Chapter 7: Patch
Kuro is behind the main door, ready to go out and see what this world has to offer, and maybe get a job. He doesn't want to rely on the Xiao-Long family for everything and wants to be independent. He looks straight into the town's direction as he encourages himself.
"So, my goal for today, find a job in town. I've done part-time before, so it's no big deal."
Kuro hears someone walking behind him, looking at his back, he sees Ruby, dressed in casual clothing, donning the usual red cape behind her. She looks excited as she went to his side.
"And I'll be there to tour you in Yang's place"
Signal students attend early in their classes, and Yang is no exception, leaving him and Ruby behind in the mornings, or at least until she goes to school next week as well, and they are running out of things to do in the cabin, which is why Kuro felt like going to Patch, excited to explore and see new things. Ruby, worried that her new friend will get lost somewhere (he doesn't really need to) insisted that she would accompany him. Kuro, of course, can't resist her puppy eyes™.
"Thanks, Ruby. Let's be off princess."
Blushing and pouting at the laughing boy, the pair starts to walk on the road.
While they're walking.
"Ohhh, you're never gonna believe this. I heard rumors that Atlas is releasing a new weapon this evening. I can't wait to talk all about it with you. And there is this cool weapon exhibit just near the tower. I really like how the design process is targeted…"
Kuro felt weird talking about weapons of destruction with a little girl like Ruby, as she does it with excitement in her eyes and a big smile on her face. Laughing awkwardly, Kuro talks about the games they played yesterday.
"So, what do you think of the series we played yesterday?"
"They are so good, like where did these fantasy creatures come from? By the way, Kuro, those games of yours have weapons I haven't thought about or seen. The creators are really creative. I didn't think about weapons that way. It is so much better and properly designed than the current games from the CCT."
As Ruby talks, Kuro thinks back to when he was searching for entertainment. He was searching on the net for cultural media like games, music, books, and many more, but after reading and playing some of them, Kuro thought that this world is really limited when it came to culture, considering that dozens of nations after the great war became just 4, limiting this world into 4 cultures, and just a mishmash of tropes and stagnating their progress in creativity. Especially their gaming department which is lacking or just starting. Kuro sighs at the simpleness of the entertainment of this world.
What's weird about it though, is that modern stories, written books, and even games, don't have the inspiration from legends, like ancient monsters like goblins, orcs, or even fairies, not even a slight mention of magic or gods, opting to explain powers as a semblance, just like all enemies are grimm and not other people. Kuro has a person in mind in regards to this.
After a few minutes, they were on a small hill, Ruby runs in front of him and raised her arms high.
"I know that you only visited the hospital and didn't see much of the town, so you didn't receive a warm welcome, so here it is. Welcome to Patch!"
Kuro looks down to see Patch, the coastal town. Near the seaside, he sees a lot of cargo ships coming in and out of Patch, with piers docking them and people scrambling to carry goods out of it, looking to the side he saw the tallest building, the CCT relay tower. He found out that the Cross-Continental System has 4 main towers, one for each kingdom, with many relay towers to transfer data, and there is one here in Patch, as the central hub for communication. Next, he looked just beside the pier, The air pads surrounding the control tower responsible for the traffic of airships, coming one right now. As it lands, he saw very colorful individuals coming out of the aircraft, like out of an anime. He thought that hair color is much more varied here than back on earth, ranging from scarlet red to neon pink, with some having multiple colors. And such freedom in clothing as well. He looked quite plain in comparison.
"Stop staring and start walking!"
Ruby grabs his hand, she has now accustomed to boys near her age thanks to Kuro and finds out that he is really shy outside of friends, like her. So she felt like he was a kindred spirit. Kuro gets dragged as they come close to the town's gates. Looking at the walls, he saw automated turrets as they scan outside the walls, in search of grimm. "That much security in a town? I wonder how protected Vale is." They entered the town as Ruby begins introducing him to the town
The pair traveled the town with ease, as Ruby is quite familiar with it, and knew how to get there in the most interesting ways, who knew that traversing through the roofs can be fun, quite dangerous for those without aura. They just finished eating near a hotdog stand as Ruby walks to a familiar building, albeit smaller.
"And this is a branch of the Olde Dust shop, my favorite place to hang out after school or when I'm bored, they have the latest weapon magazines here, and even display mechashift weapons. You should try to apply here, that way we could hang out in the future!"
It looks exactly the same as the dust shop in Vol 1. Just more detailed and smaller. Looking at the wanted sign he walks to the door, knocking it, and sees an old man come out. Kuro swears that he saw him a few times today. Gulping nervously he introduces himself.
"Hello. My name is Kuro Sterling and would like to apply for a job here."
The old man scans him from head to toe, he nods as he gestures to come inside. Inside the shop, it looks like a typical jewelry store, but instead of diamonds, it was dust, looking at the glass box containing fully cut crystals, in varying colors. On the side of the shop are transparent tubes that contain presumably dust in powder form. The old man grunts as he gestures him to the back, getting him out of his stupor, the young man quickly walks and begins taking out items to restock. Picking up a red crystal, Kuro carefully examines the material.
["Owner is in contact with a magical object. Scanning."]
["Scanning complete. Data is similar to a section within the corrupted package. Using it as a reference to speed up recovery time. Success.]
["Magic section partially recovered. Installing Magic Library. Complete. {Error: 4 sections are unavailable. Either wait for complete recovery or collect data from another magical object.}"]
["Making conjectures based on the Library. Conclusion: Due to magic being trapped within the earth, it has condensed into a more solid form, forming ore-like veins. However due to being formed into a solid object, according to the database from earth, the condensed energy has a 40% difference from true magic particles, making it incompatible with most recorded magic spells."]
