Disclaimer: I own nothing except my OC.
Even after my multiple near-death experiences the last couple of days, I am still able to easily state that being woken up from a good sleep is one of the things I hate the most in my life.
Opening my eyes and giving Nora a not so pleased look who's sitting on the floor beside me still shaking me.
"What is it?" I asked irritably at her, after which she sat back and smiled at me, not being put off by my glare at all.
"You've been asleep for twelve hours, it's already noon. Shouldn't you get up?" she asks back.
Letting out a sigh, I sit up and look up at Nora, who was now standing. "How do you even know how long we've been here?"
"Helga said that Gunther said we got here around eleven last night."
"Who?"
"Helga, she's Gunther's Protasay."
"Protege."
"Yeah that, she brought us some lunch a while ago. She said when you wake up, we should go see the mayor" she continued while walking towards the direction of the door.
Looking around the room where we had spent the night, Nora had already packed up her sleeping bag and had her pack sitting off to the side.
She stepped back over to me and held out a plate on which was some kind of sandwich where a few bites were taken out. Glancing up at Nora who was avoiding eye contact, I rolled my eyes and took the plate with the partially eaten food from her.
The plate feels strange in my hand, actually now that I'm more awake I feel a little off, not sore, more irritated kind of itchy. I glanced over my status and noticed the problem as I ate what was left of my peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
HP – 288 (320 -10%) [32 per minute]
Seeing the negative number in red text next to my HP, I focus on it.
-10% maximum HP due to [Dry skin] (Passive)
I forgot about that flaw, so that's why my body feels weird, well not my body but my skin, but wasn't that supposed to have triggered yesterday.
Your fall into the river reset the flaw's 24 hour timer.
Ah, yeah I was definitely submerged in water during that. It appears to only have an effect on my actual HP. My aura and regen are unaffected, but I should still try to find a bath or lake or something to get rid of this.
Finishing off my somewhat unpleasant meal, I've never been a fan of chunky peanut butter. I check my familiar egg that I still had in my pack and stuff my sleeping bag over it and head out the door with Nora.
"Where was the mayor's place again?" I ask aloud looking around for the building we were taken to last night.
"You're finally up." A raspy female voice calls out to get our attention.
Turning in the direction of the voice I see a teen girl wearing a green horned viking helmet approaching us. Her corset-like armor piece in a lighter green color partly covered her long sleeved brown shirt that matched her loincloth hanging from her belt, as well as the knee high boots that her dark green pants were tucked into. Metal green bracers made of the same material as her corset covered her forearms and a small fluffy white cloak hugged her shoulders and went down to the small of her back. She held a double-sided axe that was similar, but smaller than Gunther's.
Helga
Race: Faunus (Cow)
Level 48
HP – 1,190
AP – 2,380
VIT – 119
STR – 149
DEX – 101
INT – 42
WIS – 34
CHA – 43
LUK – 52
Wow level forty eight she's the highest level I've actually been able to see so far and the guy from yesterday said she was still in training.
She stopped a few feet away from us and stared with green eyes that reminded me of my own. Now that she was closer I could see her face, she was maybe around sixteen with fluffy blonde hair sticking out from under her helmet.
"Wow, Gunther was right– you're a scary looking kid!" she said, continuing her stride towards us and holding out her hand in front of me. "Names Helga came by earlier but you was still sleepin n stuff."
Taking her hand in mine and shaking "Rain", I replied, still looking at the difference in our stats.
"Don't give me such a serious look, I'm not going to hurt you", she says, giving me a strained smile
She must have thought I was glaring at her while looking over her stats. "This is just my normal face now."
"Now?"
"Yeah, Rain looks really scary, but he's actually really nice." Nora adds in coming to my defense?
"Is he now?"
"Yep, he shares his food with me and beats up bullies and beats up grimm and gave me a last name and–"
I place my hand over Nora's mouth, "This is Nora, by the way."
"Yeah, we met when I brought the sandwiches and fruits before."
Fruits? I looked over at Nora, whose mouth I was still covering, her eyes trying to avoid my own.
Putting my attention back to Helga, ''so we're supposed to go see the mayor now, right?"
"Come on I'll take you to him. I was about to do a patrol of the area outside the village, but I want to hear what happened at Kuroyuri."
As I followed behind the viking helmeted girl, I could see her tail coming from her backside with a tuft of blonde hair on the end, swishing in the air as she walked. A throat clearing got my attention as I looked up at Helga's face, giving me a raised eyebrow.
"It's rude to stare at girls butts Rain," said Nora with a hint of annoyance in her tone from my side.
