The Name of the Game
a RWBY/The Gamer crossover, SI.
Arc 2: Hard Contact
Chapter 7: VN Mode For Dummies
Having someone knock at my front door and proceed to let themselves in when we were in the middle of breaking in the living room furniture was one of the most simultaneously mortifying and frustrating experiences I'd ever had, in either life. Luckily, angles from the door and the couch prevented the landlord from seeing anything and likely keeling over—or getting maimed or blasted, depending on who got an attack off first. Thankfully, he did the sensible thing of dropping the box of books and documents on the floor beside the door and beating a hasty retreat.
"Right, we're changing the locks," I groaned as the twins and I shared a mortified look.
"Agreed," they chirped.
Frowning, I looked down to regard the twins. "I'm not the only one suddenly feeling put off by seeing that, right?"
"Nope. He's kind of gross," Melanie agreed.
From beneath her twin, Miltia nodded. "It's disappointing, but we can always pick up again later."
It seemed we were all in agreement that the mood had been thoroughly wrecked, for the moment so I went to investigate the box the landlord had brought. Digging through it, I found some particularly interesting material. It seemed that whoever had rented this place out before—a Huntress named Sanguine—had put an emphasis on sealing, warding, and sigils in addition to a specific form of crafting that, near as I could tell, functioned like enchanting by adding Dust to clothing, weapons, armor, and so forth in specific patterns to achieve certain results.
'Sealing' and 'Warding' turned out to be two branches of the same field of magic—well, Dust and Auric manipulation as the people of Remnant would put it. My Semblance treated it like magic and called it as such, however—and maybe what I did really was different enough from the natives to deserve its own name. The act of sealing something was an effort to keep the results contained within some boundary, while the act of warding something was an effort to remove something or prohibit it from within a boundary. My Semblance, however, decided it would be amusing to screw with my head the moment I learned the skills.
Bounded Field: Level 1. Active. A type of topographic magecraft that allows the caster to create Wards and Seals with the use of fields of magic bound to an area—otherwise known as a Bounded Field. Effect: create sealing or warding fields using patterns the caster has learned. Allows the learning of patterns similarly to the Craft skill.
I really shouldn't be surprised at what shows up in my Semblance by this point. Once I got the skill, however, I discovered most of the paperwork in the box was patterns and schemes for various wards, seals, sigils, and enchantments—which I immediately ate. Aside from the patterns and skill books was a journal. Skimming it, I found the writing to be terse and mostly in shorthand, but descriptive where needed. Phrases like 'H. almost eaten by Ursa today—the irony. Improve his armor later,' or 'J. spent day training. Wish she would slow down, calves hurt.'
It appeared to be mostly personal things, seemingly a running log of day to day events during her time in school—Beacon, unless I missed my guess. I decided to stow it to peruse later, or return to her family—maybe both. I could probably get her full name out of the landlord and find her family from there. I wondered at the girl's skill with creating new Bounded Field patterns until I found notes in the journal detailing her Semblance: one that let her create new fields on the fly. She had simply made new field patterns with her Semblance and then copied them down to her notes, for use by others. Once I had eaten all of the patterns, however, I gained a new quest.
A quest has been created!
Cleaning House
Now that you've got a roof over your head, there are still some things that need taking care of before it is truly habitable. Procure the Dust and tools necessary to properly Sanctify the apartment complex in order to turn it into a Safe Zone. Remember to purge the area of malicious spirits before beginning the Sanctification ritual.
Success: 2000 EXP, lodging in exchange for Sanctification, a Safe Zone to sleep in. Failure: you pay rent, Illusion Barriers may form naturally in the area at night.
Checking the time and finding it to be just after 2P.M., I decided to go ahead and get the Sanctification ritual taken care of. With the twins in tow, I went looking for a store that sold Dust. It wasn't difficult, considering there were three in the Commercial District alone. The closest turned out to be one that had me laughing the moment I saw the signage—it seemed that From Dust 'till Dawn was a thing. I waved off the twins' inquiries on the matter and instead lead them into the alley.
"Okay, we're going to take a shot at this and see what happens," I said, drawing their curiosity. I had been thinking on it a while and, quite honestly, I couldn't pass up the potential resources—power in Remnant boiled down to a few factors, but the ones that stood out were personal strength and access to high quality and large quantities of Dust. The first, I was taking care of through training. The second, well… There was a reason all the best players were the ones who found the best ways to cheat without getting caught.
"A shot at what?" Melanie asked, and I grinned.
"Party. For fun and profit," I said, inviting them and naming the party in the same breath. They accepted and I held out a hand, focusing on the specifics of what I wanted. I needed an Illusion Barrier, or an Instant Dungeon rather, that only covered the area of the shop and was locked from the outside. A moment later, I felt the technique take hold and the very few pedestrians we could see wandering past the mouth of the alley simply disappeared.
Miltia frowned, looking around. "What just happened?"
"I just bought us five minutes, maybe. Come on, clock's running," I urged, hurrying out of the alley and looking around. Seeing no one in sight, I ushered them into the store, which was also empty of customers—but not of Dust. "Inventory," I said, and began grabbing Dust crystals and throwing them in. "We're duplicating items," I explained as I moved. "Could you fill those tube things over there with that powdered Dust?"
The twins, recognizing a heist when they were in the middle of one, hurried into action. They quickly filled cannisters and passed them off to me, where I dropped them into my inventory in between throwing in Dust crystals. Quickly running to the back while they filled more tubes, I grinned as I came across what I'd expected—the best stock was kept in the back, away from prying eyes. Observe told me everything in the back room was Grade 7 and above—meaning immensely powerful and valuable. The stuff up front was more immediately useful, but a few of these would be handy to have for later. Taking a few of each available, I hurried back to the front and began storing what the girls had collected. "Time?"
"Four minutes," Miltia answered, glancing at her watch.
Nodding, I ushered them back outside and into the alley. From there, I dropped the Illusion Barrier around the shop and we carefully walked out into the street behind the shop. Moving through another alley to the next street over, I grabbed both twins around the waist and made a Powered Leap onto the nearest rooftop, where we took off running. They were able to make the shorter leaps easily, while we managed to synchronize our timing well enough not to flub the longer or higher leaps with me carrying them.
