Chapter 7
There was no telling how long he ran for or how many miles he covered at a full-blown sprint, outrunning wild animals and crossing plans and forests in a single night. All Jaune knew was that his aura was flagging at around a quarter of what it should be, and that he really ought to stop if only because reducing his aura even further would serve no purpose.
They weren't going to be able to catch up with him anyway.
Slowing to a jog and then a walk, Jaune finally brought himself to a stop in the shade of a tree deep in a forest he'd never in his life seen. The trees were different to at the Lotus Temple – evergreens that hadn't lost their leaves for autumn. He had travelled roughly north, but that meant nothing. Crossing his legs, he sat down and gently drew his aura back from his lower meridians, allowing the fatigue to come crashing in like a sledgehammer. He would have collapsed if he hadn't already been seated.
The pain helped keep him grounded, and also distracted from the much more concerning agony creeping down his arm from where the faunus had poisoned him. It was spreading. His left hand felt like it has pins and needles from his fingers to his wrist.
Tyrian, the faunus, had used his tail as a weapon and Jaune didn't dare doubt the effectivity of his poison. Some scorpions could kill humans, or so he'd heard, and he couldn't help but think the venom of a scorpion-based faunus would be greater still. They were commonly neurotoxins, and not something you could hope to ignore.
"Was I careless, master?" Jaune closed his eyes, pushed aside the fear and doubt with practiced, meditative ease and considered the fight once more. "No." He shook his head. "I was outmatched."
He'd realised it quickly enough and sought to escape, so he couldn't say he had been reckless, carless or had made any mistake beyond being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He'd done the best with what he had, and now had to do the best with what he had left. It was tempting to grieve, especially when he accepted Master Ren's demise, but it would be a disservice to wallow in his misery here and let the last of Shu Ren's legacy die.
"Mourn my loss from your life, but do not mourn my death."
Shu Ren had known his death was coming. Jaune lowered his head. It had been a good death, and the best way he could honour his master now was to make sure he lived long enough to find one of his own. And, ideally, after living a good life first.
Untying his sash, he positioned it as tight around his left shoulder as he could, using his teeth to tighten it as a makeshift tourniquet. With aura remained was pushed to the joint of his shoulder, sent circling around his meridians there like a blockade. They would not be enough to deal with the venom, but it could heal the damage caused and delay it.
For a moment, Jaune considered his arm. It would be safest to remove it. The problem was that he'd probably bleed out after. A forest at night wasn't a place to conduct surgery, and his Jian was no bone saw. The thin blade would probably snap if he tried to work it through bone, and that was assuming he didn't pass out first. Even if he didn't, what was he meant to do after? Roll into a fire and hope that cauterised it? The whole idea was laughable.
Theoretically, his aura could be used to purge poisons. He'd heard the theory from Master Ren, but he'd never received the tuition. Too advanced a technique, he'd been told – and likely with good reason, as the only way to practice it would be to poison yourself first. Master Ren had obviously wanted him to be more proficient in his aura before trying something like that. It was a little too late for that now.
Sighing, he gathered the half a rucksack he'd been clinging to into his lap. So many of the scrolls had been lost when the faunus tore through it, but it had been the bag or his neck. Better to save half the scrolls than die saving none.
He'd have to go back. The thought worried him; there weren't going to be any scrolls left behind by Cinder and her fellows, but he couldn't rely on that as an excuse. There might still be some hidden away that they didn't find. Also, Master Ren deserved a burial – assuming there was anything left of him.
Before that, however, he had to survive. Closing his eyes and blocking out the pain, Jaune set his hands in his lap and the bag at his side and meditated. A normal person might have argued he didn't have the time with the neurotoxin running through him, but Master Ren had taught him to consider things slowly. A rushed decision would kill him far sooner than a thought out one. He pondered the nature of scorpions, the animal traits of faunus, and also his own mental and physical ability to survive an amputated arm.
Minutes passed in peaceful solitude. Tens of minutes.
Finally, after much consideration, he opened his eyes once more. His arm could not be removed safely, but nor could the venom be ignored. His only hope was to use his aura to purge it from his body, and he did not trust that there was time to sleep and recover his aura to a more suitable level.
