I'd like to say something before I began this chapter. As you may have noticed, most of my chapters are relatively short (2000 – 3000 words each). This is because 1) I am terrible at stretching out chapters with extra details, so the chapters tend to be short and 2) I like to keep my chapters quick and easy to read through. This also allows me to add to the story much faster than if the chapters were 7000 – 10000 words long (Alot of fics I've read have these lengths).

Anyway, on with the story!

"Another." Ruby spoke, with a slurred voice, as she tapped her finger on the bar counter. She was in a small, dingy bar that was close to the entrance of the village she was staying in. The man behind the counter scoffed and went to get another drink for her.

Beside her, Cecilia groaned. "Ugh, I can't… I don't…" Cecilia struggled to form a sentence. She let out another groan and turned her head to face Ruby. "No more… Dr-drink. Dunk… I mean, Uhhh… Drank… Uh, drunk. That's it. Drunk." She giggled a little. "Drunk."

"Me too." Ruby responded. She, too, was drunk beyond all belief. Thankfully, years of going blackout drunk left her with a fairly high tolerance to the stuff. She had to drink more to get truly hammered, but that mattered little to her.

Cecilia wobbled a little on her chair and then leaned in hard against Ruby. She rested her hand on Ruby's shoulder and looked up towards her face. "Your… cute."

Ruby looked towards Cecilia with amusement. She lightly pushed Cecilia away, and the girl groaned. A long time ago, she might have blushed upon hearing such a bold compliment, especially from someone as good-looking as Cecilia. Heck, there was a time when she would of outright denied any attraction to her. Of course, Cecilia's comment could be the alcohol talking, and Ruby wouldn't take advantage of that.

She'd fallen far, that much she was sure of. But she hadn't fallen far enough to partake in something as deplorable as taking advantage of someone sexually.

Taking advantage of them economically, though? That was a-okay, in her book.

She sighed and pushed away those thoughts, just in time for the bartender to finally return with some more beer. Ruby took the drink and put it to her mouth, leaning back as she took a swig. The man paid no attention to her and went back to doing whatever it was he did. Ruby didn't quite care.

What she did care about was the rather annoying chill that she felt on her back. "Hey, bartender! Close one of the windows, damn it. I can feel the wind on my back."

The man looked at her with an annoyed expression. "I'd close it… If I fucking had one!" He pointed towards something behind Ruby. She turned around to look at it. Her vision was blurry, but she could tell that what she was looking at was a completely broken window. A few wooden boards were there, in a rather vain attempt to cover it up, but the breeze still found it's way in, along with the rain from the storm.

"...Oh." Ruby looked stunned at the sight. Okay, I'm pretty sure this was the bar I fought in two nights ago. She looked towards the walls, and the bullet holes confirmed her suspicion.

"Yeah. I was upstairs when it all happened. Fuckers took their bar fight a little too far." The man groaned and walked away.

Pfffft, it's not my problem. Ruby took another swig of her drink. It tasted like shit, but it was better than nothing.

"I'm sorry, but I simply can't sell this for what your offering." The man in front of Ruby spoke. He was bald, and wore a small pair of glasses. He sat behind a small wooden desk that had a few sprawled out maps littered on top of it.

Ruby responded to the man by slamming another few tins of food onto the table. "There. Happy?"

"Well…"

"Take it or I swear to whatever fucking God's are out there I'll slam one of these cans right into your face."

The man looked stunned, and leaned back into his wooden chair. "Uhhhhh… Deal."

"Pleasure doing business with you." Ruby said, before walking off, map in hand.

The map itself was of high quality. It was mostly up to date, and included the locations of many villages, both in-use and abandoned, along with a few points of interest, mostly abandoned dust mines and old farms. It also included a few areas where bandits were common place. The borders of the last two nations Ruby would ever bother to visit were present as well. It even marked the territory of a few warlords, as well.

Ruby used to entertain the idea of becoming a warlord. Take a town, go on raids, fight other warlords, claim more land, It all seemed very profitable, and would leave her with a far better lot in life. Of course, it had it's disadvantages as well. Chief among them was the blonde idiot that would have a far easier time finding her, and once he did, he'd probably kill her with an idiotic speech about how being a warlord is outright evil.

There was also the fact that warlords were, generally, complete fucking pricks. She took down one that tried to take over Patch with a ragtag navy.

His fleet ended up at the bottom of the ocean thanks to the help of Vale's navy, and his body was found washed up on the coast of the Grimmlands. Or Mortalis. Or whatever they call it these days.

It also marked the other Grimmlands towards the south. It was given that name because of the ridiculous amount of Grimm that inhabited it. The few people that dared to enter it rarely came back.

She exited the shop and walked off towards Cecilia's house. She had a lot to look over on the map, and a hell of a lot to plan.

Ruby looked over the map that was sprawled out over the table in the living room. Cecilia was off in the kitchen, making tea for the two of them.

She took a closer look at the path she had planned out. First, she'd leave the village with her supplies and head west, through the massive forest that covered that area. There were a few settlements, but they were marked as abandoned on the map. Of course, there was always the chance that the someone occupied them after they were destroyed, and the map was simply out of date.