When we felt like we were far enough away, we descended back to street level into an alleyway and began walking back towards a shop selling the tools required to make semi-permanent bounded fields by writing them out in Dust and add Dust enchantments to clothing, armor, and so forth. As soon as we did, my Semblance apparently decided that was good enough to qualify as a getaway and began assigning levels to Sneak and Steal—apparently, there was a component in there for item value, because both gained several levels more than I was expecting, though most of it was to Steal. Of course, that brought up the question of how Illusion Barriers truly worked, and how I could further exploit them—later, though.
"How much did we get?" Melanie asked quietly during a lull in foot traffic.
I opened up my inventory and gave it a look over. "A lot," I admitted. "Enough that I won't be buying Dust any time soon."
"So… we can sell it, right?" she asked and I shook my head.
"No, I'd rather keep it for personal use. It's more valuable to me as it is than as cash. I can use it in other stuff for crafting. Sanguine liked to modify armor and weapons with the stuff and had a lot of effective patterns and combinations that I should be able to duplicate."
Miltia hummed, then asked, "So, we're going after a bank next?"
I hummed in thought then shook my head. "Too much chance of something going wrong. Let's wait a while before trying anything else like that, too. If someone detected it and figured out what we did, they may be on the lookout for it happening again in the near future. I'd like to have some idea of whether or not it's possible to track detect and track what I did before I do it on a larger scale. Worse, someone may figure out a way to ward against creating Illusion Barriers, in addition to the wards against the natural ones."
We spent the rest of the trip to the store selling what I thought of as Dust enchanting and inscribing tools in companionable silence. After picking up a good set of tools, I looked through my quest log and checked the active quest created that morning. "So, you girls wouldn't know anything about disguises, would you?"
The twins shared a look before each taking one of my arms and dragging me off in a specific direction. "You mean for your 'part time job?'" Miltia asked, and I nodded.
Melanie hummed, a smirk crossing her face. "One where you would likely be running across rooftops in the dead of night to avoid the notice of certain groups of people partial to wearing blue?"
"Yes, that," I agreed, chuckling.
"We may have some ideas," Miltia smiled up at me. "Maybe some contacts, some temporary hair dye to disguise that distinctive hair…"
"And keep it from standing out like a neon sign pointing out your location to everyone who cares to look," Melanie deadpanned. "Some new threads, too. Some light armor, maybe… We know a place."
The place turned out to be a small clothing and armor boutique that sold primarily to hunters. The clothes they sold were crafted for durability and range of motion. The twins moved about the shop quickly, gathering ordinary clothing in addition to light armor pieces. "What's with all the extra stuff?" I asked Miltia when we were out of earshot of the older woman running the store, being distracted by Melanie at the time.
"It looks less suspicious than buying just the stuff we want. If a guy turns up on the nightly news wearing what we buy here, the shop owner's going to be more likely to remember selling that specific set if it was bought alone than if it was bought with a bunch of other stuff. Normally, we'd part each individual piece out to a few different sources, but we know you're in a hurry and this store sells to Junior so we know they'll keep their mouths shut even if they do suspect something. Right now, it just looks like your girlfriends are helping outfit you for Beacon," she answered quietly, taking up what looked like a neck gaiter made of thin, stretchy material before holding it up to my face for a moment and nodding.
Sighing and dreading the hit my wallet was going to take over this, I decided to go along with it. Hunters chose outfits differently from normal, everyday people. A Hunter's outfight was supposed to be distinctive and preferably eye-catching, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, so anyone could pick a Hunter out of a crowd or easily identify them in the heat of battle. Secondly, Hunters needed to stand out to more easily draw aggro away from civilians in the event a fight erupted in the middle of the street. Grimm were notoriously prone to go after bright colors for prey first, mostly because other grimm were dark colored with white and red highlights. Likewise, if Hunters got involved in a crime in progress, then they were more likely to attract fire than civilians. Jaune's normal outfit was barely different from street clothes in that way and only the armor and hoodie were distinctive—his claim to standing out in canon was mostly his heirloom sword and shield, Crocea Mors. Oh, they were custom made of the same sort of durable material the rest of the stuff we were looking at was, but they didn't have that distinctive Hunter look to them.
Having clothes to wear that weren't a Hunter uniform for when I was off duty or attempting to go incognito was a good idea, and with my ability to make clothing sets I could swap gear with a few words so the issue of being caught in civilian clothes when I really needed my Hunter gear would never come up. Also, according to Observe, clothes had stat modifiers. The stuff the girls were picking out for my night job turned out to all have high bonuses to Stealth and a set bonus that would only tell me what it did once I equipped all the pieces. Other clothes, I noticed, had other bonuses. Picking up one shirt with a particularly high CHA modifier, I asked Miltia, "What do you think?"
She hummed, turning a critical eye to the shirt and looking back and forth between it and me. Finally, she asked, "Trying to impress someone?"
"It boosts charisma," I deadpanned.
The red-clad girl nodded. "Makes sense. It would be good for dating, or impressing girls. I suggest picking up a matching set."
"Yeah, I thought so too," I admitted, already moving to grab more things to complete the set. My completionist streak must have kicked in as I set about finding a couple of full sets of stuff I could use for dating, or just for generally boosting my charisma if I ever needed it. I paused, a light blue tie in hand as I went back over that thought. 'Am I honestly getting clothes to pick up women? Why?' A glance back at the twins told me why, and I sighed as I kept digging for decent stuff. 'Because they're the sort who like to dress up and go out, and if I don't match them on that then I'm going to be an embarrassment to them, and myself. Besides, maybe I'll want to dress up and go out for some fun on my own that doesn't involve killing lots of monsters at some point.'
All told, the clothes by themselves cost 1500L, while the armor went for 2500L by itself. I had the money to spend, but it was honestly the most money I'd ever spent on clothes at any one time in either life. I had been more interested in paying off debts and keeping the lights on before, so my clothing choices tended towards practicality: durable, cheap, and easily replaceable. Luckily, my job hadn't required wearing anything fancy—no one cared what someone who didn't deal with customers wore. I could have gone in to work in my underwear and I doubt anyone would have noticed, considering the hours I kept. Graveyard shifts and on-call shifts were a pain in the ass, but worth the extra money.
As we left the boutique and headed for the apartment, I got a text on my scroll. Checking it, I found it to be from Candice, confirming a date for tonight and giving me a place and time to meet her, which subsequently updated that particular quest. The twins were not particularly amused at the idea of me 'dating' a civilian, but capitulated when I explained that it had been set up before I'd even met them and the quest reward intrigued me.
