A Tale of JACS Chapter 3: The start of something great
After looking around Scarlet Knoll for a while, Cardin and I decided to have our late lunch and talk at a little cafe down the street from the inn we were staying at. The place had a nice atmosphere and, more importantly, little to no business happening at the moment. The two of us entered and were immediately greeted by a somewhat bored looking waitress. We took a booth seat in the corner of the shop. Cardin, surprisingly started talking about what happened.
"So it seems I'm stuck with you."
"Yeah..." I replied rather weakly.
"Well, what do you think we should do? It's not like the money we have is infinite and if we want to get back to Beacon the two of us are going to need some serious training over the next year." He stated.
I looked at him, simply nodding a little as I was still somewhat afraid of him after the way he had treated me during my time at Beacon and the shock of the things that happened had started to wear thin. He noticed this, but instead of capitalizing on it like I thought he would have, he simply sighed and continued speaking.
"Jaune, I know that I haven't been the best person in the world, hell it was the reason I got expelled along with you, but on that airship you gave me a second chance. I took you up on that, so just trust me a little. We're in this together and, like it or not, we have to work together. I mean I'm already on your team, or whatever it's called, so on the promise of a new start I ask you give me a chance."
I thought about it for a few minutes, still pondering as our food came in. Taking a moment to inhale the scent, I finally started talking.
"Fine."
It was one word, but I could feel a bit of the apprehension that I had possessed earlier slip away. At this Cardin started eating his order, with a smile smile on his face. We ate our meal in silence, but it was a pleasant one unlike the one that gripped us when we entered the place. After finishing I started talking.
"About the previous points you mentioned, I may have an idea as to how we can solve both. If we present ourselves as 'problem solvers', we should easily get small jobs to kill wandering grimm and get paid while doing so. It would be like killing two birds with one stone."
My companion looked at me, somewhat impressed by the solution I thought of, but we both knew the problems associated with it. If no one knew who we were, no one would hire us. Furthermore, the two of us by ourselves would likely not be sufficient to do every jobs. A group of four, like those in Beacon, would probably be safe but we could probably make it work with three people. Deciding the cafe, while nice, was staring to get a bit crowded after a while we left after paying our tab. As expected, a message appeared.
215 lien
We're definitely going to need some source of income soon, no matter what it is, I thought.
As we returned to the inn, the question of how we were going to get some money was answer by none other than the innkeeper. She explained that there were a few beowolves spotted near the edge of the town, but out of range of the guards on the walls. Normally, the town would ask her, a retired huntress (explaining the levels), to go out and take care of them but she said we had the look of huntsmen in training and that this would provide us with a good way to gain some experience in the field. As she finished her speech, a message appeared in front of me.
Job offer: Pest extermination
Kill the small pack of beowolves outside Scarlet Knoll
Rewards:
200 Lien
150 AP
+5 reputation (+10 in village)
Accept? Y/N
I quickly accepted the offer on both fronts and the two of us set out to hunt our monsters. We went out of the gate, nodding to the guards as we did, and quickly spotted our prey. There were three of them there. I quickly analyzed them.
Level 5 Beowolf
HP: 100/100
Aura: 0/0
MP: 0/0
Assessing the situation, I pulled my sword out of it's sheath and prepared for battle, feeling a weird sense of calm overcome me as I did so. Cardin pulled out his mace a readied himself after I did and together we started approaching them. The beowolves noticed us and started to charge. One, ahead of the other two, attempted to dive for me but met only the air as I sidestepped away from it and followed with a slash that cut across most of it's body. Cardin then finished it by smashing it's head in with his mace. As the creature started to dissolve, the other two attacked. The first one clawed at me while the second one went for my companion. The one targeting me slashed towards my body, and I rolled out of the way, my sword arcing forward as I came back up. The hit connected, staggering the thing enough for me to plunge my blade into the beast, killing it. I looked to watch as Cardin used his mace so send the last of them into a tree, snapping it's spine and ending it. After all that was done, I received a new message.
Level up!
Congratulations on reaching level 5!
Max Hp increases by 20
Max Aura increases by 20
MP increases by 10
I took a little pride in the fact that I had gotten stronger before we came back to the village's gate, getting a quick "nice job guys" from the guard that was stationed there and had enough of a vantage to watch our battle go down. We returned to the inn after that, and were greeted with a curt nod and a knowing smile. As we went back to our room, there was a small bag there containing a little food and money for what we'd done along with a note that simply said 'thank you'. At this, another message appeared, confirming the end of our job and doling out our rewards.
At the mention of rewards, I was reminded of the AP I had gotten. I opened up the skills tab after summoning my main menu. I clicked the learn skills tab within there and saw the points I had gained for the soldier class there. After looking at some of the options I spend 200 of my AP on three new abilities that were available.
50 AP: Piercing strike (5 MP). Use your blade to hit natural weak points on armor, mitigating it's effects or ignoring them completely.
50 AP: Inferno ammo (20 MP). Imbues the gun with flaming properties, allowing any rounds that are fired by it to act as red dust rounds. Damage scales with that of the gun. Duration: 5 minutes Does not stack with other abilities.
100AP: Evasive type. The best defense is not needing one, and those of the evasive type know that best. This ability increases natural speed and agility, making it harder to be hit by enemies.
After purchasing my abilities, I made a resolution that I would get some type of gun tomorrow to test out the inferno round ability, as it sounded very useful and if it worked well enough, I might purchase a few of the other abilities that were like it, but simulated other types of dust. After that I opened up Cardin's ability screen and showed it to him. After some deliberation, he told me what skills he wanted, totaling up to a cost of 150 AP, saying he was going to save the rest for something cool he saw in the list that had a higher cost.
50 AP: Blaze (4 MP). The simplest fire spell, it does low damage over a small area.
50 AP: Chill (4 MP). The simplest ice spell, it does low damage over a small area.
50 AP: Zap (4 MP). The simplest lightning spell, it does low damage over a small area.
After all this was finished, we got ready to get some rest and put this rather eventful day behind us. Before we were about to lie down, though, a curious thing happened.
My scroll buzzed.
We looked at the device, a curious look on our faces, wondering whether or not we should open it and see who was contacting us. Eventually curiosity got the better of us and we opened it, seeing a message from our former headmaster.
I hope you two have had a chance to wind down, as today was very eventful for the both of you. I have just finished breaking the new to the members of your teams. They took it as well as expected. Note that I have changed your scroll's functions so that the only person that can contact or be contacted by it is me. I am also writing this to tell you that I will be keeping tabs on you and may occasionally ask favors of you. You have all rights to refuse, but I will be able to pay you for your time and trouble. I hope you choose wisely.
-Headmaster Ozpin
After reading that a few times, we got the gist of the message: Ozpin was tracking us and may occasionally be willing to help us by giving us "problems" of his own for us to solve for a price. It all seemed like a pretty fair deal to us and we went to bed knowing that one of our major obstacles in keeping alive was, at least partially, dealt with. Now we only needed to find someone willing to join our group to increase our survivability.
If only we'd know how soon our next member would end up finding us.
A/N I hope you're enjoying reading this fic as much as I do with writing it. Well, Cardin and Jaune finally started becoming something like friends and the fisrt combat scene, though brief, has arrived! Tune in next episode where we meet the (un?)lucky third member of our fun little team! Please review and tell me what you liked, what you didn't and what you think would be cool.
Thanks for reading! Iandude out.