Chapter Title: The Grind
Chapter Length: 4, 585 words
First Published: 05 May 2018
Jaune took a fortifying breath and let it out all nice and slow.
"Okay, this is it, Jaune Arc. You can do this. You can do this!"
The currently female blonde closed his Game Menu and rolled under a swipe from Bob the Beowolf. Once upon a time, the twigs and rocks on the forest floor would have hurt him, but after so many deaths and a Lv. 30 Endurance skill, he barely felt a sting from nature poking him in uncomfortable places.
He heard snarling to his left and he jumped away in time, Ashley the Beowolf's ugly face meeting the hard packed ground. The innocent pile of leaves on the floor, who were just minding their own business thank you very much, were disturbed, scattered, and sent flying at the unfortunate Beowolf's assault.
Behind him, Jaune could hear the distinct sounds of Jim's paws smacking the dirt. That particular Grimm had one leg scarred from prior encounters from other Hunters before meeting the blonde, and the young scion was very intimately familiar with the uneven steps of that particular Beowolf. He had died enough times because of this particular bastard.
Ducking under Jim's lunge, Jaune took a rock from the ground and threw it at Jim's exposed back. With a Lv. 18 Throwing skill, the simple rock dealt a good deal of damage and even added a Stunned status effect to the scarred Grimm.
Before he could appreciate his good hit, another Beowolf leapt at him, claws sharp and ready to gouge out his insides. The young Arc took a fortifying breath, steadied his stance, and took the deranged wolf head on. With hands open and ready, he clumsily deflected John's swipe and took hold of the Grimm's front limbs. With a mighty heave that took full advantage of his meager Strength stat, he threw John at an incoming Britney. The two wolves smacked into each other rather painfully and they both dissolved into dust and black ichor.
He found out early on that his Throwing skill was useful after all. Depending on the thing he'd throw, varying amounts of damage and effects would befall upon the target. At Lv. 18, a simple rock dealt 300-350 damage and some possibility of stunning the target temporarily. At his current skill level, a 100 kg Beowolf dealt 1,000 damage and had an 80% chance of causing paralysis. It was even more convenient in that it hurt both the Beowolf being thrown and the one he'd been aiming at. It was the best ammo he had in this forest which he accidentally discovered when he threw Ashley at Jim a few lives ago.
Jaune easily ignored the annoying screen signifying that he had leveled up. He was too busy dodging more attacks and barely escaping deadly claws to pay attention to the cheerfully inappropriate jingle that came with leveling up. Bob's barking commands echoed throughout the small clearing, mixing with his undignified grunts and the growls of the dark creatures.
Not waiting for the outcome of whatever coordinated attack the damn demons had planned, Jaune started sprinting the hell out of the clearing. Even after so many resets, he knew he was still weak and that he couldn't take on all of the pack alone and weaponless. He had tried that in this twelfth reset. It just ended with him painfully breaking his bones against a tough tree and having his legs eaten. He won't ever forget the pain of those jaws sinking into his flesh and tearing skin and muscles apart.
Again, he ignored another alert window announcing that his Running skill had reached Lv. 24 and just continued running like his life depended on it. Which it did, really, even if he never truly stayed dead. He needed to get out of the forest before those things caught up to him and brought upon more pain on his person. He could hear their howls and thundering steps getting closer and closer, the staccato of their strides matched eerily well with his erratic heartbeat. He felt like he would die from the nerves alone.
He ran as hard as he could, jumping over fallen trees and large rocks along the way. He felt like an unfortunate arcade game character, jumping around obstacles as monsters chased after him. Now if only there were convenient floating power-ups he could catch every now and then. Sadly, it seemed that the game his life had become was strictly of the role-playing variety.
He could hear the Grimm catching up to him and he knew that he'd be outpaced soon enough. Tearing up at the exertion of his frantic running, the young man-woman decided it was about time to use his Aura. Activating the skill, he felt the warmth rush from his navel to his limbs, making him feel much lighter and helping him breathe easier.
The howling, growling menaces chasing after him were gaining ground and Jaune was desperately pushing his legs to their limits.
He was so close!
He could practically see the great walls surrounding the City of Vale. He could barely make out the guards on duty standing at attention, their weapons ready for any emergency.
He was about to scream for help, manly pride be damned. He was desperate and needed help badly; he could care less what they thought of him and his shrill shrieking. He opened his mouth and willed his exhausted lungs to expel air for a scream-
But, ultimately, his Luck failed him and he tripped over a rock. He stumbled and rolled, allowing the pack of rabid Beowolves to descend upon his poor, sprawled form.