When we got to the apartment complex, the twins went to their home to collect a few things while I went up to my new apartment and went about preparing the tools for the ritual. While I had a good grasp of the skill thanks to absorbing the skill books Sanguine had possessed, there were still some fairly detailed notes containing tips and tricks she had either devised or gotten from research elsewhere. My eyes went momentarily wide and I couldn't help but face-palm when I read her notes on Sanctification—apparently, the preferred method by Hunters traveling in a group was an alternative means of empowering the bounded field that would sanctify an area. In reality, the same amount of mana still went in, either way—the effects, however… apparently, the preferred ritual acted as a sort of force multiplier and would extend the duration of any Sanctification several times, in addition to making it easier to renew later.
"You look like someone just told you the worst joke, ever," Melanie observed, entering the apartment ahead of Miltia and handing me a skill book. I accepted the confirmation dialogue without even bothering to read it, or the skill description beyond finding it was about what I'd expected in that it gave me the Disguise skill. Learning the skill also completed the quest You Can't Go As You Are, giving me 1000 EXP, which I also ignored in favor of turning a poleaxed look on the twins.
"Is it my imagination, or is Remnant just full of perverts?" I finally asked.
They appeared equally confused as Miltia asked, "What do you mean?"
Sighing, I dropped into the recliner I'd claimed earlier. "Did you know there are rituals, like Sanctification, that work better if you fuck on top of it? How does that even work? It makes no goddamn sense." Judging by the way the twins collapsed against each other in fits of giggles, I could only assume that yes, they knew. "This is one of those common knowledge things, isn't it?"
They shook their heads. "Not really," Melanie answered. "Not until you get into higher level stuff at places like Beacon. We know it because, well…"
"We did a lot of research before deciding not to become Huntresses," Miltia answered. "We still do research on the side, because it interests us. It's one of those things that the Hunter community keeps quiet—there are lots of things like that, really. In this case, it's mostly because no one wants to associate the holy rite of Sanctification with a Huntsman and a couple of Huntresses bumping uglies. Well, at least not most people. There was a chapter on that in Volume Four of Ninjas of Love."
"What is that series, a 'For Dummies' manual for Hunters?"
The twins nodded solemnly. "Pretty much," they agreed and Melanie continued with, "It's written by a small group of authors who are also Hunters. No one is quite sure who does it, as they all use pseudonyms, but we know there are three—one Huntsman and two Huntresses. The series takes place all over Remnant involving a large cast, and we think the authors even included themselves in the first or second volume, but each volume centers on a different cast of characters except in the few cases where a couple of groups get together, then things get really interesting."
"We're also pretty sure Ozpin's in there, somewhere—or at least someone based very closely on him, and his assistant/vice principle Glenda Goodwitch," Miltia added. "Really, you should read it. You'd be surprised how much relevant material you'll find there."
Sharing a quick smirk with her twin, Melanie asked, "So, when do we want to perform this ritual?"
Sighing, I shot her an unamused look before glancing at my HUD. There were still a few hours until I had to head out to meet Candice. Standing, I motioned them to follow. "Come on, we've got some work to do before we can Sanctify the place. First we need to do an area purge—essentially, destroy anything that could form into a grimm before it can. You're helping."
"We're fine with that," Miltia agreed, already pulling on a set of clawed gloves.
Looking at the weapon reminded me I was short a few. "Remind me to pick up a replacement sword later."
We made our way to the ground floor and I created an Instant Dungeon to encompass the apartment building and the small stretch of land surrounding it. "Ew. What is that?" Melanie asked, pointing at the shambling form of a zombie, level 14.
"We're not technically in reality as you know it at the moment," I explained. "Think of this like a pocket dimension—a bubble between the real world and the spirit world. That is a malicious spirit looking to enter the world. Grimm are pretty close to the same thing, but typically made up of negative emotional energy that has either become a spirit itself or is being driven by one. Not quite sure how that works."
"'Spirit?' As in what, ghosts? Souls of the departed?" Miltia asked, eyes going wide.
I shrugged. "Yeah, why?"
A look of slowly dawning horror spreading across their faces made me realize that I had failed to make a connection somewhere. Melanie voiced the conclusion the two had come to. "So the grimm aren't just soulless abominations made of hate?"
Oh, right. Right. Yeah, I imagine that would worry anyone from Remnant, finding out that either they were wrong or they had been lied to over the years. "Weren't you saying, not three hours ago, that people already believed that sort of thing?"
"Yeah, as an old horror story!" Melanie practically shrieked.
Miltia sighed, placing a calming hand on her sister's shoulder, careful of her claws. "Jaune, no one wants to believe that their dead friends and relatives could come back as grimm to kill them."
"I know that. Look, from what I can tell, it's not all grimm that are like that…"
Miltia sent me a look that said she knew what I was trying to do but it was too late. "Only most."
After a moment of meeting their combined stare, I nodded. "Only all the ones I've encountered."
"How does this not bother you?!" the white-clad twin growled.
I almost failed my Will save against laughing as I answered, with as straight a face as I could muster, "I ain't afraid of no ghost." A look of irritation passed over both their faces and I sighed, reigning in my poor sense of humor. "It doesn't bother me because, until I came into contact with it, I had no ideas as to any sort of afterlife anyway. I'd just kind of assumed that when you die, that that's it—lights out. Done. Electrons burning off as heat and light on a broken filament. Yeah, the idea that I have verifiable proof of at least some sort of potential supernatural potential afterlife is… world changing, but it's not something I'm going to dwell on seeing as I can't confirm anything one way or another yet beyond the fact that there's at least something."
With a grunt of annoyance, Melanie strode over to the zombie shambling our way and calmly removed its head from its shoulders with her bladed heel. "Let's get this over with."
There was a moment of confusion over the sight of money and a small crystal dropping onto the ground as the zombie disappeared, before they remembered what I'd said about drops. Being told that it happens and actually seeing it are two entirely different things. After that, things proceeded quickly as we cleared the apartment complex room by room, floor by floor. It wasn't long before I gained a level and shortly after that, a point of INT—I suppose for using INT based skills, as I was spamming my ranged attacks at this point since I didn't want to get into close quarters combat in the cramped confines of the apartment building. We had made it halfway up before we all received a system notification.
