The Name of the Game
a RWBY/The Gamer crossover, SI.
Arc 2: Hard Contact
Chapter 6: Damage Control
'Well. That escalated quickly.'
There was a rock digging into my back, but I ignored it in favor of waiting and watching the woman sprawled across my chest. Around us, the sky had already lightened into pre-dawn and the sun would be coming up soon. My patience was rewarded as her mouth parted in a quiet sigh and her body twitched faintly. Slowly raising a hand, I stroked the bright blonde hair atop her head, whispering, "Sleep." My eye twitched at the notification that the spell had just leveled—thrice. Well, there was good news at least: I could cast Sleep on targets already asleep, or near to it, and have it succeed. That also implied that sleeping targets didn't get a Will save. It was something to look in to later. Holding the Eldest Deadly Sister closer, I sat up and eased her off me before seeing to getting dressed.
Once I'd finished dressing myself, I looked between the taller blonde and her pants and boots—Sleep spell or no, I didn't want to risk trying to dress her and having her break it. Grabbing her discarded clothes, I stowed them in my inventory before going about reapplying my buffs. It was strange going from having them on full time since I'd created them to having them suddenly drop after getting used to them. It felt like suddenly getting weaker, as opposed to simply going back to normal. I suppose that was one of the few downsides to leaving them on all the time.
Putting the thought aside, I reached down and picked up the beautiful, curvy, utterly mad woman into a bridal carry and began the trek into the house. I was already on the stairs before I realized I was still inside my Instant Dungeon. Whispering the spell to destroy it, I was surprised to find that my location in the real world also corresponded to my location inside the Illusion Barrier. That was useful information to have… later. First, I had a situation to deal with before things spiraled out of control. Any more out of control, that is. 'God damn but I don't see how this could be much more screwed up than it already is.'
Pushing open the door to Joan's room with the toe of my boot, I slipped inside and deposited her on the bed. I hit her with Sleep again, since I figured that the duration for that may be close to running down, and didn't know whether to be annoyed or glad that it leveled again instantly, twice. Of course the level disparity between us would grant absolutely massive experience if the spell succeeded—and since she was unable to fight against it, it succeeded by default. I was almost tempted to spam it on her for levels, but I was worried that if I did, she wouldn't ever wake up.
I spent a few moments getting her out of her blouse and bra, then settling the sheets and blanket over her. I knew I was putting off what I needed to do, but I absolutely didn't want to. I couldn't stay here any more—I knew that. The risk of Jun or one of the others, or their parents finding out was too great if someone happened to come by at the wrong time. I had absolutely no doubt that if I stayed, Joan would take advantage of the situation and take every chance she could get or make to be closer with me. I couldn't say that I wouldn't, either. The sad part was, the idea was appealing on a level I couldn't simply ignore. She had opened up old wounds—things that had been half forgotten were suddenly fresh again, if only for the moment. I didn't know how long that would last, either. The truth was, I was lonely—desperately so. I had gotten so used to ignoring it that I hadn't noticed it being gone the moment I woke up here. Suddenly being surrounded by attention, affection even was not something I knew how to fight against when I knew I had to leave for both our sakes—if not to keep either of us from getting attached, since it was entirely too late for that, then to keep from being found out. While Joan may not care, I did—at least on her behalf. She didn't need her reputation ruined should someone inevitably find out—nor did I want to cause the rift that already stood between her and the Arc siblings' parents to grow any wider.
Pulling her clothes from my inventory, I placed them in the hamper she kept in her room with the rest of her dirty clothes before taking one last look around. With all my clothes in my inventory, along with my money, there was really nothing I even needed to go to 'my' room for. Knowing I could put it off no longer, I moved over to the bed and leaned down, planting a soft kiss on her lips before pulling away and heading for the door. I peeked in on Jun to make sure she was out and then left. My chest hurt as I left the house—my skills must have been malfunctioning, temporarily. Shaking it off, I opened my map and tried to figure out where to go. I could to go Junior's, but if Joan woke up and went all yandere because she thought I'd run away from her, that would be the first place she'd look. I would have to call her, later, and explain my reasoning before she got too upset.
I ignored the alert about gaining a point in WIS as my Semblance acting in bad taste. I had gained more than one skill point over the course of the night, really. One each in STR, DEX, and CHA after the little dance off with the twins, another in DEX, VIT, and CHA for what followed that dance off, one each in every field but CHA for completing Joan's challenge, and then another each in STR, DEX, VIT, and CHA by the time Joan and I were finished molesting each other. All told, that was a total of 16 points: 3 STR, 4 DEX, 3 VIT, 1 INT, 1 WIS, 3 CHA, and 1 LUK.
'Is it sad that keeping up with three women over the night registers to my Semblance as being more work than my normal training routine?' I wondered. And it's not like I could argue against it, really—sex done right was hard work. It required flexibility, dexterity, stamina and strength, and not a little charisma. I wasn't complaining, though. Not about the sex by itself, at least. No, it was just the fallout from the emotional cluster fuck Joan had dropped on me—no, I couldn't and wouldn't blame her for that entirely. I instigated it, after all, and I didn't do anything to stop it—if I even could have. She was perfectly capable of doing whatever she wanted at this point. Well, it wasn't like I was cutting ties with her—just putting distance between us. I could deal with that. The rest… I had made my choice and I was done second-guessing myself. I suppose it was just a bad habit, at this point—something I would have to break if I wanted to actually enjoy being happy.
Unable to decide where to go, I picked a park in the middle of the Commercial District and took off running at a straight shot through the woods. Pulling up mana, five seconds later I Leapt before charging Powered Leap again, hitting the ground and running a few steps to maintain momentum before using Leap again—it was actually faster and simply running by itself, due to synergy between the two skills nearly doubling my ground speed in addition to allowing me a wider view of the surrounding countryside every time I breached the tops of the trees. However, because of the fact that Powered Leap actually acted as a force multiplier, running off a combined STR mod plus MP cost to increase it, my leaps were downright prodigious after all my passive and active bonuses were taken into account and I had to pay attention not to overshoot my targeted landing zone several times. As I ran and leapt, I occasionally touched down on tree limbs and bounced between those when they were close enough—gaining a point of DEX for the act. Seeing the familiar point gain window drew me from my funk and reminded me that I had skill books I could now learn—after that, I could see about digging through my active quest log, because if I wasn't mistaken, there were a few that were either incomplete, on a timer, or incomplete when they should be finished.
As I passed through town, an icon on my minimap caught my eye—the red cross of a medical building, reserved for hospitals, pharmacies, and so forth. The thought crossed my mind that, while the twins had had condoms handy, Joan had not—and would have refused, regardless. I was both too old mentally and too young physically for any pregnancy scare bullshit in this new world, so I decided to swing by and check out my options before there was an avoidable 'oops.' My quests could wait fifteen minutes.
Sure enough, when I made it to the park and sat down to check my quest log, I found Path of the Rogue (Part II) was still open. Frowning, I tried to think of what could have been holding the quest back. It could be that I hadn't answered the Malachite twins yet, but I doubted it. Thinking back, I went over the conversation from the previous night again. 'Hei said something about setting up an account,' I mused, pulling out my scroll and quickly finding the new Underworld app. Opening it, the scroll's screen went black momentarily before gray text popped up. First, it asked for name to associate with my account and Underworld contact email. Humming in thought, I rolled my eyes as I came up with an answer.