Desperate times called for desperate measures.
And while he had sworn to Master Ren he would meditate before opening any of the scrolls entrusted unto him, he had done just that. He understood the dangers to his own life, but his life was forfeit anyway. With a deep breath to centre himself, Jaune reached into the bag and drew out the scrolls one by one and read them.
The names were flowery, vague, suggestive, but always without detail.
Heart Shattering Sutra, Jade Palm, Butterfly Strikes at Dawn. He had saved a dozen at most, less then half. The only relief was the abundance of orange ribbons among them, suggesting he'd rescued the most dangerous and forbidden. A double-edged sword here, as while it meant the scrolls with the greatest potential for harm had been refused to Cinder and her allies, it also meant the easiest to learn were kept from him.
Then he found one that stood out, wrapped in an orange ribbon.
"Demonic Gu Soul Technique."
"Gu" meant "poison" in a very simplistic manner. In one of his rare rants about the mysticism of the past, Master Ren had talked about the idea of spirits in swords but also in animals and poison used by certain sects. He'd said that poison as a tool made sense and had been used throughout history, but that so much of it had been mixed with nonsensical ideas of witchcraft and black magic that it was hard to know what was real and what was not.
The word "Gu" might once have referred to an animal they commonly took venom from, or maybe the individual who first introduced poisoned weapons to a tribe – or maybe it was just a collective word they came up with to identify the concept when you might be mixing poisons from several animals at once. Rather than call it snake-frog-caterpillar venom, you could just call the mixture "gu" and be done with it.
Still, it was a scroll about poison. Presumably how to poison someone you didn't like, but any instruction manual about poison surely had to contain some information on treating it, if only for when you inevitably pricked yourself with your own poison dart. Biting on the ribbon, Jaune drew the scroll back with his good hand.
There was no fanfare to such an ancient and powerful thing. The scroll rolled out, containing within it two metal instruments that fell on the floor. One was a metal spike with a tapered needle at the end, and the other a scalpel. Presumably for dissecting and picking things from a small animal. The scroll itself was covered in writing and diagrams, many of them being meridian maps. That must have been where Cinder failed to learn the Qi Disruption Technique.
Jaune had a better understanding of it. He set the scroll across his lap and began to read, running his good hand down the page to keep track. It was tempting to skip ahead, especially when the earlier sections were about poisoning someone else, but he couldn't rush this and miss important details.
The technique detailed how to poison your own aura over time, which was a shocking thought. You could, according to this, repeatedly take small amounts of poisons to not only improve your own resistance to them – which was medical fact – but to turn your aura venomous. That was the far less medically factual part, though Jaune couldn't tell for sure if it was real or not. Once your aura was poison, you could then inject it into your foes via any medical aura transfer technique, or in the midst of a fight via Qi Disruption, he imagined. The venomous aura would then begin to destroy their body from the inside.
"Aura is not limitless and will burn out," he translated. It wasn't a perfect translation. Nothing was with these old scrolls. "Venomous aura will not live in another body indefinitely like venom, but the damage it will cause in a short time will be catastrophic. The more intense the venom, the worse this will be. However, the venomous aura will forever be at risk of poisoning the practitioner, requiring constant meticulous aura control and purging." Jaune let out a sigh. "Talk about a suicidal technique. Not only will your own aura be poisonous to you, but this locks off any hope of using your aura to help or heal others."
It was also much too long-term a technique for him to use here. The texts suggested your aura needed to be slowly poisoned over years, perhaps a decade depending on how well you could weather the poison. And it started to delve into mysticism when it listed the poisons to look for. It began well, with snake, venom and plants that he was fairly sure were real, but then it descended into the usual madness of asking for the venom of a Deathstalker, a Basilisk, and finally the concentrated blood of a victim who had died from sixty-four poisons at once, administered by the user.
"Human sacrifice, then. I need to capture someone, inject them with sixty-four of the worst poisons imaginable, somehow have them survive, then kill them and poison myself with their blood. No wonder Master Ren wanted these kept secret. You could kill millions trying to replicate this and all so your aura could be just a little stronger."