News travelled slow nowadays. Sure, the CCT was still online, and scrolls were still a thing, but it was limited to the people of Vale and the settlements that were loyal to them. No one else could really afford to set up their own communications hubs, bar a few rich towns that had the manpower and Dust to maintain them.

There was also Mt. Glenn, which had it's own CCT. It would be as easy as walking up to it and bribing a few people here and there to use it. Of course, the only downside would be that a certain blonde parasite would have an easier time finding her and, to be quite frank, she had little intention of encountering that prick.

Ruby sighed and pored over the map once more. Past the forest was a large clearing. Apparently it was the location of a few farms and a couple of measly villages. What caught her interest was the fact that it was marked as warlord territory. A small line was drawn around the area, showing the border of this idiot's little fiefdom. It gave no further information, but it was somewhere she intended to avoid.

Past that was the coast, where a boatman she knew could take her straight to Patch. The old bastard charged a hefty fee for his services, but he was one of the few people that bothered to ferry people there.

Once she reached her destination, she could return back to her house and take a long deserved break. Hopefully, an annoying blonde wouldn't kick her door down and go on a rant about how she 'abandoned everything she ever cared for' or how she 'is single-handedly the most heartless person since Cinder fucking Fall' and then drag her off to do something borderline suicidal.

If he did, that fucker would get a bullet between the eyes.

Before she could rant on in her mind any further, Cecilia walked into the room with two steaming cups of tea in her hand. Ruby eagerly took one of the cups from Cecilia's hand and took a sip. It was very hot, just how she liked it.

"So, your heading out soon. Right?" Cecilia said.

"Of course. I have a long journey ahead of me." Ruby responded. Once the storm fully passed, she was out of here.

"Just… Come back to see me one day." Cecilia asked with a smile.

"Of course. I don't want to freeload off of you, though." That was a bald faced lie. Of course she wanted to freeload off someone.

"You've saved my life two times already. I owe you. Big time."

"Damn right you do!"

Cecilia let out a laugh at Ruby's response. They talked through the night, mostly about random things that, to be quite honest, Ruby didn't care for in the slightest.

Hey, at least I'm not being shot at or starving for once, Ruby thought to herself.

Ruby looked over her equipment one last time as she stood by the village gate. She replaced her stockings with some tight-fitting black trousers, and she found a suitable pair of combat boots from one of the shops in town. She cleaned out the rest of her clothes, and patched them up wherever she could.

After a week of non-stop rain and thunder, the storm finally passed, allowing her to leave the village without having to worry about any rough conditions on her journey west. The gate was left wide open for her, and the nearby guards gave her a polite nod as she left the village, behind her, Cecilia shouted her goodbyes, waving the entire time. Ruby waved at her with a smile, and then turned back around to walk along the road.

The gates closed behind her, and the guards went back to their normal duties. Ruby looked at the village and sighed. It would be nice to stay behind and make a life there, but she didn't want to. She had other plans, and settling down wasn't one of them.

She walked along the stone path that went west. Puddles dotted the road, left over from the storm that lay siege to the area. There was a certain part of her that wanted nothing more than to jump around in them for a while and relive her childhood memories. A certain part that yearned for the days when she was naive, innocent and optimistic.

Such naivety doomed her and her friends in the end. Infact, it probably doomed the whole world.

As Ruby walked, the sun began to set, and nightfall soon came. Welp, it looks like I need to set up camp somewhere, Ruby thought as she let out a little lawn.

The campfire that Ruby set up in the middle of her camp burned brightly in the night. She sat on top of her sleeping bag, which was close to the fire. Her boots and cape lay next to her supplies and Crescent Rose. Her sword was close by, in case anyone found her in the night.

She had a warm can of beef stew in her hand. As she ate from it, the warm stew filled her up. It was tasty, and compared to her usual provisions it was some gourmet shit.

She finished it off and threw the can into the forest. It's not like there's anyone to stop me from littering, Ruby thought to herself. She laughed a little at the thought.

After a while, she became bored, and decided to read a book before bed. She went over to her bag and pulled out Ninja's of Love from the bottom of it. She found a quaint little book store back at the village, and this book just so happened to catch her eye. It was Blake's favourite and was, by most standards, the sluttiest thing Ruby had ever read.

Didn't stop it from being a good read, though.

Ruby walked back over the her sleeping bag and sat down on top of it. She opened It up at the first page and began to read.

Damn, Blake, you have some good taste in literature.

Chapter fin. Ruby leaves the village, sets up camp and then reads some absolute filth. I was going to make a joke about how it was Kali Belladonna (Blake's mom, if you don't know somehow) that wrote it, but I couldn't find a place to fit it in.

I made sure to add some information on the world. This was mostly conveyed through the map that Ruby brought and some extra bits on the warlords. You might of noticed Mt. Glenn pop up, along with the fact it has a CCT. You might be asking how a destroyed city would have people in it, but I intend to reveal that later on. I also revealed that Vale has an actual military now, unlike in the show (Which I always thought was weird. Why the fuck wouldn't you have an army in a world full of the Grimm?)

Anyway, onto the next chapter.