'Jaune' meant yellow, I recalled. I wasn't Jaune, however. I ran through several different color variations and names, but it was Joan that gave me the idea—or her Semblance, rather. That Rho Aias clone didn't belong in this world, and yet it was. Likewise, I didn't belong either. We were kind of a match, that way. The protagonist of the source material of that series had been a mage and a fighter, and in so far over his head it was a miracle he didn't die any number of times. I was sorely tempted to use his name, but I had a feeling Fate would be unkind to me if I did. More unkind, rather. 'Shiro' was very close, though, and obeyed the color naming rule as it meant 'white.' And if I used it as a handle for contact within the Underworld, it wouldn't even sound weird compared to people like Hei, Yang, and so on. Remnant's languages were weird like that in canon, where you had names like Ruby and Blake on the same team as Weiss and Yang—English, German, and Chinese. I highly doubted 'Shiro' would even stand out, amongst that.
My account registered, I entered the self-destruct phrase it would listen for and the app announced that it was finished with setup and asked if I would like an overview of the basic features. Shrugging, I accepted and let it walk me through a demo of various features such as the Market where one could buy, sell, or trade just about anything, along with the Employment section, for those looking for less than legal work for greater than legal pay. When the tutorial ended, I got the quest completion notification for Path of the Rogue (part II), along with 3000 EXP, which bumped me to level 10.
That taken care of, I pulled up my quest log and found the Romancing Remnant tree, before selecting the one I knew was on a timer. Looking it over, I dug through my scroll's address book for the contact I'd added for Candice. Checking the time and finding it approaching 7 A.M., I sent her a text letting her know I'd finished the book and asked if she'd like to talk about it over coffee or food tonight. Not expecting an answer from the librarian for at least a few hours, I dug through my inventory and went over my books, finding several I now met the prerequisites for.
You have obtained the skill book Anything Goes!: Building The Combat Style To Suit Your Needs! Would you like to learn this skill?
I smirked and damn near punched the accept button.
You have learned the skill Martial Arts Mastery!
Importing previous save data.. Import successful!
Martial Arts Mastery: Level 20. Passive. Martial Arts Mastery allows the user to learn various forms of unarmed combat and combine them to suit the situation at hand. Effect: Allows the user to learn martial arts styles from skill books similarly to recipes for cooking or plans for crafting. Anything Goes! allows the user to take the best from these styles and combine them into a single, cohesive style suited to any particular situation. Grants 70% EXP gain towards martial arts. Passively grants 75% bonus to all physical stats and 75% damage bonus to all melee attacks. Bonuses improve 3% per level. Aura Strike now applies to all melee attacks automatically at ¼ cost. Synergy with most forms of armed melee combat.
"Whoa. I know kung fu," I whispered, chuckling quietly. And as had happened before, it had acknowledged that I knew something about the field in question, so I was actually ahead in that field—though I was unamused to find that a second dan black belt—one rank assessment test that would have taken place in about two months assuming time here ran concurrent to Earth and no time travel bullshit was involved, which would have left me a third dan and, if not a master, then an instructor myself—was only worth twenty levels.
Despite being something of a joke on the internet, Tae Kwon Do was actually a decent martial art assuming you knew a damn thing about it and stuck with it. It was easy to get into for beginners and those looking to learn some self-defense, but the art itself focused on fast, mostly high kicks while having a decent foundation in other forms of attack and slipping out of and employing grabs, joint locks, and throws similarly to judo. Then again, the dojo where I'd studied hadn't exactly taught pure TKD—the co-owner and sensei was a distant elder cousin who collected martial arts styles like some people collect stamps. I remember wishing I could have been half as good as he had been by the time I was his age, but he'd had the advantage of starting much younger than I had. With the skill imported, however, everything I knew seemed to click in a way it hadn't before—and I knew I could build off of it and incorporate other styles or skills as needed. I may not be that good yet, but some day I could.
The bonuses were nice, but the skill was more than the sum of its parts. I could already see that it would have significant synergy with whatever skill the book named Kung Pow gave. In addition, it stacked with things like my sword and shield masteries. As I leveled them together, it should make for a very effective fighting style that wouldn't necessarily be dependent on my constantly casting spells. If I were going the purely physical route, that combination would be ridiculously effective. Even going the caster route, it would still be immensely useful… Still, I had more skills to learn.
You have obtained the skill book Firearms Basics for the New Hunter! Would you like to learn this skill?
You have learned the skill Firearms Mastery!
Importing previous save data… Import successful!
Firearms Mastery: Level 40. Passive. Firearms Mastery grants the user the ability to use firearms. Effect: 130% increase in attack damage with firearms, 130% increase in rate of fire, 130% increase in bullet velocity, 220% increase in accuracy. Level Firearms Mastery to increase stats by 3% per level. Synergy with Aim.
You have obtained the skill book Running Free! Would you like to learn this skill?
You have learned the skill Free Running!
Free Running: level 1. Passive. Free Running is a movement skill that allows the user to navigate uneven terrain without loss of speed, make sudden direction changes, ascend or descend walls, and more. Effect: no loss of speed when navigating obstacles, grants the user move movement options, passively grants the user 10% increase in DEX and speed, increases 1% every level.
I was okay with this. More than okay, really. It wouldn't be changing any of my plans, but if I had to I could play to my strengths. I had been a bit of a gun enthusiast in my previous life, thanks to my parents raising me around firearms since the time I could hold one—and as with Martial Arts Mastery, things just sort of clicked now. There was one last book I had the stats to learn now, however.
You have obtained the skill book Earth, Wind, Fire, Water, and More: Mastering the Elements! Would you like to learn this skill?
You have learned the skill Elemental Manipulation!
Elemental Manipulation: Level 1. Passive. Elemental Manipulation allows for the creation of elemental spells and techniques and imbuing skills, spells, weapons, armor, and other objects with an element. Effect: adds elemental skills and spells to Skill Creation, increases efficiency and effect of elemental spells and skills by 10%, decreases elemental spell and skill cost by 10%.
Well, that was kind of vague. Still, if I was reading it and interpreting the knowledge dump correctly, I could now manipulate the elements and create elemental effect spells. I already had a few ideas in mind for spells, the problem was that I had that same problem with specialization still. If I made a hundred different techniques, I would have to split my time and attention by that same amount to make any of them effective. Instead, what I needed was a few very effective spells and skills within each category—things that either worked really well either by itself or with other things, or covered some gap in my skill set, or was simply too valuable to pass up. One such spell, I had already tried to create and hadn't bothered repeating the attempt in a few levels and my Skill Creation and INT were now much higher than they had been. Pulling up mana, I focused on what I wanted…
You have created the skill Invisibility!
Invisibility: Level 1. Active. Invisibility renders the caster undetectable to all means of visual detection. Effect: cloaks the user from sight. Decreases chance of detection by 100%. Invisibility can be pierced by individuals with a strong enough Aura to negate the effect or grimm capable of disrupting active Aura effects, level Invisibility to reduce the chance of detection or spell disruption. Other means of detection such as sound, scent, and others are unaffected. Cost: 50 MP + 25 MP/minute.
I hummed in thought as I turned the wording for that over in my head. 'So, I don't reflect visible light, but things can still hear or smell me. Likewise, I bet RADAR or echolocation would still reflect off me. I'd still have mass and weight, so things that detect those would also pick me up. What about infrared or ultraviolet, though? I'd need specialized equipment to test that.' Still, massively useful. It almost felt unfair—except I wasn't in this to be fair, I was in it to win. Winning, in my case, meant survival and the success of my endeavors.