The technique itself wasn't the prize anyway.
Defeating it was, and the scroll eventually got on to how to counter the technique. Namely, how to counter venomous aura locked within your body eating away at you. There were a few stupid suggestions like eating a "Miracle Pill" or a "Divine Soul Pill" – and he'd been warned to have a hefty dose of scepticism whenever the word "pill" was used. Even assuming they existed, he imagined it'd be more like synthesised anti-toxin, and he didn't have a lab at hand or proper tools. Just a scalpel and a needle. Beyond those, it talked about aura techniques he just didn't know. Maybe they existed in the other scrolls, maybe they didn't, but the detail here was scant.
And then he found it.
"One method to purge Gu is to defeat it with a stronger variant of Gu. As fire feeds into earth and earth feeds into metal, so too will the spider feed into the frog and then into the snake. When two poisons interact, they wage war on one another…" Jaune cringed. "This has to be nonsense. But is it…? These people would have died if it didn't work, and isn't a lot of medicine toxic in high doses…?"
Orphaned when he was only young, he hadn't exactly had much chance to learn about medicine. If he ever would have beyond following the label. Still, he'd seen documentaries on TV where the venom of snakes was milked, and while those series never went and showed how it was made into antidotes, it did say they were. There was always a line about how "the venom will be made into an anti-toxin to treat similar wounds". That was probably with a whole lot of clever medical science, and he doubted pouring poison in a wound on its own would help much, but he did have aura on his side.
And not a whole lot of time to waste...
It was the work of half an hour to find a snake with brightly coloured scales and catch it. His aura made the act trivial, as the thing couldn't bite through his skin. In fact, its attempt to do so left a convenient amount of its venom pooled on his aura-reinforced skin. He encouraged it to bite him a few more times like the world's worst snake handler before letting it go. It hurried off into the bushes hissing angrily while Jaune carefully angled his arm and used the dissecting tool to slide and pool the droplets together into a creamy bead on his skin about the size of a marble.
"This is the dumbest idea I've ever had," he said, not sure if he was talking to himself, the venom, nature, or the ghosts of his family tearing their hair out. "But I guess a snake like that would have venom meant to kill animals a lot smaller than a human, and it can't be any more dangerous than the venom a six-foot killer scorpion faunus has."
Though, saying that, he was still determined to keep his aura circulating around his upper body meridians, and to isolate the venoms in his arm while they did their business. While it made sense some of it would seep through, his aura concentrated in one place should be enough to repair the damage. And then he'd have to flood the meridians in his arms after to help it rejuvenate as well.
"Some mystical technique you are," he grumbled to the scroll as he dabbed the scalpel in the venom. "Poison self to beat poison. I'll actually be annoyed if this works as advertised and makes my aura venomous."
Though he'd be alive to be annoyed in that case.
"Here goes…"
Sitting cross-legged once more, Jaune forced his aura into place, closed his eyes, and scraped the blade over his upper arm where Tyrian's venom was eating away at him. The bloody lines instantly burned, tingling so hard it was like fire ants biting his skin. It would have been nonsense to say he could feel venom fighting venom, but he could sure as hell feel his body recoiling at the alien sensation.
But he forced himself to use all the snake venom, set the scalpel down and lay his hands one over the other in his lap. As his stomach flipped and his head throbbed, he let out a long breath and pushed himself into a meditative state of mind. All the while, his body fought as two poisons struggled to tear it apart.
/-/
It was late at night and Jaune stared up through misty eyes and a sheen of sweat into the starry night sky. His body ached all over, as if he'd run ten marathons back to back, and his throat was raw from choked-off screams. His left arm, on the other hand, was blessedly numb. The skin around his self-inflicted wounds was pussy and raw, but circling aura through the limb he could feel that it was still under his control.
The skin from his elbow to his shoulder and almost to his neck was an off-red colour, however. The discolouration looked like a mild burn, with skin peeling off and darker lines that seemed to represent his veins and arteries. The venom had crept far, but it had been held back from the majority of his bloodstream. Or so he believed. Perhaps this was the moment of calm before death, but he didn't think so.
