Additional Notes:

  Dragon remains yielded recoverable materials. 1111th Division personnel were granted limited access for retrieval following site clearance.

  Report filed by:

  Yunyan

  Acting Lead, Division 1111