The question was, what exactly was I trying to achieve here? Becoming a Hunter, obviously, because it sounded like my kind of thing—helping people through application of intense firepower. Other than that… I had no real overarching goal for the end game, beyond becoming stronger and maybe finding someone nice to settle down with—and that was an entire other matter I didn't want to get into at the moment. 'Really, when it comes right down to it, I wasted so much time in my previous life on work I hated, dealing with people I couldn't stand just to keep the lights on and pay off debts… I have no debts here. I don't have a place to live, either, unless I go back to the Arc home—but that can't happen. So, basic necessities first. Nice things after that. Other than that, really, I think I just want to enjoy myself. Yeah, I think that's what I'll do.' I had a moment to think on that before remembering that things were supposed to get bad soon, according to canon—bad people doing bad things, to the detriment of everyone. That would kind of cut into my plans for enjoying myself, so they either had to be stopped or they would have to go—one way or another. Besides… I kind of felt obligated to use what I thought I knew of the future to try and make sure things didn't turn out poorly. I had already started, after all—I'd done the whole 'underworld' thing specifically to find a way to fix that before it became a problem. I could decide what I wanted to do after that once I'd actually accomplished that particular goal.
So decided, I found myself at a temporary loss for where to start. I could try taking care of my housing situation, but the twins probably weren't up yet—and if anyone could find me a place to use as a hideout, it was them. I could do it myself, but contacting them for that would give me an excuse to spend time with them and maybe get laid again. That left either playing around with the Underworld app and trying to find a job, or creating an instant dungeon and going hunting. By now, in addition to empty Illusion Barriers, I could create areas that would attract grimm and various other nasties. The way I understood how that worked, the skill created an artificial bubble like the naturally occurring Illusion Barriers and basically acted like a spirit trap, luring in any nasties in the area and collecting them in one place, where I would then slaughter them mercilessly for fun and profit. This also acted to lower the chances of grimm spawning in an area, by destroying anything that could scrape together enough hate and power to become one. Luckily, I could also lock them to prevent other people from just wandering across them and stumbling in.
As much as I wanted to open an Instant Dungeon up and go play with my new skills, I figured it would be more useful to get started with the Underworld stuff. Opening the app, I selected the Employment section and scanned the available jobs. Jobs were sorted by general type into several different categories. Transportation, Wetwork, Asset Procurement, and Information Technology were the ones with the most available jobs, so I started browsing, beginning with the field I had specialized in in my previous life. The Information Technology section contained several different classes of jobs, but mostly what it boiled down to was the choice between hacking into some business' or individual's systems to gather information, or penetration testing to map out vulnerabilities in such systems to either sell to hackers or back to the company in question for large sums of money. Deciding I didn't want to get into something so close to my own field of work in that other life after all, I selected another option.
Asset Procurement boiled down to two different types of jobs: thief or spy, and while I had some skills that could be useful in that field I didn't really want to try breaking into anywhere until I got higher level. Wetwork turned out to have the most available positions, but none of them sounded appealing to me. For instance, Cleaner: someone who cleans and sanitizes accidents. Translation: body disposal and evidence removal. No thank you. Or Hitter, which was pretty simple: assassin for hire. A Fixer was more of an all-rounder: leg breaker, bounty hunter, debt collector. I didn't have the personality for it, since I didn't particularly enjoy hurting people unless they'd done something to hurt either myself or those I cared about first. They even had positions for bodyguards and Hunters for hire. Still, it all sounded a bit outside my comfort zone at the moment—if someone needed to hire a Hunter on the black market, that meant they couldn't hire one openly for some reason. There were a few possible reasons for that, none of them good. I wasn't up to taking on a suicide mission.
The Shipping and Transportation section is where things started sounding more like something I might enjoy—and about what Hei had suggested I try. A Runner was someone who moved goods and/or money between Point A and Point B, while avoiding detection. That, I guessed, would translate to my Semblance as Mirror's Edge. A Transporter supplied transportation for either moving large amounts of cargo in secret or moving individuals or groups of people. It seemed that the primary difference between the two boiled down to volume of cargo and method of transportation. I didn't have a vehicle to my name at the moment, so I selected Runner. The app first asked if I had any alternative means of transportation, which was a 'no,' and then said it would enter me into the rotation of active Runners and begin assigning me jobs to choose to take or pass on as soon as they became available. The app also provided a handy chart detailing when the most active hours were for jobs—typically between the hours of 5P.M. and 3A.M, which made sense if most of the people associated with the Underworld tended to do business after the end of the typical business day until the early morning hours, under cover of darkness.
A quest has been created!
Path of the Rogue (part III)
You have made contact with the Underworld and taken on employment. Now is the time to build up your skills and reputation and discover the tools of the trade! Complete 10 deliveries to progress.
Success: 3500 EXP, equipment, increased reputation with the Underworld Faction, Lien to be determined. Failure: employment termination, death*. *Choosing to keep items or money belonging to a customer or the Underworld will cause Fixers or Hitters to be dispatched to recover the items or money and terminate your employment permanently.
Oh, right. Hei had mentioned that. Well, I'd like to think I had enough impulse control not to steal things I was being paid to deliver. Still, it brought up a problem. I had already created a false identity for use with the Underworld, or at least the beginnings of one. Now, I would need a disguise of some sort.
A quest has been created!
You Can't Go As You Are
Needing to keep your civilian and criminal identities separate in order to prevent trouble from following you home, it might be best if you found some way to disguise yourself. Why don't you try reaching out to your contacts to see if they have any tips?
Success: 1000 EXP, skill(s), a secret identity. Failure: blackmail, arrest, death*, blackmail of the Arc family, potential death(s) of one or more members of the Arc family*. *Depending on severity of failures.
I rolled my eyes after reading the quest details. So, in other words, talk to the twins before accepting any jobs or I'll be found out and either blackmailed, my family blackmailed, arrested, etcetera. I kind of wondered if the Underworld even had anyone available who could pose even a remote threat to my impossibly strong family—then I remembered that Jun was the exception. The little redhead was strong, ridiculously so for her age and getting stronger by the day, but she wasn't to the point where I would trust her to be able to handle herself yet. If I intended to do this, I would have to keep my two lives separate as much as possible. Joan was right—trouble would be more than willing to follow me home, if I screwed up.
Well, I had a few hours to kill before I'd feel comfortable waking the twins, or calling Joan, and going out to commit minor crime without a proper disguise was a bad idea. That really left only one option. Opening up my Skills menu, I selected Create ID and looked over my options and details. The range of the Illusion Barrier the skill created went up as the level did, the default being about 500 meters, but the area created could be modified according to the caster's wishes within that range. The skill primarily created Illusion Barriers using my surroundings as a template—or rather, created a copy of the area around me in between the real world and the spirit world. However, there were already options for environment variables and terrain—for instance, I could make an Instant Dungeon where it was raining, or snowing, or in mid-summer regardless of the weather around me. Likewise, I could already create both a generic 'forest' and 'urban' setting, which, according to the details, each attracted different types of monsters in addition to grimm. The default settings would draw in whatever was nearby, however, which would be good enough.
I spent the next five hours or so killing grimm and zombies—one of the few creatures aside from grimm that would form inside my Instant Dungeons. I had destroyed my wooden practice sword in a single, desperate strike against Joan while the shield had been destroyed in her retaliatory blow, breaking in half upon my impact with the ground. I would have to get replacements—preferably real weapons, as opposed to practice weapons—at least until Joan came through with my Hunter-class gear. Until then, I could spend time leveling my core magic skills, martial arts, and experimenting with Elemental Manipulation. So long as I avoided human trouble, I shouldn't need real weapons… but then, thoughts like that had lead to being unarmed when the first Prowler came calling. No, I wouldn't put off getting them for long.