Death wouldn't leave him so sore, hungry and thirsty.
Drained of aura, too.
His reserves were trickling about 5% at best, consumed in vast quantities to feed into his arm and hold the warring poisons back. That was with his fine-tuned control as well ensuring his aura circulated only through the meridians in his shoulder and arm. There had been no wastage, no lost aura to other parts of the body, and it still almost drained him dry.
A normal huntsman wouldn't be capable of this...
It was an almost arrogant thought, and he stamped down on that. To invite pride into your life was to invite failure, and there was little to be had in being put in this situation in the first place. Still, it was important to acknowledge that the technique would be of so little use to huntsmen given their lack of aura control. They might be able to fight off mild poisons, but nothing close to this level.
Yet more reason the scrolls had to be kept secret. And reclaimed. Cinder might not be able to master a technique like this, but she could certainly try – and cause untold suffering along the way. If the scrolls she had contained methods even half as questionable as this one, then that boded poorly for those around her.
Forcing himself up, Jaune stood and wobbled uneasily toward the river, then dropped to his knees and drank greedily of it. The purity of the water couldn't be certain but Remnant's wilds were typically lost to the Grimm whom, for all the evil lumped upon them, did an excellent job of preserving nature and local ecologies. A lack of human habitation meant a lack of human exploitation. More wildlife, cleaner waters, and an all-around better time for wildlife. Once he had drunk his fill, he slithered out his clothes and into the water, laying on his back and letting the ice cold current wash over him from head to toe.
It was invigorating.
He stayed like that for several minutes, until ice cold crept into his naked body and he was forced to pull himself out the water and onto the bank. There, with little regard for potential Grimm or animals in the area, he rolled onto his back and closed his eyes. Grimm were drawn by negativity, and Jaune Arc address his in silence, accepted the fact he had lost another family, and gently let it go.
"Goodbye Master Ren. And thank you. I'll never forget you."
The Grimm did not sense him.
/-/
Several birds took flight from Jaune's bare chest when he awoke with a groan. A few insects clung doggedly on, moving over his body, but they too were forced to abandon ship when he slowly rose to a seated position. His body still ached, but the pain was as dull as an old memory, and it didn't burn quite as much as it had before. His stomach felt empty, but years of consisting on only what he needed in order to survive had left him more resistant to hunger than someone growing up with the convenient plenty of a local supermarket. It was easily ignored.
Gingerly, he tested his left arm, moving it in slow circles and then going through a range of stretches. The muscles between his neck and shoulder were still sore, but his skin was only as pink as sunburn, and no longer an angry red.
"It worked," he said, in a croaked and scratchy voice. "For a certain definition of working. There's no way I could utilise this in a fight." And he was almost certainly going to have to face Tyrian again one day – not for revenge, but to reclaim the Lotus Sect's scrolls and preserve them. "I'd be better off entering that fight with enough antivenoms to protect myself."
Good preparation was as valued a skill as fighting, after all. Master Ren did not eschew human-made medicine, and neither should he. That was something to look into later, however. He hadn't been good enough to defend himself against the faunus, so challenging him now was a fool's errand. Instead, Jaune stood and dressed himself in his dried clothes, then went about collecting his scrolls and tying the Demonic Gu Soul scroll back up in its orange ribbon.
With any luck, my aura isn't venomous now. Surely it wouldn't work from just one time.
He'd been lucky here, but even that was inaccurate. He hadn't actually attempted the real technique – only the way of besting it – and that alone could have killed him. It brought to mind Master Ren's lesson about not taking the techniques for granted. The other orange-ribbon scrolls, Incarnation as he called it, were obviously far beyond him. To even attempt them was to commit suicide and spit on Master Ren's sacrifice.
This wasn't the place to think about it, however.
"With my aura feeding into my stamina, I must have run further then they can in a single day, and I doubt they made it out from their battle with Master Ren unharmed. Still, I've kept going in the same direction I fled. They'll find me if they just keep coming this way."