Game Over
You have died. Do you want to...
Load from save file?
[Yes] [No]
Restart from beginning?
[Yes] [No]
Jaune sighed and gracelessly flopped on what passed as the floor in the empty expanse of space. He could almost ignore having a full and curvaceous bottom with how long he had been in this new body. He had also gotten used to dying painfully by Beowolf mauling, as morbid as that was. He had lost track of the many variations of bite marks, chunks of meat and flesh missing, and the amount of broken bones he had acquired over the many resets. He had even gotten used to the unwelcome sight of seeing his gory, bloody mess of a body each time he ended up in this space-not-space.
Things really weren't going his way.
"And I was doing so well too. Ugh, it feels like whenever I play Water Emblem and my units die to a critical hit and I'm forced to reset the damn map for the gazillionth time when I was this close to finishing the fucking chapter," a frustrated huff escaped his cherry lips. A beat later, his pretty face then grimaced. "Except the anger and frustration are multiplied by a thousand. Oh, let's not forget the copious amount of limb-tearing, bone-breaking, organ-crushing fear that makes this gaming experience truly a worthwhile buy!"
His caustic sarcasm turned into a hysteric screech by the end of that rant. His voice cracked and he sobbed a pitiful sob, curling into a ball that gave him little comfort. Ugly sobs crawled out of his throat, occasionally choking him with the intense melancholy he felt. He was so done with dying. If he remembered his death count properly, this was his 46th death since the whole mess started. He had come to a point where he just wanted to stop and he would do anything for that to happen. He'd do fucking anything just to stop this cycle and get either get back to what was familiar or actually dying for good.
Gritting his teeth in even more frustration at this torture, the pretty blonde angrily tapped the load option and prepared himself for another round.
Sometime around the 30th reset, he had given up and spent a few days in the void after another painful death. Spirit drained, he laid down in the emptiness, waiting for true death to come and claim him. However, he never felt hunger or sleepiness in the void, his body was literally suspended in time. He eventually got sick of that stillness and resumed another round of the game that was his life.
If the fucking game won't let him quit, then he'd channel all the fear and sadness into productive anger and hope for the best. That was all he could do now.
Jaune knew after so many repeats that the pack of Beowolves would appear in the clearing 3.78 seconds after he had materialized again. His 47th life started with a shower of pixels in a wide array of colors that was honestly quite pretty, if it didn't remind him how unnatural everything was recently.
He quickly opened his Game Menu in hopes of thinking up a new strategy and giving himself as much time as he could. His last few attempts of escaping the hell have been getting closer and closer to success. He was sure he only needed to tweak some finer details and he'd finally be within the city's safe walls and away from death-bringing Grimm. He wouldn't stop until he got home and was in his family's safe arms. He kinda missed his mother's hugs, not that he'd ever admit that to her.
[Profile]
Name: Jaune Arc
Race: Human
Title: Arc Scion
Level: 1
HP: 100/100
AP: 10,000/10,000
ATK: 5 (+35)
DEF: 5 (+45)
VIT: 3 (+32)
STR: 3 (+29)
INT: 1 (+23)
WIS: 1 (+18)
LUK: ?
Early on in his many resets, Jaune found out that any level-ups he had achieved and the stat points that went with it reset back and did not carry over to his new life. He essentially always started as a Lv. 1 character. He didn't know if it was because of a glitch in the system or if the game really just wanted to screw him over, but every time he failed, he always went back to his initial state level-wise. Even those giveaway INT and WIS stats he had received when he was still figuring out the game went away when he died and had another reset.
There was a silver lining to this mess, however. Any level-ups he gained in any of his skills were retained, along with the stat bonuses that they gave him. Even if he was a weak, limp noodle of a character, his skills gave him an edge in battle. He was thankful for that, else he would really be stuck in this hell of a forest without any way of getting out. The eternal loop of death and reset would drive him mad, he felt, if he never made progress.
Opening his Skills window, he decided to check any changes that happened in the recent mess of a battle. Maybe he earned a new skill while he was too busy dodging for his life.