My first experiment with Elemental Manipulation went over well, except for the stench—burning grimm smell horrible, but burning zombies smell even worse. I practiced adding various elements to my magic attacks, trying to find the best combination of effects. For instance, adding wind, fire, or lightning to Rasengan would increase its penetration and damage double or more—it was hard to measure when it one-shot whatever I threw it at, since I hadn't run across any mini-boss or boss level monsters since the Prowler.
AP Round was easier to judge the effects of Elemental Manipulation. Fire caused anything hit with it to burn—actually inflicting a Burn and Panic status—and do damage over time. Electricity electrocuted and paralyzed enemies, with similarly named status effects. Earth and Water added those elements to the skill as a sort of core to the round that exploded on contact and did fragmentation damage to both the target and surrounding targets. Wind, on the other hand… Wind increased velocity and penetration, allowing my AP Rounds to punch straight through most targets. Sometimes, those rounds detonated in an explosion of wind inside the target, other times they penetrated fully and hit the next target behind the first one before hitting and detonating. Sometimes, if I crit, the rounds would punch through several targets at the same time.
Adding an element to a physical attack had results of varying success. Fire would, again, do burning damage and potentially ignite the target. Lightning still shocked and paralyzed, which was nice for holding something in place and pummeling the crap out of it. Wind increased my attack speed by a lot, which combined with my passive and active bonuses to DEX and Haste… well, it was fast and good for burst damage. Decent for unarmed damage, but with a sword in my hand it would be absolutely lethal. Results with Earth and Water were… odd, to say the least. Unlike Fire, Lightning, or Wind those two actually added physical matter of that element to the attack, either extending reach or coating the part of the limb making the strike. Water attacks could extend my reach a bit while Earth attacks would add the mass and hardness of the earth I pulled up for the attack to the damage and impact and tended to toss opponents around. My jaw had dropped a little the first time I caught a Beowolf in the head with an Earth-elemental spinning roundhouse kick… and its skull had promptly caved in around my foot like it'd been hit with a wrecking ball, or a mace.
There were other elements, I knew—Ice, Metal, Shadow, Gravity, and many, many others. Any element you could create with Dust, you could use with magic. For now, though, I decided to focus on figuring out the most useful and try the others later to see if they added any interesting effects—which meant I would be dropping Water entirely unless it came up situationally, and using Earth mostly to increase my ranged damage or to physically toss enemies around, or use it to attempt to create some sort of skin-level defense under my shields. Without proper weapons, I was unable to test the effects of adding an element to those attacks, so I was interested to see what would happen—especially with bullets. Multiple-effect Dust rounds may just be a thing with Elemental Manipulation. It was something to test later. Thankfully, raw mana manipulation in the manner I'd been using it all still counted towards leveling the Elemental Manipulation without creating multiple other skills, so even time spent playing with things that may not work was time well spent. It would be annoying if every time I threw a punch or kick, my Semblance decided to add a new, element-specific, skill which only leveled if I used that particular skill.
By the time noon rolled around, I had gone through many grimm and zombies—enough to gain two levels. At 150 EXP per level 10 zombie and 350 EXP per level 10 grimm, I was not surprised to advance that fast. Individually, they weren't worth much experience. However, they tended to come in groups of anywhere from three to ten or more at a time. I'd been 2050 EXP into level 10 from quests to begin with, leaving me with 7950 EXP to next level for a total of 10k EXP to get to level 11. To get from level 11 to level 12 required an additional 11k EXP. At between 150 and 350 experience per monster… I could have killed 127 zombies or 55 beowolves—though, in reality, it was a mixture of both, heavy on the zombies. I didn't mind, though—killing an endless stream of enemies was the sort of zen-level thing I was used to from years spent playing games in another life that allowed me time to decompress, think, and sort through things. The fact that they were real just made it even more fun than mindlessly killing them. There is nothing quite like feeling a punch or kick smash into something and watching it implode under the force of the blow.
A level 10 beowolf had, on average, 1225 HP. Depending on what I was using to kill them, I could easily one-shot one. Unarmed, Aura Strike at level 6 would do 596 damage against a beowolf, less against a zombie due to Favored Enemy: Grimm (level 2, 3 by the time I was finished). However, with Martial Arts, every strike was an Aura Strike, and with Elemental Manipulation like Earth backing my blows up with more than double the damage due to mass and force… Yeah. Head-imploding one-shot hits. Mana Bolt at level 5 would do around 930 damage, plus status effects, to a grimm. Basic Rasengan (level 5) would do about 2219 against anything, or 2884 against grimm—meaning it was an easy one-hit kill. AP Round (level 5) did 1377 damage to everything that wasn't a grimm and 1790 to grimm. However, AP Round added an additional round every other level, so at level 5 (which it had been at against Joan) it had three rounds, each with the same damage.
Another way of putting that would be to say that it effectively tripled my damage, or doubled my base damage for AP Round every other level and gave me the ability to hit more targets per cast if I wanted to split my attacks. So, in reality, AP Round did more like 4131 damage per cast against anything that wasn't a grimm and 5371 against grimm specifically. That wasn't even factoring in what happened when I managed to sneak up on something—with the stacking bonus from Favored Enemy: Grimm and Sneak Attack, AP Round's damage jumped to 11010. Yeah, 11k. I went back and did the math on that to make sure the system wasn't screwing with me. It wasn't. 3670 damage per round, three rounds per cast. And I could cast it as fast as I could chant—about 1.5 seconds per cast to get out "AP Round" in a way the system understood. Throwing Wind manipulation in sent the damage into the 'unmeasurable against trash mobs' category, but if it was like Earth manipulation with my physical blows, then the damage was at least doubled.
Destroying my Instant Dungeon after collecting my loot (more potions, 5450 Lien, dust of various grades and colors, and a few other odds and ends including bits and pieces of zombies and grimm), I received a new notification.
You have successfully purged the surrounding area of malignant spirits seeking to enter the world as grimm! Until more enter the area, this area will be hunted out and creating new Instant Dungeons will not draw in more spirits. Move on to a new area to hunt more malignant spirits!
Area Purge Success!
Effects: Grimm will not spawn in this area for a period of 48 hours depending on local negativity, Illusion Barriers will no longer form naturally.
So, if I opened up an Instant Dungeon, I could temporarily clear an area of grimm and other nasties for a while, depending on… local negativity, whatever that meant. For the next two days, this area would be safer for normal people to wander—more so even than Vale's partial Sanctified status granted. This implied a couple of things to me. Firstly, Hunters were responsible for hunting down and killing grimm in an area after they had already spawned, which would keep them cleared up for a while whereas I could kill them before they started causing problems. Secondly, there must be some way to intentionally Sanctify a place to prevent grimm from spawning for longer or at all so long as the sanctification was maintained. Thirdly, if I killed grimm and other things before they made it to the real world, it would take the spirits and concentrated negative emotions that made them longer to gather up and breach the barrier between the spirit world and the real world. And finally, I couldn't just sit in one place and farm all day—once I cleared a place, I'd have to move on to another area.