Without knowing much of the local area, he could wander endlessly and not find human habitation. It was said Grimm held 99% of Remnant, but that was probably an exaggeration. Even so, they definitely held more then half, so it wasn't unreasonable to think he could be lost for months and months on end if he just wandered off. And he also had to return to the temple at some point to see what could be salvaged. He needed directions or a map, supplies, and he needed to make sure nothing had been left behind.
It was with that in mind that he headed back the way he had come, but at an angle, skirting the retreat path he'd taken to make a beeline for the only place he knew: the village of Rest. The locals might not be happy to see him after the grief he'd caused them, but they would be content to see the back of him.
Such a plan was foiled after only two hours of walking, however, and not in an unfortunate way. Pale trails of smoke rose over the trees, much closer to him than Rest should have been, and Jaune slowly made his way toward them. He remained cautious, sticking to the trees and remaining hidden lest he find himself stumbling into Cinder's camp, but it wasn't long before he found the trees clearing, some sawn off at the base and felled, and then he saw the vertical wooden poles jammed into the ground side by side to form walls.
A settlement. Small, much smaller than Rest, with a number of large haulage vehicles parked outside, alongside a horrific-looking machine with buzzsaws and a conveyor belt. It looked like a monstrous weapon of war but was much more likely used to saw through and then drag fallen tree trunks. The conveyor led to some grinder-looking apparatus to knock off branches and twigs and slide it out the back as a relatively smooth tree trunk.
A logging camp. I wonder if they're locals or a company commissioned from Vale to gather lumber. There must be safer locations closer to the city to do that.
It was a boon all the same. Jaune stepped out from the trees and approached in plain view of those within, making sure to keep his gait even and his arms visible. One held his ruined backpack, pinching the top shut to keep the scrolls within, and the other was held in the air, waving to those atop the wall. Someone waved back, not necessarily a welcome but at least an acknowledgement that he had been seen. Jaune approached the open gates but didn't push his luck by entering. He stood there for several minutes, until a man in a high-visibility jacket with a yellow hardhat came out.
"Good day." Jaune linked his hands before himself and bowed, his bag dangling from his fist. "I am Jaune Arc, a local and... unwitting traveller, I suppose. My home was taken by the Grimm." Not a lie, of course, but an obfuscation of the detail of time. "I saw smoke through the trees and came to investigate. Is this a logging village or a company operation?"
"Company." The man was gruff but didn't sound angry. "How far are the Grimm?"
"Not anywhere close. My village is many miles away, enough that I've travelled and slept a whole night in the forest. I was hoping you might be able to provide me with directions or a map, or at least some idea of where I can find a village around here to gather supplies at."
"You talk funny for one so young," said the man, crossing his arms. "Are you a deserter, son?"
"I am not. Where I lived, there were never any recruitment agents. The war was a distant thing we rarely heard of."
The man relaxed a little. "Must have been nice. We've been tasked by the city to come gather timber out here. You're welcome to come in for some food, and I can see about finding you a map, but I'm afraid you can't stay here. We're under strict orders."
"I understand, sir. Thank you for your kindness."
"Kindness? I feel like this is the barest minimum a man could offer, and even then it's not much."
Jaune smiled. "It's more than I expected wandering through the forest, sir. To me, it's a kindness."
The man shook his head again, motioning for Jaune to follow him inside. Despite the walls looking like they planned to stay here for some time, the interior made it clear this was a temporary and mobile operation. There were no buildings, only tents, and some had taken to living in the back of the trucks themselves, opening them out and erecting tents off the back so they could cook in the open air and then retreat into the vehicles for comfort. There were a few men around a cutting machine that was sawing trunks into planks, and a few small forklifts moving those into the vehicles. Everyone was in uniform, including the men and women moving atop the rickety ramparts of the wall, wielding assault rifles and looking out over the surroundings.
"The name's Keith. Keith Rivers." The man, Keith, brought him into what turned out to be a small living area between the cabin of one lorry and the storage area at the back. Jaune was pointed to sit on a narrow bench that felt like it could be turned into a bed, atop a table that was slid into a hole in the ground and could be similarly dismantled when they needed space. "Do you drink tea or coffee?" Keith asked, reaching for a dust-powered kettle.