[Skills]
Combat Skills
Active Skills
- Observe (Lv. 10)
- Aura (Lv. 22)
Passive Skills
- Endurance (Lv. 33)
Support Skills
Active Skills
- Throwing (Lv. 19)
- Meditation (Lv. 31)
Passive Skills
None
Life Skills
Active Skills
- Running (Lv. 24)
Crafting Skills
None
Everything was as it was previously, with no new skills gained in this round. He didn't gain all that many skill levels in his last life, but he now had a clearer idea on how to defeat enough Beowolves to clear the path for him to run away.
"My Throwing skill is definitely my best bet. Increasing my Running and Endurance skills would also help out. I can use Battle Strategy No. 25 for this round," he said to himself, nodding a bit as if agreeing to someone else's suggestion. With him being alone for quite some time, hearing a voice, even if it was his own feminine trill, gave him a sense of companionship.
He had tried to actively unlock new skills during his infinite time with the paused Game Menu a few iterations back, but with the limited space he had and the small number of items he could interact with, he couldn't really trigger any new status windows that announced a new skill being unlocked. Theoretically, he could unlock more if he tried out new and different things, but that was almost impossible at the moment.
Nodding resolutely to himself, this time more for psyching himself up, he stretched his limbs a bit and went about doing what every RPG player hated doing-a necessary evil, if you will.
Grinding.
With practiced motions, Jaune picked up a medium-sized rock and threw it in a random direction. The invisible wall that signified the end of his small bubble of space-time prevented the rock's flight forward and sent it back to the blonde with vengeance. With a resigned gritting of his teeth, he took the "attack" head-on.
"AAAAAUUUUUGGGGHHHHH!"
With a pitiful, heart-wrenching scream, young Jaune Arc crumpled to the floor in a sobbing, painful mess. That medium-sized rock should have only dealt a reasonable amount of damage, but with his shitty Luck, it mercilessly hit him in his left eye and landed a very damaging critical hit.
With barely a sliver of HP left from the critical hit, Jaune shakily sat up. Tears flowed down his face and his bloody left eye was squeezed shut from the injury. Since he didn't have his Aura skill activated, then intending on training his Endurance skill, he received the full amount of physical damage that had surely blinded him.
Critical hit! Endurance has reached Lv. 34!
Those words barely gave him comfort through the agony. With all the self-control he could muster, he willed his aura to come to the surface, activating the advanced healing rate that it gave him. He sat in the empty clearing, letting his aura flow according to his breathing patterns.
He had accidentally unlocked the Meditation skill during his 17th reset when he had a small breakdown and tried to calm himself down. It had since then come in handy during grinding. This skill's main purpose was to increase the regen rate by almost 150% at his current skill level. It was strange in that it used up either AP or HP depending on which regen rate you wanted to increase. If you wanted to increase HP regen for instance, the AP bar would be the one used up and vice versa. As useful as it was, sadly, it could only be used while staying still. He couldn't see any applications in battle at the moment.
Jaune was bathed in an ethereal white glow, his aura being consumed to heal his wounds. It was a strange feeling, like the burning in his eye slowly turned into "ants under your skin" kind of feeling. It was highly uncomfortable but he could tell that the wounds were healing. It took a while, with a lot of breaks in between while he waited for his aura to naturally regenerate when it ran out, until he completely healed his eye.
He blinked a bit to get rid of the dark spots in his vision. Once his body went back to normal functioning, he let out a rather long sigh before he resumed his grinding. This little accident had increased his Meditation skill to Lv. 32.
This continued until he reached Lv. 40 in all the relevant stats. He estimated that he spent roughly three weeks of time, if it was running normally, just doing the same thing over and over and over again. It was maddening but it was better than dying again. Jaune knew that his stress levels were an all time high and multiple times during the grinding period, he actually felt like killing himself. Sadly, he knew that would be pointless and he would find himself in that space-not-space again.
Besides, he had family to come home to. His mother's hugs would make him feel a hundred thousand percent better.
Once again, Jaune Arc took a steadying breath and decided to face the music. He could never be truly ready to face the pack of wolves, but he was sick of grinding and just wanted to leave the accursed forest.
Jaune desperately pumped aura through his system, running as fast as he could as the lone Beowolf Bob chased after him.
He lucked out in this run and managed to do three critical hits that lead to KOs. Three Beowolves immediately died and the other three he had thrown at them suffered badly enough that they were in the red just moments after the fight started. They were quickly disposed of with a bunch of well thrown small rocks.