Opening my map, I noticed some new additions. The city of Vale was now subdivided further, beyond its Districts. Most of the map was overlaid with a faint red tinge. Some areas were less or more red, while a few others were completely blue. Tapping on one of these blue areas showed it to be an area under the effects of a full Sanctify effect, meaning Illusion Barriers would not form naturally there and grimm would not spawn and would tend to avoid wandering into the area. The red areas were those under various percentages of sanctification, the darker the red the less sanctified the area. The area immediately around me for about a city block was a light blue with no red, and tapping the overlay showed a statistic labeled as 'Spirit Density' at 0%. Closing my map, I dug through options and applied the same filters to my minimap, so I could have an idea how safe my immediate surroundings were.
Unable to put it off any longer, I took out my scroll and began making calls. The first was to the twins, to see if they could find me suitable living accommodations. That done, I made the call I had been dreading. The scroll picked up before it had finished ringing the first time.
"You weren't here when I woke up," Joan deadpanned. Her tone was carefully neutral, neither accusatory nor angry, but I could tell she was not amused.
I chuckled, pulling on my charisma and hoping it carried through over the scroll. "Yeah, about that… I can't stay there any more."
"What." I could almost picture the flat, 'you have got to be kidding me,' expression that had to be on her face at the moment.
I rolled my eyes. "Just listen and think about it a minute. What happens if Jun finds out? What about the rest of our siblings? Or our parents?" I paused, letting that sink in a moment, before asking, "On a scale of 1 to 10, how unusual would you say our relationship is compared to others?"
After several moments of silence, almost enough that I thought she wasn't going to answer, she finally sighed. "Seven. You know, I hate it when you're right?"
"I know," I agreed. "So, if we're going to keep doing whatever this is between us, we're going to have to be kind of circumspect about it—right?"
"For now," she agreed, quietly. "Are you ashamed of me?"
And insecurity rears its ugly head. With the familiarity of long practice, I set about beating back the beast. "You're asking me if I'm ashamed of the strongest woman I know?"
"You know what I meant," she denied, though after a moment added, "Though by all means, feel free to continue complimenting me. Praise me, praise me."
"Yes, well, it's an unfair question and you know it, so I'm not going to justify it with an answer. How about this, instead? I've got money, I can make more pretty easily. I'll get a place here, in town—somewhere I can stay that will keep any heat I pull doing my new job away from you and the others. You can visit whenever you want. How does that sound?"
She hummed, her unease, worry, and anger seeming to evaporate. "I suppose it's the best answer to the problem at hand. I have to be here with Jun when she's home… but she has school between 8A.M. and 3P.M.. I'll be free between those hours…"
That would be fine, but between grinding and the twins, I might not have as much time as she was hoping. "That would be okay, just call first. I'm considering taking the twins up on their offer and I don't think anyone would appreciate being interrupted. Also, I'll be doing some leveling and grinding out skills, which will be taking up a large portion of my time."
"That's fine," she allowed. "I've waited this long, after all." After a moment, her tone changed to something close to teasing. "So, when can I see the new place?"
Laughing, I shook my head, though she wouldn't see it. "After I do. I don't have one yet. I'll let you know when I do."
"I'll hold you to that."
My scroll buzzed, saving me from some awkwardness. Exchanging quick goodbyes, I disconnected one call and picked up the other. "Took you long enough to answer."
"Hello again, Melanie," I greeted politely, knowing she was trying to get a rise out of me. "Got something already?"
She hemmed quietly before I heard the scroll change hands. "We may have something," Miltia said, by way of greeting.
"I gathered that much. What's the problem?" I asked, and the twin gave a quiet sigh.
"You're not superstitious, are you?"
I blinked, running that back again to make sure I had parsed it properly. "No… why?"
"I'm sending you directions. Meet us there, say in half an hour?" she asked, apparently reluctant to discuss it over the scroll.
I found myself rolling my eyes again before answering. "Sure, why not? See you soon."
"This is the master bedroom, with a small walk-in closet and through there is the private bath," the landlord finished, trying and failing not to appear nervous, even without Observe giving him away.
The apartment was nice—very nice, really, at least for this part of town. It was less of an apartment and more of a penthouse, taking up a full half of the top floor of the apartment building. The square footage was larger than my entire duplex back where I'd come from—far more room than I would ever take up by myself. Situated on the very north western edge of the Residential District, it overlooked the channel that flowed inland from the ocean, which was used primarily for shipping. The view was nice, I'll admit, with large windows looking out over the Commercial District as the room itself faced northward. At night, I imagined the district lit up with all the holographic street lights and neon signs, along with all the boats on the water dividing the two districts. Finally, I asked, "How much?"
"Two thousand," the landlord opened negotiations, absently licking his parched lips. The man himself was in his fifties, balding, and had gotten a bit wide around the middle. He also reeked like a pack of cigarettes and a case of beer a day.
I called on my charisma and simply looked at him. Stared, really.
A skill has been created through a special action!
Intimidate: Level 1. Active. Something about you just seems to unnerve people, animals, and even monsters at times, causing them to become shaken or fearful and cowing them into submission. Effect: target must make a Will save against your CHA modifier or be intimidated or Shaken depending on the severity of the intimidation. Intimidated targets are more willing to comply with even unreasonable demands. Shaken targets take penalties to attack, defense, and all saves. Duration: 5 minutes. Level up Intimidate to increase its effect and duration.
I very carefully did not smirk, laugh, or otherwise give away the game. No, I kept my stare perfectly flat as I regarded the landlord. A moment later, the skill leveled and he stuttered, "F-fifteen hundred?"
"What's wrong with it?" I asked, shooting my gaze to where the twins stood behind him. Thankfully, they took their cue beautifully.
Melanie and Miltia moved around the landlord and came to stand at either side of me. The white-clad twin shot the landlord a flat glare. "It's haunted."
"If you believe that sort of thing," Miltia amended, regarding me as opposed to the landlord. "The last tenant was a Huntress who died under… suspect circumstances."
"Right here, in fact, around this time last year," Melanie continued. "There are a lot of old superstitions about people dying unclean deaths and coming back as grimm—Hunters, especially."
"It makes sense when you think about it. After all, Hunters spend their lives fighting grimm—the last thing they would want is to become the thing they've been fighting," Miltia finished.
Looking between the twins, I shook my head. "Sorry, girls. It just seems too dangerous."
As we began walking for the door, the landlord's resolve broke. "Wait! Please. How… how does one thousand… no, eight-fifty sound?"
I ignored him, continuing on in my 'worrying,' seemingly oblivious. "In fact, we should probably start looking for somewhere else to move you into. I don't think the building is safe, any more. We should probably see if we can convince the other residents of the danger as well—wouldn't want anyone waking up to a grimm in their face…"
"Okay, okay. Five hundred. It's practically giving the place away though," he grumbled.
I turned to regard him with a flat look. "As it so happens, I'm going to be attending Beacon starting soon. I'm sure we could work something out. I could make sure nothing bad gets in. Girls, how much do Hunters typically get paid for securing an area?"
"Depends on the area," Melanie hummed.
Miltia did some quick figures before answering, "For a place of this size? About sixteen hundred a month if it's a guaranteed thing. There are wards that have to be laid down using Dust, rituals to empower them with Aura. That would cover cost of materials and time, at least. The biggest problem is in devising the proper ward scheme to keep grimm from forming, or entering the building. Upkeep, after you've empowered it, just takes some Aura and occasional reapplication of Dust."
"We have those," the landlord admitted, finally. "The previous tenant left her notes among her belongings. I… might have kept them, just in case."