"What no! I was just looking at her tail. She's the first other faunus I've seen since coming here." I explain to an increasingly sceptical looking Nora as my face heated up.
"You're also a Faunus," asked Helga.
I show her my teeth briefly as I pull down my scarf.
"Never seen one like you before, but yea there not many people in the village yet, I'm the only faunus and I came here with Gunther to guard the place."
I meant the first other faunus I've seen period, but I suppose her misunderstanding makes my statement less suspicious that I've never met another faunus before. Given that I just woke up on this world in a random forest like two days ago.
Without knocking, she flung open the door of the building we went to the night before, gaining the attention of the several people sitting at the large table in the middle of the room and announced, "the kids are up!"
Sitting at the further end of the table sat the man from yesterday, pale green hair went past his shoulders cut shorter in the front, thin framed circular glasses over his yellow eyes.
Everyone in the room was looking at Helga already due to her rather loud entry. After he seemed to realize what she had said he leaned to the side to get a better view of the two of us who were still standing in the doorway.
"Ah you two, come in, come in, we were just discussing the hoard of grimm you mentioned last night" said the man now standing motioning at us to enter.
Walking up to the end of the table, I positioned myself to the right of Helga with Nora moving up to my right side.
A few adults regarded me suspiciously or with worry when I approached. Ignoring them, I looked down at the table. There was a large map of a single continent, probably Anima. There were a variety of markers and names for the different villages on the map. The largest one was the kingdom of Mistral.
"I am the mayor of Oniyuri Schniel Lefundos ' apologies for not introducing myself yesterday. Your arrival last night was most unexpected, and being roused from my slumber so late had caused me to temporarily forget my manners," he said, still standing across the table from us.
I pulled my attention away from the map in front of us during his introduction, expecting the others in the room to then do the same. But after a few moments of silence I decided to just introduce myself.
"I'm Rain B. Bridge, uh, hunter in training." Tacking on the last part, not wanting to say that I'm basically just a homeless wanderer at the moment. "And she is Nora Brynhildr, my partner." Pointing towards Nora who had gone completely silent again at approaching the group of adults.
"Well, welcome to Oniyuri Rain and Miss Nora, I hope your room was satisfactory," said Schniel, smiling.
Giving him a shrug, "It's better than sleeping in the forest."
"Yes I suppose it would be" he chuckled then dawned a more serious expression. "But if you could inform us about what happened at Kuroyuri?"
Over the next several minutes, I told the mayor and the others there that I wasn't from the village and that I was just passing through when the nuckelavee attack happened. I was able to battle off some of the grimm and we were able to escape and head in the direction they told me was west and ended up at Oniyuri. Remembering that semblances could be considered personal, so kept Nora's out of my recounting of events. She did not seem bothered that I glossed over our escape and completely omitted our return and subsequent looting of the former village.
My story mostly went uninterrupted other than a few questions mainly about the grimm. As I described the nuckelavee, their eyes widened and color drained from a few of their faces; almost everyone took a breath of relief as I mentioned that it had taken the opposite route we had traveled.
"That was quite the ordeal you two lived through. A miracle to even make it out of there alive" Schniel commented. "so you two are the only survivors?"
"There were two other's a boy around our age and his mother. We had gotten separated in our escape. I don't know where they are" I answered.
"Sadly, as of right now we have no one we can send into the area to look for them. Our only hunters are Gunther and Miss Helga here. I will, however, send a messenger to Higanbana to ask them to get in contact with Mistral to send some hunters to Kuroyuri and the surrounding areas. Even on horseback, however, getting to Higanbana would take almost a week."
Nodding at his statement I wasn't too worried about Ren and his mother due to the quest completion from the other day I knew they were at least somewhat alright.
After answering a few more questions they had for us. Schneil had talked to the others in the room mainly Helga about the defenses of the village while Nora and I stood there awkwardly not sure if we should leave. He wrote out a letter and gave it to one of the people at the table who left to make preparations for his trip to this Higanbana place that was mentioned earlier and with that, he dismissed everyone.
Having a few questions I wanted to ask I waited at the table while everyone else left, only Nora and Schniel left in the room with me.
"Do you need something?" he asked, seeing the two of us still standing at the table.
"Yeah, if it's not too much trouble, could you help us with directions? I'm not really familiar with anima." or any continent on this world really. "I would like to find somewhere we could get better weapons and some scrolls maybe."
"Weapons? Well, most villages with blacksmiths can make you something usable if you have the money and materials, but that's if you only want something simple or to fix what you already have." he explained pointing at the dented shaft of Nora's spear.