Alert! A powerful Grudge has been drawn into the Instant Dungeon! Destroy it before it can kill you or escape into the real world!
Success: 9500 EXP, ?. Failure: Death or the Grudge escapes.
"What the hell is that?" Melanie asked, rereading the message.
"A grudge usually forms when you've killed a lot of the same type of grimm, from what I've gathered. That said this one had been drawn in, not that it had been created—meaning it was already nearby and pretty much destroying my theory as to how they're created. That, or there are other ways for them to form. Spirits usually breach across into the real world via Illusion Barriers, it makes sense that an artificially created one would work in the same way, allowing them to escape if they're strong enough," I reasoned. "Come on, we have to hurry—the damn thing could be anywhere and it's not showing up on my map, or if it is it's impossible to tell with the rest of the enemies here."
"What about the question marks beside where it offers experience?" Miltia asked, sheering the head off yet another zombie with her claws.
I shrugged. "It means that either the system doesn't know or doesn't want me to know. I haven't decided yet. Could be both, for all I know."
"You talk about your Semblance like someone else is controlling what it does," Miltia pointed out as she stepped aside so I could send a trio of AP Rounds down range and annihilate a beowolf that had been lurking in one of the apartments.
While Melanie ducked into the room the beowolf had come out of to make sure it was clear, Miltia picked up the dropped potion and Lien and stuffed them into my inventory. We had found that the twins, being in my party at the time, could actually see my windows so long as I dug through the menu and set them to be visible to party members. With that, they could interact with them to a limited degree. They could read off skill descriptions, navigate menus, and look through options but not change anything. Likewise, they could put things into my inventory but not take them out.
Knocking down a zombie with a Mana Bolt for her to Coup de Grace, I shrugged. "In a way, that's sort of what it's like. It's like there's a front end—the part I control—and a back end—the part someone, or something else controls. If I am in full control of it, then the back end is being controlled by my subconscious mind because I have no direct way to influence it. It's kind of what I'm leaning towards, since it throws me clues all the time about certain things…" I trailed off, not wanting to go into details about popular culture where I was from, because if I did that would lead to questions about where, exactly, I was from.
"Sounds like you've got a secret," Melanie pointed out, coming back from securing the apartment as we moved on to the next.
I rolled my eyes. Of course the twins has a well honed ability to smell bullshit. I couldn't lie about it, and now that they knew it was there they were curious. Still, maybe they would respect my wish not to talk about it… "I do. I'd really rather not talk about it, though. Maybe one day…" Like never.
Surprisingly, they nodded in agreement. "It's okay, we understand," Miltia acknowledged.
The rest of the hunt passed mostly in silence as we focused on clearing as fast as we could. We made it up to the top floor, sweeping the other apartment there before moving on to my new place. Opening the door, we found it empty. Checking the rooms proved likewise. "Okay, where is it?" I asked, frowning. I had pulled up my map and, near as I could tell, there was nothing else in the building—which meant that it didn't show up on my map.
"The roof," the twins synced, quickly leading me out of the apartment and to a set of stairs leading up and out onto the roof.
We got the roof access door open and got out onto the roof just in time to watch a dark blur jump over the side. Rushing over, I caught sight of it kick off the side of the building, aiming for a point across the parking lot. I couldn't make out many details from here, but it looked smaller than a beowolf and its coloration was… odd. Spotted maybe—in shades of black, white and gray. Something about the pattern tugged at my memory, but I didn't have time for that now. Sighting it down and leading my target, I chanted, "AP Round!"
Two of the rounds missed. The third impacted its back, sending it into a tumble. A moment later, the air rippled like water around it and it was gone.
You have failed to kill the Grudge in time and it has escaped into the real world!
"Shit," I cursed. "Escape ID!"
We went down to the ground floor and looked around for any sign of the grudge. Other than a small splash of quickly evaporating black blood, there was nothing left. I had no way to track it. That was especially annoying because like Firearms Mastery, Martial Arts, Drive, and Cooking, I had actual, real life experience with tracking. I'd have to find a skill book somewhere, seeing as attempting to track the grudge hadn't unlocked the skill. "Well, it wasn't a total bust," I said finally as we reentered the building and we let the landlord know we were done.
"You're enjoying this far too much," Melanie grumbled as we took the elevator up to my floor.
I shrugged. "I've decided that I'm going to take what enjoyment I can out of life." Turning a smirk on the girl, I added, "Besides, I'm looking forward to this next part."
The twins shared a confused look before it appeared they realized what I was talking about at the same time, identical smirks crossing their own lips. "Right."
Getting the Sanctification ritual right was a bit more complex than I thought it would be. Drawing out the bounded field pattern was the easy part—we had the Dust (Purity White), we had the tools, after that it was just a matter of following the pattern. The skill's level wasn't so much a matter of success or failure as it was degree of success. So long as you performed the act correctly, it would always succeed—the skill's level just improved its effectiveness. Bounded Field had synergy with Dust Manipulation, so I gained the bonus for that and even leveled Dust Manipulation once I'd finished drawing out the barrier. No, the complex part was in the actual ritual. It was complex enough that, by the time we'd finished, I'd gained another two points to INT, and two to CHA.
I could have just dumped mana into it until it worked, but that would achieve sub-par results according to Sanguine's notes. Choosing to do the ritual meant the three of us had to synchronize both our Auras—which, being an outward manifestation of our souls would bring those in sync—and our bodies. It took a few tries, but the results were… spectacular, to say the least. I even gained a sub-skill for Bounded Field in Sanctification Ritual, which, naturally, had significant synergy with my Marital Arts skill—and the effectiveness of the ritual went up with the levels of those involved. In other words, the twins and I had a combined level of 57. If I brought Joan over and did this next time, the combined level between the two of us would be somewhere in the mid-to-high 70s or low 80s depending on how we trained between now and then. That combined level determined both how long the Sanctification would last and how powerful the monsters it kept out were. Between the twins and I, we could ward off something up to level 57 at the moment—meaning that if something wanted to try to cross over, it would have to create its own Illusion Barrier instead of relying on a natural one, which wouldn't form here, and then be above level 57 in order to breach my Sanctification. It should dissuade most things from even making the attempt and anything that wanted to cross over would likely pick somewhere else, because an active Sanctification meant Hunters—and things at higher levels tended to be smarter and thus wary of Hunters.