"In case you ever suckered another Hunter in, who was dumb enough not to know how much his services were worth?" Melanie asked, acid dripping from her tone. "And when are you going to fix the water heater?! I'm getting tired of cold showers!"
"I'll lay down new wards over the building and keep them maintained. In exchange…" I trailed off, wanting him to say it.
"I will allow you the use of the apartment in payment for your services," he finally capitulated.
I nodded. "Get me those books. I'll start work on the wards tonight. And fix the water heater, today. The first cold shower I take, I will find a way to exclude your room from the ward scheme."
The landlord walked out, grumbling the entire way. Making sure the door was locked behind him, I turned to the twins with a grin. "Well, that was a thing."
"Did we do good?" Miltia asked, stepping in close and molding herself to my side.
Mussing her hair fondly, I nodded. "You two did great."
"So, does that mean you've decided?" Melanie asked cautiously.
Sighing, I moved towards the couch I assume was either left over from the previous tenant or had been originally furnished with the apartment. Passing that, I took the arm chair across from it—a thick, overstuffed, leather affair that reclined. Sitting down, I gestured for the twins to take a seat on the couch so I could look at them without having to shift my head back and forth, because they would surely sit one to either side of me if I gave them the opportunity. "I have. But if we do this, there have to be conditions."
"Name them," Miltia said, sounding unsurprised as she sat beside her twin.
"First and foremost, I have to have your loyalty—two hundred percent," I began, getting a pair of nods in agreement. "Not Hei, not anyone else, me."
"We expected that," Melanie agreed. "We want the same."
Nodding, Miltia added, "And support."
I frowned. I wouldn't be anyone's meal ticket, but I'd hear them out. I'd never been religious in my previous life and I was still undecided here, but there was some sense in certain things. You don't have to be religious to know good sense when you hear it. I'd learned Proverbs 6:26 well: for by means of a whorish woman, a man is brought to a piece of bread. The modern-day translation basically read: do not let a woman reduce you into her own personal ATM. Only one had ever tried and that ended poorly, for her. "What kind of support, exactly?"
Seeing where I was going the girls shook their heads. "Not money. We don't expect you to pay our way for us. Just, well…"
"The kind of support one would normally expect in any relationship. Emotional, moral, physical, and so on," Miltia clarified for her sister. "Mutually, of course. We're not selfish. We are greedy, but relationships are about give and take. Take support, give support in return."
I nodded. "That's kind of an unspoken given in a relationship, but if you want it explicitly in the rules I can agree to that. Secondly, any secrets I confide with you stay between us unless I say otherwise."
"Understandable," Miltia agreed, Melanie nodded.
"Likewise," the white-clad twin added.
"I don't really have anything else at the moment," I admitted. "I suppose we can figure things out as we go. Is there anything you two want?"
The twins shared a look before Melanie began. "Veto rights."
"Rather, we want to meet any other girls who want in and have the right to object without fear of being dropped," Miltia clarified.
Nodding, Melanie added, "We don't want someone who doesn't add anything of value to the group. Either skill, or brains—"
"Or someone lovable or adorable enough to keep around for that," Miltia finished. "This probably sounds bad, but we don't like the idea of having… um…"
"Dead weight," Melanie deadpanned.
The red-clad twin nodded. "Yes. That."
Palming my face, I regarded the twins with a flat expression. "Just how many women do you think I plan to add to this… whatever?"
The twins turned away and shared a quick, whispered conversation complete with gesticulations. After about a minute, they turned to me and answered simultaneously, "Seven."
I burst out laughing. I couldn't help it, really. "What kind of person do you take me for? Do I seem the kind of guy who just seeks out women to screw?"
"It's not that," Miltia denied. "It's just, well…"
It was the more outspoken twin who summed up her sister's thoughts. "You're the kind of guy women seek out." She ignored my flat 'what' and continued. "Your Aura has been active the entire time we've known you and you don't even seem to notice. In the span of twelve hours, between when we last saw you and now, you've had a twenty-five percent increase in power—at least. That kind of growth in that short a time is almost unheard of."
"You can tell that?" I asked, frowning.
Miltia nodded. "It's in your Aura. That sort of power tends to draw those sensitive to it in. Power attracts power. You could suppress your Aura—in fact, you should learn how to do so while still using it for stealth—but the moment you let it go again it would be like blood in a tank full of sharks. Any Huntress worth her salt will sense it and if they're unattached, there's nothing stopping them from pursuing you."
"What if I don't want seven women?" I sighed, at this point beyond the unreal turn the conversation had taken. 'Accept it and move on. Accept it and move on.'
The twins shared another look. "Not seven," Miltia shook her head.
"Seven more," Melanie finished.
"Nine." They nodded. "Women. At the same time. Nine of them." They nodded again. "No. Nun-uh. Nope. Ain't happening. There is no possible way to juggle that clusterfuck in such a way that someone doesn't get hurt." I just wanted one! One loyal, loving woman to settle down and maybe start a family with at some point in the far flung future. I was willing to settle on a lot of other things, but those were my two requirements—loyalty and love. Aside from that, there was that old parable of never letting your reach exceed your grasp. And all of that is before going right back into the absolutely fucked up situation that is being in someone else's body. I was wearing someone else's face. I could never tell anyone the entire truth—not only would they not believe me, if they did there was a high likelihood I'd wind up in a lab somewhere or on the business end of another Hunter's weapon. Yes, I was going to have to get over that eventually just like the rest of my hangups, but I didn't see it going anywhere for a while—I was still new to Remnant and there was still the possibility of being able to recover Jaune's memories, somehow, which I had yet to attempt…
"Actually..." Melanie began.
"There is," Miltia finished.
I rolled my eyes. "Right. And how do you propose I do that?"
The twins frowned and, after another shared glance, Miltia asked, "What school did you go to again?"
Oh. Of course. It would be one of those things I didn't know, not being a native… to Remnant. "Okay, before we go any further down this rabbit hole, there are some things about me you should probably know." They nodded, gesturing me to continue and I ran a hand through my hair in exasperation before beginning. "Before all this started, I guess I was just a normal guy."
Melanie snorted and I looked up to see her covering her mouth and shaking her head. Miltia, beside her, raised an eyebrow. "Jaune, everyone in Vale has heard of your family. A lot of people outside of Vale know of the Arc family. Your grandfather's statue is in the city center and Beacon. I hate to put it this way, but, well…"
"There was never any hope of 'normal' for you," Melanie finished.
"Right," I deadpanned. "As normal as a guy with my background could be." The twins nodded and I continued. "Two… three days ago I woke up in the hospital. I didn't know who I was, where I was from, and so on. I don't remember classes, or even where I went to class. I've picked up a lot from Joan over the past few days, but there are huge gaps of things I just don't know. My Semblance helps, but not much."
Melanie frowned, regarding her sister for a moment before slowly admitting, "I want to call bullshit, but… It's possible, maybe. Weirder things have happened."
"Agreed," Miltia nodded. "I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and take your word on it. What is your Semblance, anyway?"
There were reasons to keep it under wraps, but at this point the twins would be more useful to me, and me to them, if they were in on it. I was used to playing my campaigns like an overly paranoid bastard looking for betrayal from everyone and ambushes around every corner—and I realized that was bleeding over here. Maybe it would be better to try trusting someone, for a change? Besides, they were probably one slip-up away from figuring it out anyway, given what they'd already logic'd out. I shrugged and answered. "The world around me is a video game. I am a video game character. I have HP and MP, stats, and skills. I have an inventory and objects in it are game items. I take quests, earn experience, and level up. I can create new skills or learn them from skill books. In between when I left you last night and when we met this morning, I gained three levels from level 9 to level 12—one of those from fighting Joan and completing a quest, the other two by creating an Instant Dungeon and killing grimm and other creatures for a few hours."