The other six Beowolves suffered slowly before dying, as Jaune somewhat perfected his hit-and-run tactic against the rabid wolves. It took a while and a lot of close calls, but our young hero-turned-heroine persevered and was somehow able to get rid of them. He honestly lost track of how the battle progressed, entirely too focused on keeping himself alive. All he knew was that it involved a lot of screaming from him and even more near-misses that gave him multiple heart attacks throughout the whole thing.
Now he just had to outrun Bob.
The gates were nowhere in sight and he was hopelessly lost. He was sure he was running in the same general area he had been aiming for in the past few runs, but perhaps the recent tussle had messed with his sense of direction. He prayed to any high being out there who was willing to listen to his pleas to send him some kind of break. He prayed and begged and sobbed and hoped with all his heart that he could find something, anything to run to now that he was lost as fuck.
He just wanted out.
Bob's snarling was getting louder and louder. At the rate he was going, if nothing changed soon, the much stronger demon would catch up to him, ready to maul him into teeny, tiny bits. Jaune pushed his legs to the limit and beyond, and jumped over a fallen tree trunk that was in the way. He barely scraped by, tumbling into the dirt on the other side. He tasted dirt for a moment and he almost choked on the awful taste.
Wasting no time, he spat the unnamable substance in his mouth and quickly scrambled up and away from the death-on-legs that was steadily approaching. He was graceless, looking quite like an unfortunate drunk trying to do cartwheels on a slippery floor, but he somehow managed to slither away.
He was starting to get hopeful. He was finally getting away-!
Then his Luck stat triggered again and he fell into pitfall. Really, at this point, it was getting old and Jaune was ready to file a complaint to the directors.
"FUUUUUUUUUUUuuuuuuuuuucccckkkk!" he squealed as he fell, his voice getting fainter and fainter as the darkness of the hole enveloped his smaller form.
You have entered a dungeon!
Auto-saving…
Congratulations! The game has been saved.
Jaune Arc, disoriented and very much sore from his fall, took a while to understand the words floating in front of his face. Apparently, his Endurance skill was still not high enough to protect him from the however-many-feet fall he just had. Once he did gather his bearings enough to understand the letters written, he didn't know whether to feel relieved that he got away from the Beowolves or feel worried that he entered a potentially even more dangerous place.
"Well, at least the game saved. Maybe I don't have to go back to those wolves when I die!" he tried to cheer himself up. "Maybe things are finally looking up!"
As if to spite him, an ominous screeching sound echoed from deeper within the so-called dungeon.
"Nope. Nope. No way in hell am I going in there," his face turned three shades paler. "I need to get out of here and get back to Vale. Vale is the only safe place in this gods-forsaken world."
And as if to hammer home how much he has been abandoned by the higher beings, he couldn't find a way out of the dark hole he fell into. The only other exit was way up above him and his poor attempts at climbing (Due to completing a special action, a new skill has been created. You have obtained the skill Climbing) yielded only pain, suffering, and a few, measly points.
He was stubborn thing and he seriously didn't want to go into the dungeon. It was better to go back to a known threat than to explore the unknown threats that lay within. He continued to climb the wall, sometimes falling to his death and restarting again in the dark expanse of the hole he fell into. He climbed and climbed until he hit yet another one of those blasted invisible walls. In his frustrated anger, he punched the offending barrier, but that too led to his death. He lost his precarious grip on the rocky surface and fell with a sickening thud.
Tired and absolutely done with his life, Jaune decided (was forced) to forge on into the darkness.
"Better than just rotting in here," he bitterly mumbled. "Why the hell has my life gone to shit?"
Taking a fortifying breath that should have filled him with a bit of confidence but only gave him more dread and a terrible feeling in his lungs, he ventured into the dark unknown hoping for the best. His dad always said that all one needed was confidence.
A tiny, traitorous voice in his head, suspiciously sounding like his sister Viola, told him that horrible things were to come and that hoping was a futile endeavor. He viscously squashed that voice. He seriously didn't need to add "hearing voices" to the ever-growing list of symptoms of his madness. This messed up video game reality was enough.
A few minutes had passed since he left the previous chamber and so far, things were running smoothly. The underground tunnel he was walking through was dark and hard to navigate, but he somehow managed by taking small steps and sticking to one side of the wall. He didn't know what he was stepping on or what the slightly slimy substance was on the walls, and he felt better when he didn't think about it.
The air was stale and slightly moldy, filled with a kind of heaviness one associated with suspense or horror films. He knew he shouldn't think about it, but he really couldn't help but worry that something would just appear from the darkness to eat him. Viola's cold, and a little bit smug voice taunted him from inside his head, and as much as he loved his many sisters, he wanted to punch the owner of that voice. The phantom inside him was driving him mad.