The quest Cleaning House announced its completion and granted me 2000 EXP. After everything we'd killed, that put me 4200 EXP from level 14. In addition, even after taking out the Lien I'd spent on clothes, I'd managed to make that back and then some, leaving me with 20130L. At the moment, I was too satisfied to care about quest notifications, however. No, I was more interested in a shower. Reaching out to cop a quick feel, I stood and helped the twins up off the floor. Below us, a tracery of pure white Dust glowed atop the surface of the floor, undisturbed by our passage as it was now part of the floor. "Come on, let's see about testing out that master bath," I suggested.
The twins agreed, though when we reached the bathroom, we found it lacking in toiletries. With a weary sigh, the pair got dressed and went downstairs while I waited. They returned a few minutes later bearing toiletries, towels, and a few other odds and ends. "Looks like we need to go on another supply run," Melanie announced as they stripped and we broke in the shower.
"If you don't mind, I'll give you guys some money and you can go get some things while I'm out," I suggested, receiving nods in answer.
Looking in the bedroom's full-length mirror, I took in the form looking back at me and frowned. The figure in the mirror had black hair swept back with gel into a more windswept look as opposed to Jaune's usual style, set over red eyes. My Semblance had helpfully added those details as 'accessories' that I could equip from the menu, instead of having to constantly dye and wash my hair. I'm pretty sure that broke physics somehow, but then, I was getting used to that. The thin, black neck gaiter covered my lower face from above the nose down. A tight, dark gray long-sleeve peeked out in places from under my black and gray chest armor. The armor itself was light and worn like a vest, buckling at the sides. There were similar armor pieces over my upper and lower arms, thighs, and shins, with pants in the same color as the shirt showing through in the gaps. A black duty belt hung at my waist with a couple of large pouches, for quick access to items I didn't want to throw into inventory. Dark black and gray combat boots went over my feet, completing the ensemble. All in all, I looked absolutely nothing like Jaune Arc—which was the entire point.
"Stop worrying, it looks good," Melanie sighed from her place on the bed.
Rolling my eyes, I saved the set under the name 'Stealth' and switched to the clothes I would be wearing for my date. Well, hopefully for only part of the date. "That still amazes me," Miltia commented from beside her sister, looking my now blond haired and blue eyed form over.
"Yeah, it's kind of awesome," I admitted. Opening up my inventory, I pulled out a 1000L wad of bills and put it on the foot of the bed. "That should take care of essentials."
Melanie shook her head. "As if. If we're going to be coming over or spending the night, we want nice things."
I shot her a flat look. "Necessities first, nice things later."
Miltia sighed, once more playing the peacemaker. "What Melanie meant to say is that we think you're underestimating the cost of furnishing a place of this size. You've got basic furniture, yes, but that's not enough. Even discounting high-cost purchases like telescreens or game systems, you're still looking at food, utensils, dishes, cleaning supplies, toiletries, sheets, blankets, towels, wash cloths, appliances… you're going to need about double that, at a low guess."
I didn't know the price of most things here in Vale, to be honest. Where I was from, though, yeah… I could easily see needing $2000 to cover basic necessities. I'd always bought mine over time, as the need came up, but if we were getting them all in one whack, it didn't seem outrageous. Looking around the living room, I hummed before asking, "How much does a telescreen go for?"
"Depends on the size and options," Miltia hedged.
Melanie had no such compunctions about answering. "For one worth having, between 1500L and 6000L."
I winced. Still, if I was going to live here and do anything other than read or have adult fun with the twins when I wasn't killing grimm, then I'd need something to keep myself occupied. That, and keep guests occupied. Besides, it's not like I wouldn't be making the money back soon—I just hated the idea of throwing money at a problem until it went away. A lifetime of frugality had taught me the value of every dollar earned. Reaching into my inventory, I pulled out a much larger stack of cash to match what was already on the bed. "You've made your point. That's 10000L."
"We'll bring back receipts," Miltia promised.
I nodded, the twins pocketing the cash and following me to the door. "I'll probably see about finishing this date up and then doing a few jobs. If I decide to quit early, I may swing by The Club." I paused, regarding the door and added, "Also, new locks. I can install them if you'll pick them up."
That taken care of, I left the building and made my way onto street level. Crossing the west bridge between the Residential District into the Commercial District, I turned east. Following my waypoint for where Candice had told me to meet her, I found myself arriving at a small restaurant that looked like it served some form of Mongolian barbeque—it wasn't called that, since Remnant didn't have a Mongolia, but the food was similar enough. I found her sitting at a table out front playing with her scroll and walked up.
"I didn't keep you waiting, did I?" I asked, checking my HUD and finding I was early.
Shaking her head, she put away her phone and stood. "No, no! I just got here myself. I came early, but I see you did too…"
"Mhmm," I agreed, taking her by the elbow and leading her inside, going out of my way to get the door for her. Opening doors, pulling out chairs, all those little things like that were things I had grown up being taught was simple politeness. By the time I… left my old world and came here, the world was slowly tilting into some sort of Twilight Zone parody where simple politeness was treated as an insult. Here, at least, it was appreciated.
We were seated and had a minute to look over the menu before giving our orders. Once we were relatively alone again, I asked, "So, how many books are there in that series?"
"Seven," Candice answered off the top of her head. "I've read them all. There's an eighth due out soon."
"Really?" I asked, getting a nod in answer. "It's pretty popular, then?"
The brunette nodded, her curls bouncing as she did. "Oh, yes. One of the best selling series not just in Vale but in all of Remnant." Looking down at the table as a flush crept across her cheeks, she asked, "What was your favorite part?"
It really had been a good book—honestly, as good as anything I'd read in my previous life. Better, in some ways, since they didn't dance around sensitive subjects or try to sugarcoat the world around them. Neither the heroes nor the villains were caricatures of human beings but had actual, real characterization and development. There were no 'evil cisgendered racist Nazi white male oppressors' in Ninjas of Love. The so-called 'social justice warriors' of my old world would have had a shit fit. Everything, from the Hunters' and villains' reasons for doing what they did to the primary protagonist of the volume's reasons for hating Faunus were all treated with excruciating detail. Even the sex was taken with a realistic approach—or as realistic as I was beginning to see things ever got with Hunters.