The twins blinked, collectively. Sharing another look, they both turned back and responded with, "Bullshit."
"Inventory," I said aloud, then reached in and pulled out a potion before tossing it across the distance that separated us, where Melanie caught it.
"Okay, but that doesn't prove—" she began, and I cut her off.
"Party."
What would you like to name your party?
I smirked. "Absolute bullshit." Both twins jerked back suddenly at a window appearing before each of them.
Jaune Arc, 'The Gamer,' has invited you to the party 'absolute bullshit!' Would you like to join this party?
Hesitantly, they reached out and tapped 'yes.' The instant they did, their eyes both focused on the text suddenly visible above my head. "What's it say?"
"The Strategist, Jaune Arc, level 12," Miltia read off. She turned to her twin at the same time Melanie turned to view her. "Snow White, Melanie Malachite, level 22."
"Rose Red, Miltiades 'Miltia' Malachite, level 22," Melanie read off. She turned to regard me with a smirk. "Our numbers are bigger."
I had already pulled up detailed information on both of them, however, now that I had access to it. "No, they're not," I denied. "I have more passives. Your level is higher, yes. You've also got more skill points allocated. I have lower base stats but a ridiculous number of passive skills that increase those stats. I could spank you both."
"Is that a threat?" Melanie baited.
Miltia looked eager as she finished, "Or a promise?"
I palmed my face. "You two, I swear. One track minds," I sighed. "So, do you believe me now?"
The twins nodded. "Seeing is believing."
"Dismiss party," I ordered, and the party dismissed. "So yeah, I don't know shit about the specifics of Remnant. I know some general things, I know things like math, reading, writing, language obviously. I just… see things differently now."
The twins hummed and Miltia asked, "You said you spent the morning killing grimm?" I nodded. "If your life is a video game, did you get any drops?"
I laughed, nodding. "Yeah, drops are a thing. Weirdly enough, grimm drop money. I got about 5000 Lien this morning off of what I killed."
The twins' eyes went wide. "How fast can you kill them?" Melanie asked.
"Pretty fast," I admitted. "The problem is, once I clear an area it'll stay hunted out for a while—the area I hunted this morning will take two days before there are likely to be any more grimm or anything else there."
"How many areas are there in Vale?" Miltia asked, and I could see her already running the numbers in her head.
Opening my map, I gave up counting and simply said, "A lot. It seems to be divided by city blocks, so the individual territories are uneven, but you get the idea. Some have higher grimm density than others. I could patrol the city full time and probably not run out of things to kill."
Sharing yet another look, the twins stated, "We're in."
"You're in, huh?" They nodded and I shook my head. "There's one more thing. You may change your minds after you hear. There is already someone I've kind of… made commitments to." Seeing I had their attention, I said, "The 'blonde bimbo' you got along so well with last night."
"Your… sister?" the twins stereoed slowly. "You're going to have to explain," Melanie demanded.
"It's complicated, but I suppose…" And so, explain I did.
At the end of it, they swapped another look and collectively sighed. "Well, you're right. That's…"
Miltia had no polite way of rephrasing what her more brusque twin wanted to say, and it showed. "Absolutely beyond fucked up. I mean, I understand the situation but it's still weird."
"I know, right?" I chuckled—a mirthless, self-depreciating thing. "Are you going to be okay with that?"
Melanie slowly palmed her face and nodded, after sharing a long look with Miltia. Some sort of silent conversation passed between them in that moment, but I had no idea what. "It's fucked, but it's none of our business, really. Aside from being bat-crap crazy, she's also terrifyingly strong—so even if we could protest, we wouldn't. It's a matter of being too valuable to waste."
"Joan is not 'bat-crap crazy,'" I denied, annoyance slipping into my voice. "On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being normal and 10 being bat-crap crazy, she's a solid 5, maybe a 6—which is 'sack of cats crazy.' It's a functional kind of crazy. Aside from her… fixation she is very much normal, other than being 'terrifyingly strong' as you put it."
"What my sister meant to say was," Miltia began, before pausing and sighing, then shaking her head. "No, she said it right. Did you know your siblings and parents are kind of well known in certain circles? Not as popular as, say, Pyrrha Nikos, but around Vale they're some of the highest-ranked Hunters around. There are better, yeah, but not many. So, having the strongest Arc sister on our side—regardless of her level of crazy so long as it's functional—is a good thing. We've known of your sister since before we met Hei—they were on the same team, before he took over The Club and took us on as enforcers. He doesn't keep any photos in his office, or talk about her much—or his team, in general. We'd never seen her before last night, but we've known her reputation for a while."
"She's kind of a badass," Melanie admitted, grudgingly.
I hadn't known Hei had gone to a Hunter school, let alone been on a team of any sort. Curious, I asked, "What was the team?"
The twins shrugged. "SHJN—Shogun, supposedly. No idea what happened to the other two team members. Like I said, Hei doesn't talk about them much."
"That aside," Melanie dismissed, "We still want in. Do we have a deal?"
I laughed. "Sure. Why not? If you're willing to deal with all of that, I'm not going to stop you."
"Great!" Miltia cheered, jumping up from the couch and hopping into my lap on my left, joined a moment later by Melanie on my right. "So, does this mean we can break in the bed now?"
Quest Romancing Remnant: Twins, Basil. Twins! completed!
You gain 10000 EXP!
You have gained love interests: The Malachite Twins.
A quest has been updated!
Romancing Remnant: Twins (part deux) has been unlocked!
You have gained the Malachite Twins as love interests. Get closer to the twins and become more than just 'love interests.'
Success: to be determined. Failure: to be determined. Duration: ongoing.
A quest has been updated!
Romancing Remnant: The Harem Route had been unlocked!
Palming my face, I groaned at the quest creation notification and blindly stabbed the 'accept' button until it went away. When I removed my hand, I found both twins regarding me with looks of confusion tinged with amusement. "My Semblance agrees with you. It also tends to have a crappy sense of humor and thinks trolling me is amusing, so I'm going to take what it says with a grain of salt."
"Agrees about…?" Melanie prompted, one eyebrow arching upwards in question.
I rolled my eyes. Of course they would want to know what they were right about—it was the way of women everywhere. "The number of other women in whatever this thing is."
Miltia grinned, reaching out and patting my head, clearly teasing. "Yes, I'm sure it will be a great burden to you—having to make love to and produce offspring with so many beautiful women. But you may as well call a spade a spade—it's a harem."
"Bite me," I grunted, pointing at her and nearly putting my finger in her face. A moment later, I hissed half in pain, half in pleasure as the girl snatched my arm and latched her lips onto my wrist, and bit—not hard enough to break the skin, but enough that it would have left a mark without my Aura or HP regen. A shiver ran what felt like from head to toe as the other twin latched on similarly to the side of my neck. Locking eyes with Miltia, I resisted the urge to groan as I got out, "I didn't mean literally."
"Mm?" she hummed, and I felt her lips form into a smirk against my wrist.
Not wanting the twins to keep me on the back foot so to speak, I reached out took her hip with my free hand and used her grip on my other to pull her closer. A twist of my wrist broke her grip and I reached over and repeated the move with Melanie, breaking her lip-lock with my neck with a wet 'pop!' and drawing a startled squeak out of her. My hands rested on their inner left and right thighs respectively where they sat in my lap, enough pressure there to tease as I pointed out, "Keep this up and we're not going to make it to the bed."