"For something more advanced like a mechashift weapon you would most likely have to go to one of the bigger settlements like Shion or Kuchinashi. Scrolls, you would most definitely have to go to one of the larger towns to find a scroll store, if you want one of the newest models Mistral would be your best option, but they might have some at Anima Port given how much trade comes through there similar to Argus." Schneil answered.
"I don't know where any of those places you just mentioned are," I declare deadpan. I could hear Nora giggling to my side, and he gave me an exasperated look.
"I held back my judgement of the two of you traveling around on your own since you seem to handle yourself with grimm despite your age but how can you not even know of Mistral?"
"I know about Mistral, just not where it is in relation to where we are. I've just been wandering around since I arrived on this continent. I haven't really worried about where I was or where I was going."
"How does one just wander into the middle of a continent you're not familiar with?" he asks standing up at the ridiculousness of my current life.
To which all I can do to answer is shrug.
After letting out a sigh at my mostly non-answer, he sits back down and motions with his hand to come over to the side of the table he was sitting at.
Standing next to him and facing the map of Anima on the table, he points at a dot directly under the large body of water in the middle of the continent named Lake Matsu.
"This is where we are, Oniyuri" he started, moving his finger slightly to the right "This is Kuroyuri" he continued moving his finger east and then a bit north he pointed out Kuchinashi then just an inch to the north was Mistral.
If we were to head northeast from here, we would have to travel the same way the nuckelavee would be traveling, which I want to avoid with our current levels.
"What about that Port place you mentioned before? I don't really want to risk going near that grimm."
"Anima Port would go in the opposite direction." Returning his finger to Oniyuri, he moved it straight west. "You would pass through the larger settlements of Higanbana, then Shion and the town of Anima Port would be on the coast right here." Then moving his pointer finger to near the top of anima. "From there you could take a boat over to Argus in the north and take the train there back down to Mistral or just take a boat over to Sanus and head to Vale if you're just trying to get to any of the kingdoms."
"How long would all this take?" I ask him as I look at the map with all the settlements he had mentioned.
Scratching at his chin, he looked at the route he plotted. "To get from here to Anima Port would take about two months walking."
"Two months! It will take that long?"
"Correct, from here to Higanbana it would take about two weeks, then another three to get to Shion, then another three to port, so about eight weeks, two months give or take a few days depending on your walking speed. I wouldn't know how long the trip up to Argus would be, but once at Argus the train ride down to Mistral would only take a few days" he explained, calmly not at all put off by the multi-month journey he just recommended."
That's quite a journey, but we don't have anywhere we have to be. I have seven years until canon and all I can do is level up until then. Traveling across Anima killing grimm and hopefully getting quests for a few months is as good as any other way to pass my time.
"Maybe going to Port would be best for us", I say turning towards Nora to get her opinion on the matter.
Nodding her head "Yeah! I'm up for it if you are" says she, seemingly pumped for the journey.
[Quest: Any Port in a Storm]
Objective - Travel to Anima Port.
Reward - 15,000 EXP
For a two month journey I would have thought I would get more EXP but I suppose all I'm doing is going somewhere I was planning on going anyway.
"Do you happen to have another one of these maps, maybe a smaller one we could get, would you? I can pay for it" I asked Schniel.
At my request he stood and walked to a desk at the other side of the room rummaging through some drawers, pulled out a rolled up parchment, checked it, then brought it over to us.
"Here's one you can have, it's not the most up to date, but it has all the places we talked about on it," he says, handing it to me.
I unfurl the map from him and examine it. It was just a smaller copy of the Anima map on the table with fewer details.
Adding this item to your inventory unlocks the map feature for the Anima continent, do you wish to proceed.
[Y/N]
So that's how I unlock the map. So I need to get maps of all the continents. Schniel might have the other ones but he already gave us this one for free and for now we don't really need the others at this exact moment.
Thanking Schneil for all the information and the map we head back outside to the village.
Author's notes: Almost wasn't a chapter this week. I got super distracted with some ShieldHeroXMyne fics (I know, I hate her too but they were written in an interesting way and I kind of started liking the pairing and the author had multiple fics.)
So yeah now Rain and Nora are going to be heading west Basically a reverse trip of what team RNJR took in Vol 4.
For the familiar suggestions I'm trying to avoid dragons, birds and wolves. Dragons cause they are overused. I already have a bird planned for a future world and just don't really want to give him a wolf.
For the non canon RWBY characters that are showing up they are from the game Epic Seven might also use characters from other things in the future.