Finally, I shrugged. "I'd have to say it was the part where the Red Claw leader and the hero get trapped in the partly-collapsed building and wind up mutually raping each other. It was… cathartic."
Candice looked affronted and for a moment, I wondered if I'd made some sort of social faux pas. "That was totally not rape of any sort!" she denied quietly, but vehemently. "Yes, it was totally a power play or a dominance struggle, but definitely not rape. It's not rape if both parties want it. Rough, violent, maybe even a little abusive and degrading… but no one complained or cried rape after."
With a quiet chuckle, I sheepishly rubbed at the back of my head. Right. I'd forgotten, Remnant took a slightly different view on things. My world's concepts of right and wrong had been skewed over time and somewhere along the lines, they had forgotten that if adults consent, then no wrong is committed—except where it suited them, of course. It was common sense like that which had been seemingly lost on my old world. Things like the idea of consent—that one had to maintain 'continuous, enthusiastic consent' in order for an encounter not to qualify as rape and that a woman, but not a man, could retroactively retract consent if they felt bad afterwards for whatever reason. That simply didn't happen here, it appeared. Consent was implied on the part of anyone instigating an encounter—which, more often than not, I would wager turned out to be women rather than men. Likewise, if the other party did not object, they consented—as opposed to in my former world, where anyone could claim someone didn't object because they felt pressured and thus the act was rape. It painted everything Joan did in a slightly different light. Where I'd felt it was a bit rapey by old-world standards, it really wasn't by Remnant standards. Aside from that, I really had wanted it, regardless of the danger level involved. In a way, that just made it more of a turn-on for me.
It was one of those things about Remnant being different from what I knew from 'canon' that I would simply have to accept and adapt to. Besides, it's not like I intended to go out and start molesting women on the street. I was a man, a flawed one maybe, but not some base animal that obeyed every whim of its emotions and desires and there had never been a danger of that in the first place—the choices I made were choices, and I would take responsibility for them one way or another. I was not an 'adult child' as I'd come to think of the people from my previous world, who had infantilized themselves to the point that dealing with them was worse than dealing with children.
"Fair point," I admitted. "What about you?"
The blush returned as she reverted to her more shy persona. "Well, I really enjoyed page 108…"
I blinked, thinking back. "The uh…" I looked around before making a small slapping motion with my hand, to which she nodded. What she was talking about was actually pretty tame—involving a bit of discipline in the form of a spanking. "That's kind of tame," I pointed out.
"And page 110," she added.
I raised an eyebrow. "With the ropes?" When she nodded, I began to realize where this was going. The book had progressively gotten kinkier as it went on, though by the end hadn't really reached truly weird levels. 'Question is, is she teasing or escalating?' I wondered. Intending to find out, I asked, "What about… 316 through 340 or so?" The aftermath of the scene I'd referenced earlier, wherein the Hunter's 'partners' rescue him and the leader of the 'Red Claw,' which was essentially the White Fang without the authors coming right out and saying it, and proceed to demand he share his 'spoils,' resulting in group sex—naturally. Because that's how things were done in Ninjas of Love, apparently. And if the twins were right, then it was close to an actual recounting of events as opposed to the authors simply making things up—in a case of reality being stranger than fiction.
"That was, um…" Candice fidgeted in her seat. "Yeah. I liked that."
That was when our food arrived and we took a break to eat, moving on to small talk not revolving around her favorite book series. Candice was, as it turned out, a Hunter fangirl. I suppose that shouldn't be too terribly surprising, considering most of Remnant idolized Hunters. She turned out to be a surprisingly good source of insights into the world of Remnant itself, as she tended to volunteer information all on her own without me having to ask. It was something I knew most intelligent people did, myself being no exception, but it was particularly useful to my situation. As I'd suspected, working in the field she did, she absolutely devoured books—though not in the literal sense as I did—and was particularly well-read on Hunter lore.
With a few questions on my mind brought up today by the twins, I asked, "So, the grimm. What are they, exactly?"
With a sigh, Candice sipped at her drink before answering, "No one knows. Not for certain. That knowledge was lost well before the Great War. The most accepted explanation is that they're manifestations of all the negative emotions of humanity and Faunus given physical form. The fact that they mostly dissolve when you kill them sort of supports a metaphysical origin—though they do leave behind things. Bone, hair, blood occasionally. Those parts tend to be really, really valuable and useful. For instance, a normal steel sword does a good deal of damage to a grimm, but impregnate the steel with powdered grimm bone and quench it in grimm blood and you have a weapon that seems to have a personal vendetta against grimm the moment you put Aura into it. The more powerful the grimm the parts came from, the more powerful the weapon created. It's how most Hunter weapons are made, really—though, obviously they keep the specifics of how it's done secret."
"But there are other theories," I cut in as she took another sip—some fruity orange drink that I recognized as being mildly alcoholic. I was sticking strictly to soda, mostly because it took special occasions for me to drink—things had to be going either particularly well or particularly poorly for me to reach for a bottle. I didn't really like the stuff, to be honest, so I didn't really drink socially. I didn't need to be drunk or near it to enjoy myself and unlike people seemed to insist, I felt no measure of additional enjoyment to any event by adding alcohol. If enjoyment level were a stat and alcohol supposedly modified that stat, its effect on me would be a cumulative 0 as far as that stat was concerned at any level of intoxication. But again, there were instances where I bent that rule—very bad days, very good days, or very strange days usually.
"There are," Candice confirmed between sips. "Really old superstition says grimm are the spirits of the fallen—those who died an unclean death—enraged at losing that which was most precious, returned to the world of the living to destroy the living because we have what they can't have any more. Or something like that. It's what a lot of old horror stories are based off of. There's this really great, old book that tells the story of a wise man and his lover—though, whether they were lovers is up to interpretation, depending on where you're from… Also, sometimes the man is just a wise man, other times he's a wizard, while the woman is either a powerful witch, or the queen of the land. Anyway, the story tells of a woman who died horribly, tragically—so unclean a death that she came back to life. Some say her husband did it to spite the wizard. Again, tellings vary. Some have her resurrecting in her own body, others have her creating an entirely new body. Both, however, have pretty much the same result. She came back as a grimm—the first grimm. More than that though, a human grimm. Can you imagine that?" I shook my head and she continued. "The revenant—which is what the wizard, the wise man, calls her—razed an entire continent to the ground in her fury. Well…"
"Depending on the telling," I guessed, and she nodded.