The twins shared a look before turning two pairs of green eyes on me. "We're fine with the chair," Melanie announced.
"Or the couch," Miltia agreed.
"Or the floor," they synced, grinning, as they each took one of my hands in their own and pulled them the rest of the way up their thighs, where my fingers met with their warm, panty-covered flesh. The panties in question were soft cotton and already quite damp, and they grew more so as I set my fingers to exploring, eliciting a pair of quiet sighs from the girls.
You have created the skill Dual Wield!
"Oh goddamnit," I groaned, drawing the twins' attention to where I was glaring at something they couldn't see. "I told you it thinks it's being funny when it does shit like this," I grumbled at their amused looks. Right. Fuck it. I was not giving it the satisfaction of interrupting again. Dismissing the message, I renewed my teasing exploration of the twins, to enthusiastic sounds on their part.
While the twins enjoyed the petting, I knew the position wasn't great. With one girl on my lap, it wouldn't have been an issue—I would have been free to use either or both hands. Sitting as they were, mostly on top of my upper thighs and facing each other with their legs dangling down and twining together in the space I'd made between my own to give them both room, my hands' range of motion was limited from the front. Moving to rectify that, I removed my hands to whimpers of disappointment from the girls before taking a moment to adjust their skirts for what I had in mind. Once their clothes were situated so they wouldn't get in the way, I slipped both hands down the back of their panties, over and past smooth ass cheeks to stroke their bare flesh directly from behind—my fingers slipping back and forth over their slightly puffy outer lips, now thoroughly soaked from their excitement and my earlier attention, and drawing more sounds of contentment from them.
Parting their outer lips, I sought out their clits and began slowly tracing circles around them with my index fingers while still using my other fingers to stroke what I could reach. Judging by the way the twins squirmed in my lap, I'd say they enjoyed it. A smirk crossed my lips as I enacted phase two of my plan, shifting my thighs to bring them closer together and applying pressure to their lower backs where my forearms were to encourage them to lean forward a bit. They both reacted as I'd hoped, arms snaking out and wrapping around each other as their lips met in what I was coming to realize was a very familiar routine for them as I enjoyed the show. Their hips began grinding against my thighs in a slow rhythm and I decided to escalate things a bit, shifting my hands and spreading their lips enough to slip my index and middle fingers into their tight, wet heat and using my thumb to stroke back and forth over their clits while slowly stroking my fingers inside them.
The reaction was immediate as both Malachite twins moaned into each other's mouth and their hands began roaming. I noticed that their movements seemed oddly mirrored as they kissed and fondled each other, their hands and fingers in the same places on each other and moving in the same way—even their Auras had synced up to the point I couldn't tell them apart any more without my Semblance labeling them. Putting the phenomena aside for later study, I began slowly pumping my fingers in and out, coaxing small, wet sounds out of them with each upward thrust. Their petting of each other became more frantic as hands slipped under dresses and pulled down bras and fingers sought out nipples.
A bit of shifting and reclining on my part brought them both to lean against my chest, where they broke off from kissing each other to trade off exchanging kisses, licks, and nips with me. Melanie's lips met mine, her tongue darting out to explore as my own met hers while, beside her, Miltia interspersed kisses and small nips on my neck. After a moment, I broke the kiss with Melanie and turned to meet Miltia's lips, repeating the process, all the while continuing my stroking and pumping, coaxing an increasing flow of nectar from them. When I felt they were ready and my fingers were thoroughly soaked, I timed my slow pumping in and out to use a third finger on each of them. They latched onto me at that, arms wrapping around my neck and back as they began grinding furiously against my fingers. I could feel them clenching around my fingers and knew they were close to coming. When I felt the time was right, I removed my fingers and began stroking their clits again—circling, rubbing, and squeezing them in a technique I'd had a few years practicing to improve. They buried their heads against my chest, fists clenching my shirt as their grinding broke down into shaking, moaning simultaneous orgasm.
I spent a few moments more slowly rubbing them, letting them down gently as they plateaued, eventually stopping entirely as their slow rocking in my palms came to a halt. Two sets of green eyes looked up from my chest, locking with mine for several long moments—and I almost mistook it for a trick of the light, but no, both sets of eyes were lit faintly by an eerie green light—before they demanded, in one voice, "Take me now."
I blinked for a moment, idly wondering if I was seeing what I thought I was seeing, before shrugging it off and directing them to get up. They took a moment to strip, during which time I decided on how to pull off what I wanted, before I directed them to the couch with a grin as soon as the last of their clothes had hit the floor. Taking Melanie by the hips, I directed her to kneel on the couch with her legs spread, using the arm of the couch for support. Miltia, I directed to lay face up on the couch and put her head between Melanie's legs. The twins got the idea immediately, Miltia's hands coming up to take her sister's hips and draw her mound down onto her mouth, which she met with an enthusiastic kiss, setting Melanie to squirming. Kneeling beside the couch, I shifted Miltia's hips and lifted her legs up onto my shoulders, taking a moment to appreciate the beauty in my arms and spread out before me. The twins were lithe and small, young and supple, all flawlessly pale skin and equally bare below the waist.
Their mounds were both shaved smooth, the flesh there neatly symmetrical as opposed to what would be called 'beef curtains' on Earth. Even the scent of their arousal and their taste was appealing, compared to what I had dealt with in that other life. With a smug grin I dove in, my tongue darting out and running along Miltia's outer lips from bottom to top, ending with a long, slow lick that caused her hips to jerk up a bit in my hands before repeating it and applying enough pressure to force my tongue between her lips. I didn't know if it was something they ate or bathed with, some quirk of Aura, or something unique to Remnant but they tasted and smelled like tart, green apples. I couldn't really compare however, seeing as I had yet to sample Joan.
I put my fingers back to work, curling them inside her and as I pumped them slowly, focusing my attention on her clit for a moment with my lips, tongue, and teeth. A muffled gasp sounded from somewhere between Melanie's thighs, echoed by the more dominant twin herself as Miltia mimicked my actions with her sister. Miltia's hips jerked as she tried to grind herself on my face, but an arm across her waist kept them down and kept her movements manageable. Having already come recently, they were both still primed and it didn't take long to bring Miltia off, drawing a long, low moan from her lips that was echoed by her sister above her. Instead of giving them time to come down, I took a moment to unequip my clothes and took Melanie's hips, pulling her down on top of Miltia so they were lying face to face before lifting her ass enough to get a good angle.
I was just spreading Melanie's lower lips with the head of my cock when the sound of keys caught my attention, drawing my eyes up to the door as the lock slid open and the burly, hairy, stinking form of the landlord took two steps inside before his brain caught up to his eyes, which couldn't decide whether to lock onto mine or Melanie's over the back of the couch. I couldn't decide whether to be mortified or pissed as I blushed. He paused, foot halfway raised for another step, as he began to pale. The trio of Wind element AP Rounds spinning up to a fast orbit in my palm may have had something to do with that as I settled on pissed, or it could have been the twins' Aura bleeding green into the visible spectrum as I heard Melanie and Miltia both growl below me as it seemed they had as well.
"I'll just leave this here!" he yelped, throwing the box down and beating a hasty retreat, closing the door behind him.
"That," Melanie began as their Aura began to die down.
"Cockblock," Miltia finished, deadpan.