["Hypothesis: 40% of that energy is being dispersed somewhere else."]
Kuro brings out the Eye-vision making him the only one able to see Grimoire's screen. Focusing on both the crystal and the data. Kuro is receiving many headaches from the revelations.
"Well, that's one question answered. And many more open up. So this is dust huh, how interesting, looking at it it looks like a normal colored gem, I wonder how to extract its energy. This is perfect, if I could successfully be admitted to this job I could speed up the data recovery. Now, if I slowly interact it with aura…."
Ruby is reading the latest magazine about the top 10 hunters, quickly skipping a page about a red-eyed hunter, she looks up and sees Kuro staring into the crystal he's holding. Excited about showing him a page she runs towards him, not knowing that he is focused on something else.
"Hey Kuro, I found this new magazine" "Wait, Ruby, noooo!"
Ruby showed up behind him, startling him and bumping into each other, making him drop the crystal, as it touches the floor, it explodes in a spectacular fashion, leaving the pair covered in dust residue. Thanks to their aura, they are both unhurt and the shop is untouched, prepared for events like this, seeing that the floors are covered in fire-resistant materials. The old man, seeing the situation in front of him, angrily points his finger toward the entrance, the pair getting the hint, stands up and quickly goes outside. As they both stand on the side, Ruby begins to cry in front of him.
"I'm sorry. It's my fault I got you out of your job, now you hate me and we can't hang out anymore."
Kuro felt guilty for making her cry, cringing at the fact that he is focused on something else during the job, grabs her shoulder as he looks at her in the eyes, and the girl tearfully looks at the boy.
"Hey, what are you saying Ruby, it's my fault I got startled, I don't hate you I swear. It's not your fault that I botched the previous 3 applications as well."
Kuro hugs her as he pats her head. Ruby gets red in the face as she mutters something, he's not noticing her plight and reassures her in fear of her sister killing him for making her cry. He knows how overprotective Yang is over her sister, and what lengths she is willing to do to people hurting her. He is still scared of her red eyes when he saw the bloodied face of the boys bullying Ruby the other day. He can never see her the same as before. Ruby, finally convinced of something, went out of his hug as she stops crying, and starts to smile instead.
"Really? I still feel bad about it though."
Thinking of ways to lift the mood of the girl, Kuro looks back at his memories as he recalls that in the story, Ruby loves strawberries, perhaps this one as well.
"How about this, let's buy you some strawberries."
Ruby, still has a bit of red in her eyes (aura works fast on fixing the puffiness of crying), gleams excitedly at the prospect of eating her favorite food, seemingly forgetting what happened earlier. Grabbing Kuro's hands as she drags him away from the store.
"Oh-oh, I know a shop that gives out the best strawberry treats, come with me."
A few minutes of running later, the pair is in front of a large confectionery shop, with kids and their parents lining up to buy sweets. Kuro picks some of the chocolates and cookies as Ruby picks some strawberry sweets, and when they got into the cashier, he sees her taking out her emergency wallet, the one she showed to him for paying her materials for her future weapon on Signal. Kuro, panicking over this immediately brought out his lien, the cashier took his money and gave him the receipt, leaving the girl dumbfounded.
"Look, Ruby let me pay for this, besides, you are saving that for building your first weapon in Signal right?"
Ruby pouts at him, annoyed that he got to pay first. The pair brought out their bags filled with goodies as they left the shop, and sits on a bench near a tree. She looks down at the ground, swaying her legs.
"I could handle a few more months of saving, it's no big deal, I'll just have the revise my blueprints. It's the least I could do for ruining your day."
Kuro thought of the fun he had while traversing the town with her, he knew that he would've been overwhelmed without Ruby guiding him towards fun places in the town. Smiling at the girl he made her look him in the eye.
"You didn't ruin anyone's day, in fact, you made my day by guiding me in Patch. Yang gave me the money so that I could have fun, and I couldn't have done it without you. And I don't want you to waste your money for this small thing, I support you in your dreams, so you must give it your best, and that includes you saving money for the best materials for your weapon."
Ruby goes red in the face, never found someone apart from her family supporting her in being a hunter. Kuro, noticing her complexion becomes concerned about her and begins to panic as he looks around. Ruby calms herself, smiles at the boy, and was glad for being a friend to her.
"You're so nice to me Kuro, is there any way I could repay you?"
Kuro feels that Ruby is back to her usual self.
"You being your best is all the payment I need. You're like a little sister to me."
Ruby feels a pang in her heart as she begins wondering about this foreign feeling. She was confused as she begins thinking about all kinds of stuff.
"Yeah.. a little sister."
Kuro noticing her face, astonished at how fast a girl can change their mood in such a short time, begins talking to her again.
"You look down again. Is it something I said?"
She gets embarrassed to speak about what's on her mind, and shook her head, deciding to ask Yang about this feeling when they go back home.
"No! Just thinking about things."
As they prepare to go back home. A piece of paper flew into Kuro's face, bringing it out, he looks at it showing a crude help wanted poster about a new bakery in town. Pinching the paper, it felt like a few days old as well.
"The Pan Bakery huh, it couldn't hurt to try it one more try."
Kuro walks toward the town, Ruby follows him as she wonders why he isn't going to the entrance.
"Are you going somewhere?"
He shows her the help wanted poster.
"Yeah, a piece of paper flew into my face and it shows a new bakery needing a helper."
She looks at it, and didn't recognize the shop, she felt excited about finding new things and is eager to go into the new shop.
"I haven't heard of it, it seems very new. Let's go visit it."
Ruby runs with energy, as Kuro follows the red-hooded girl.
AN: Haha. Nothing to say actually. Being a dust shop employee is a fanfic classic though. Too bad he didn't get the job.