"Right. Some have it as a 'kingdom,' others as 'the countryside' or similar wording. Either way, this revenant went on a roaring rampage of revenge through Remnant to right the wrongs rendered upon her in life, vowing to wreak havoc amongst the remaining lands as she claims is her right for their remiss in coming to her aid in her time of need. The story ends not with her defeat, but with the wizard tricking her into abandoning the realm of Remnant and then making sure she could never return. Or, another interpretation says the wizard couldn't bear to destroy her, so he exorcised her to the land of the dead and sealed her away—or the spirit realm, depending on your region. The second version lends credence to the version of the story where it's the king who killed her. In that version, she was betrothed to the king from birth but fell in love with the wizard, and her act of confessing that love caused the king to fly into a fit of rage and… do unspeakable things, if it was bad enough that she came back as a grimm. Obviously, people have been raped, murdered, and tortured throughout history and as far as we know there are no real human grimm, so whatever he did would have to have been off the scale horror-wise. Either way, it's a classic tragedy/horror story."
"It sounds good," I admitted. "I'll have to read it, at some point. In between work and training…"
Shaking her head, Candice grinned. "No, believe me, I understand. Hunter equipment is expensive, especially when you're just starting out and can't take on the sorts of jobs Hunters can once they've been certified. It's pretty admirable that you're willing to put in the extra effort to buy your own stuff."
I blinked, frowning as I asked, "What do you mean?"
She had the decency to look sheepish. "Well, you're an Arc—your parents are well-known hunters, as are most of your siblings. But there you are, doing it on your own, without relying on others to pay your way—as a man should."
Oh. Of course. Candice was a Hunter fangirl. My family was kind of a local legend. Of bloody course she recognized my name the other day. How could I have been so stupid? 'No, hang on. Nothing about this seems, in any way, like she's just into me for whatever fame my family has. She's a fangirl, not a groupie. Still, couldn't hurt to ask,' I mused. "So, what you're saying is, you asked me out 'cause my family's famous?"
"Huh? No! Absolutely not," she denied. Blushing, she chuckled nervously before adding quietly, "I asked you out because I thought you were an absolute cutie standing there trying to act all suave and hit on an older girl."
I blinked. "So… pity date?" I asked, confused.
She shrugged. "I haven't been out in a while and I thought we could have a good time—you could tell all your friends at school you got to go out with an older girl and I could feel better about not having gone out with anyone in a while. You've actually impressed me, though. You don't act your age, at all."
"I get that a lot," I deadpanned, rolling my eyes. "And here I thought you were going to ask me back to your place to act out pages 108 and 110."
Biting her bottom lip as her face lit in another blush, she quietly admitted, "Well, the thought had crossed my mind a time or two."
I stifled a laugh, earning a mild glare for the slip up. "You know I'm sixteen, right?"
She sent me a confused look. "So? That's well within the legal limit for Hunters, Hunters in training, and Apprentice Hunters."
"It's different for civilians?" I asked, and Candice's look went even more confused.
"Well, yeah. After the Great War—no, even before that given population decline due to grimm, but after the war they made it official—the kingdoms of Remnant decided that anyone who shouldered the burden of protecting the populace from the grimm was to be acknowledged as an adult. There had to be limits in place, obviously, so that limit is the absolute youngest age someone of exceptional talent will be allowed into one of the higher schools, like Beacon. Sixteen is the average, but fourteen is not unheard of. All of your older sisters made it in at fourteen—they're child prodigies, and everyone in Vale knows it. How do you not know this? It's one of the things they go over in training schools like Signal!"
Great, another of those things I should know but don't. "Would you believe I have a legitimate medical condition?"
My answer was an unladylike snort. "What, amnesia?" My blue eyes met her brown in a flat stare. "No way." After a moment more under my gaze, her look shifted from skeptical to confused. "But… how?"
"According to my eldest sister, I made the dumb mistake of walking into the woods seeking out grimm to fight and found some. Good news: got my Semblance and Aura. Bad news: I don't remember anything before the day I woke up."
"But… no, amnesia doesn't work that way," she denied. "I mean, sure, you could be missing a few memories here and there, but if you had total retrograde amnesia you wouldn't even remember how to speak. You don't just take a blow to the head, wake up in the hospital, and then go right back to training sans memories. And you, you're too confident, too self-assured to be an amnesiac! Talking to you is like talking to someone older than me, not a kid who doesn't even know who he is!"
"And yet…" I shrugged.
She took on a poleaxed look momentarily. "Well, you're not faking it—you genuinely don't seem to know things."
I decided to ease her away from the topic, since it would only lead to more questions I couldn't answer. I really needed a spell to make people forget things. 'Wait. …Okay, yeah, note to self: make a spell to make people forget things later.' Holding on to that thought for later, I asked, "So, legal age for civilians is what, eighteen?"
"Seventeen, between civilians. Sixteen between a Hunter and a civilian," she corrected absently. "With the population down, it was decided to encourage people to get together earlier to make more babies. You get tax breaks for having within a certain number of children based on a few factors: your and your spouses' IQs, income, whether or not you're a Hunter, related to one, or if one of your children becomes one… They aren't paying lazy idiots to out-breed smart or useful people. They're actively encouraging intelligent people and those likely to produce Hunter offspring to group up and reproduce."
"Huh," I hummed. It made sense, it had the sort of practicality that Remnant seemed to value. "If that's the case, how come Beacon and the other schools don't turn into giant baby factories?"
Candice rolled her eyes. "Because Hunters, even Hunters in training, tend to put the job first. There's no doubt that they screw like rabbits and the faculty looks the other way, but the actual incident rate for that sort of thing is surprisingly low. Can't finish the academy and graduate with your team if you've been knocked up, after all. The teams are actually pretty important, typically becoming permanent—most teams stick together for the rest of their careers, partners especially."
Shrugging, I asked, "So, is it true that Ninjas of Love is pretty much a how-to manual for Hunters?"
Blinking, Candice smiled and held out a hand, waving it back and forth in a so-so gesture. "I can't verify it completely, but supposedly all of the technical aspects they talk about work. The fanbase is pretty sure the authors are Hunters themselves, given the in-depth knowledge and details that go into it. I've um… kind of always wanted to work my way through my favorite scenes, to be honest."