He really did not need his mind betraying him right now. Or ever, really.
Maybe he should think of happier thoughts. Like that time Menthe made him a really amazing apple pie. Or that time Cannelle and Chocolat made those super cool gun-swords that exploded multi-colored dust particles. If he recalled correctly, that specific entry won the annual Hunter Weapons Design Contest of Vale. HWDCV was a mouthful to say so most just called it The Death Battle, as quite a lot of contestants felt that the best way to showcase their cool weapon designs was to use it against the opponents'. It was a more chaotic Vytal Festival tournament that was held in Vale annually, except on the years that Vale was the host of the actual Vytal Festival.
It said quite a lot about the blood-thirstiness of the Valean citizens if they'd hold tournaments as often as they could.
While he fantasized about the Really Cool Weapons from his sisters' shop, he tripped over a trunk that was suddenly in the way. He fell face first, like he usually did for some reason, and was yet again acquainted with the taste of dirt and other substances. At the rate he was going, he would be a connoisseur of dirt samples from all over Remnant.
Groaning pitifully, though more in embarrassment than in pain, Jaune finally paid attention to the trunk that he tripped over.
"Is this a treasure chest?" he asked, bewildered and incredulous. Yes, he entered a dungeon but should there really be a chest of what might be treasure just lying about? Did his reality really warp that badly that the world's laws were being bent backwards and forwards like a particularly pliant play-dough?
Not that he cared to think too much. That avenue just lead to many headaches and quite a few nosebleeds from overthinking. Instead, he gleefully pounced on the thing and quickly opened it. Maybe this was his lucky break! Maybe there was an Escape Rope inside?!
When he opened the chest, a rather loud, triumphant jingle echoed through the empty tunnel. It hurt his ears and left him stunned for a few moments. He wondered if other video game protagonists also felt the reverberations of in-game sound effects as strongly as he did.
Then again, knowing his luck, he wouldn't be surprised if he was the only one who felt sound effects this badly.
Once he recovered well enough (he hoped his eardrums were still intact), he gingerly peeked inside the glowing trunk, his earlier enthusiasm gone, as if taking a critical hit from the victory jingle.
Inside the chest was a simple pair of gloves. It was made of brown leather and didn't look particularly well made. Honestly, it looked a bit dirty and worn, and looked out of place sitting inside such a beautiful chest. Using Observe, he found out more about the seemingly innocent gloves.
Old Leather Gloves (Lv. 1)
These are a well-worn pair of gloves. It may be old, but it sure is warm!
Equipping this gives the user +5 ATK.
"Huh. So they really are just gloves," Jaune mused as he removed the old gloves and tried to put them on. He was stopped, however, by the inventory screen suddenly popping in front of his face.
"Oh come on! Really?" he complained, annoyed at the assertive floating box that wouldn't go away even if he tried to close it. "Don't tell me I have to see this screen every time I change!"
That seemed like a likely reality, however, as the screen refused to budge.
"Fine then! Ugh!" he complained, frustration straining his voice. He jabbed the pair of gloves into the uncooperative inventory screen and watched it dissolve into colorful pixels. He knew he was being petulant, fighting against an inventory screen of all things, but he wanted an inkling of control in his life, damn it! He didn't want to rely on the damn thing.
Barely a moment later, another alert screen popped up over the inventory screen.
Would you like to equip [Old Leather Gloves] as an Accessory or as a Weapon?
[Yes] [No]
"What," he croaked. The question was reasonable enough, though we was surprised that gloves could be a weapon. Then again, maybe that was for hand-to-hand combat. Some games he played did have Fist-type weapons, so he understood the prompt.
No, it was the given options that made no sense.
"What do you want me to do?" he sobbed. Just as one good thing seemed to have happened, another inconvenience got piled on, and he remained unhappy.
Such was his life.
AN:
And that's the end of chapter two! I think this is a more comfortable length for me, and maybe I can update more frequently. Maybe. Who knows. I'm kind of excited to write about his dungeon shenanigans hehehe.
Ah, btw, I don't really have a beta reader, so if you're interested in helping out, you can leave me a PM. I'm anal about editing but I'm also blind, so I bet I missed something along the way. I edit my chapters when they need editing, so don't hesitate to point out something amiss in the reviews. It would totally help out a lot.