Pulling my wallet from where I'd stowed it in my pants pocket instead of my inventory for this date, I pulled out enough to cover the tab plus tip before standing and offering her my hand. "Well then, let's go start working on that," I offered.
She hesitated a moment before accepting my hand and standing, allowing me to take her elbow again and lead her outside. Despite the difference in our ages, Candice was actually short for her age and we were about even in height. As we stepped onto the sidewalk and she began guiding me back towards her place, I asked, "What's your stance on twins?"
Candice blinked, stumbling momentarily before asking, "Twins?" I nodded and she looked confused. "Boys or girls?"
"Girls," I clarified. "I happen to know a pair…"
Judging by the sudden feel of a hard nipple pressed against my arm through her light dress, I had to guess she liked the thought. "Ah… I wouldn't know? I don't think I'd object, in fact it sounds appealing, but I've never… um… with a group."
With a shrug, I admitted, "Neither have I. Two at most." Shooting her a smile, I asked, "Want to find out, some time?"
"I… I think I'd like that," she quietly confessed, before pulling us towards an apartment building similar to my own, only a few blocks down and a street over from the pseudo-Mongolian place. Leading us up to the fifth floor, she took out her keys and opened her door. "Ah, this is it. Please don't mind the mess."
My first impression of Candice's room was books. Books everywhere. Books on shelves, books on the tables, books on the couch… So many books, the apartment smelled like a library. I sent her a smile. "Actually, I like it." It reminded me of… home, back before I left. I couldn't stand a mess, but having books everywhere never really qualified as a 'mess' for me. I couldn't really say that, however. And the smell—the smell of paper books has always been one of my favorite things.
Placing her bag and keys on a table beside the door, she locked the door and turned to offer me a shy smile. "So… which page would you like to start with?"
Moving in, I captured one of her wrists in one hand and put the other around her waist to pull her flush against me. "I've always found it works best if you start at the beginning of the book, instead of the middle…"
I dropped onto the roof of the apartment complex after three, opening the roof access and walking down and into the hall, to my apartment. I frowned as I tried my key in the lock, only to have it refuse to budge. "What the hell?" I grumbled, eying the lock. It looked shiny and new, which meant the twins had taken the initiative and changed the locks themselves. I was sorely tempted to simply open an Illusion Barrier, blast the door down, go inside, and then dispel the barrier and was just about to do exactly that when the door opened.
Melanie stood at the door in a white nightie, looking irritable. Seeing me standing there with my work clothes on caused her to blink a couple of times before stepping back and allowing me in. "What happened to you?"
Heaving out a sigh as I switched into casual clothes, I dropped onto the couch and the twins promptly took that as the invitation it was, dropping down to either side of me. "She got a little… excitable," I murmured, stretching out. I still wasn't sleepy even after staying up a solid 36 hours now, but I was physically drained. Sitting there, I focused on Meditation and healing.
The twins shared a look before each hopping off the couch and taking a hand. I allowed myself to be lead into the bedroom, where they promptly tossed my slightly larger frame onto the bed. A moment later, one was at my head pulling off my shirt and hoodie while the other worked on my boots. "What are you doing?" I mumbled into the pillow under my face. A pair of lithe bodies settling to either side of me and strong, nimble fingers suddenly digging into my back was my answer, as I groaned at the sensation. I hadn't had a massage in years back in that other world, let alone a good one—and the twins were exceptional.
"Being useful," Melanie deadpanned, digging a heel into my spine and putting enough weight on it to shift the discs in a satisfying pop.
From her position on my right, Miltia asked, "So, how did it go, aside from 'excitable?'"
"She's smart," I answered slowly. "Too smart, at times. Pretty much a walking wiki for all things Hunter, though. Got a couple of new… options, I suppose I should say."
"Oh?" one of them hummed, and at the moment I was hard pressed to muster the effort to figure out which.
"Mm," I confirmed, the sound being drawn out as a particularly stubborn knot was worked loose. "Yeah. A mood meter, for one. Sort of a generic meter for what sort of mood someone's in—it ties in with my Observe skill's ability to read emotions."
"You can do that?"
I nodded. "If I want to. This shows up as bar over someone's head, like HP and MP bars show up in combat. The other is labeled as 'Dating Mode' and goes with the Mood Meter. If I'm in dating mode, apparently the mood meter will tell me how 'in the mood' someone is. Apparently, it runs off my charisma score for a few effects—stuff like adjusting my Aura so I'm more attractive or something, I didn't read the details. I was a little distracted at the time."
The twins dropped down to either side of me, pressing themselves into my sides atop the blankets. "Wait, you mean more attractive than your Aura is by default?" Miltia asked from my right.
"Yeah. It gave me the idea to try creating a charm spell, when I get a minute. Let me put it this way: if I'm attractive by default, apparently this is supposed to move that from 'attractive' to 'panty dropping.'"
"Really?" Melanie hummed, a smirk crossing her face. "Why don't you do it now?"
I turned my head to shoot her a flat look. "Haven't you had enough already for one day?"
"It's the next day," Miltia argued from the other side.
Seeing as they had actually taken care of most of my physical issues and Meditation had taken care of the rest, I felt pretty much back to normal and ready for action. Aside from that, they did deserve a reward for their initiative, both with the apartment and the massage. Relationships, I had found, worked best with a rewards system in place. Do nice things, or thoughtful things, and earn rewards outside of the normal niceties of being in a relationship with someone. It worked, for the most part—it tended to work better if both parties were interested in going above and beyond the bare minimum of what qualified as things one should do in a relationship. That way, there was a sort of self-perpetuating cycle of reward and good behavior going on. People liked being treated well, people liked being rewarded, people really like being made to feel special—being able to do special things for someone and having that person put in the effort to return the favor was nice, when it worked.
Rolling onto my side, I mentally toggled the ability and watched as Melanie began to shift unconsciously under my gaze, her thighs rubbing together and her breath becoming shorter. I quickly realized the technique wasn't single-target and was actually an area of effect skill when Miltia latched onto me from behind, slinging a leg over mine to straddle me. "Yeah, we like that," she moaned as her sister joined her and any response I may have made was cut off by a panty-covered crotch easing down over my face.
'The things I do for my girls,' I mused. Positive reenforcement worked best, after all.