"Water will be enough, thank you." He'd drank neither when he was young and was worried now had thick and sludgy they would taste, especially with how much sugar people tended to put in them. "We didn't get many processed foods out where I lived."
"Hmm. Off the beaten track, was it?"
"Yes. Little more than myself and my uncle living a quiet life."
"That would explain why you were never drafted, I suppose." Keith returned with a plastic cup of water and his own cup of coffee and sat down opposite him. "Do you have a scroll? I can forward you a local map."
"I'm afraid I don't. We didn't even have electricity."
"Seriously? You're a real country bumpkin, huh. What did you do for food?"
"I would hunt fish, animals, and fruit. We would also purchase foodstuffs from a local village called Rest by trading animal skins. I don't suppose you've heard of it?"
"One second." The man checked his scroll for a minute or two. "Never have, but it is on this map here. Quite the journey. You say you made it here in one? It's at least three days by foot."
Three days in one afternoon and evening. He'd made good distance, though of course Keith meant three days at a more typical walking pace. Not the dead sprint he'd kept up and fed his aura into for hours and hours.
"I ran the opposite way from Rest to draw the Grimm away," Jaune lied. "So our home must lay between Rest and your position. It was about a day and a bit to trade there."
"Hmm. Makes sense. Well, you can make it back to Rest if you head south-west from here." Ketih held his scroll out so Jaune could see. "And if you go north from Rest for a couple more days, you'll make it to a slightly larger farming town called Volk's Valley. Built off the side of an inactive volcano, hence the name. Incredibly fertile soil from what I've heard. The place is well-fortified as well since it's a major part of the kingdom's food supply and unfortunately close to the front lines. Still, it's a place you can find transport to the city itself."
Jaune hummed as he committed the map to memory. Keith took it for granted that the city of Vale was his destination. That probably said a lot about how city folk saw the rest of the world. That everyone wanted in their hearts to live in the city. If this place was well-defended, that meant the military would be there, and Master Ren had been adamant on him not being drafted to fight and kill in someone else's war. He had his own plans too, and he couldn't hunt down Cinder and her allies if he was stuck fighting the faunus.
"Do you mind if I ask why you are all so close to the front lines as well?" asked Jaune. "There must be places closer to Vale to gather lumber from."
"You'd be surprised. The wood here is of a higher quality and it's not like we're the only group tasked with this. Lumber yards, quarries and mines are cropping up all over the kingdom, many guarded by huntsmen. It's a war economy, kid. Everyone has to do their part. Even so, we're mostly safe. We have scouts ahead and the White Fang will hit villages closer to us before they get here. We'll get advance warning and be gone before they reach us."
Leaving those villages behind. Jaune disliked the idea, but accepted these people weren't soldiers. The ones on the wall had looked on edge, and he expected they'd just been handed guns and an hour's training or so in how to use them. They wouldn't be much use even if they did decide to go and help the locals.
"Are there any other villages nearby?" he asked. "Some I could buy supplies from."
"Let me check." Keith scrolled through his device. "There is one about half a day to the south from our spot. Closer to the coast. That's dangerous territory – the water is as good as ruled by the White Fang on Vale's south and south-eastern sides. Mistral and Vale are focusing on holding the narrower part of the strait to the north, reinforced by Atlas' navy."
"And the west coast?"
"Not much action from what I hear. Vacuo has managed to stay out the war and I expect it's considered too long a distance for the Whtie Fang to care. I'm sure they use it to smuggle people in and out, and I'm sure we use it for the same, but no one is bothering to move an armada over there and weaken their positions elsewhere."
That made some sense. This war was going to be an unwelcome distraction, he could tell. Cinder was obviously using it as such. Master Ren had often said that chaos bred opportunity, and those who benefited from it oft perpetuated more chaos. He simply didn't know enough about the war to say who started it or who was justified, but he knew he wanted no part of it. The war didn't involve him.
"I'll head to this village first for supplies and then head west toward my home and Rest," said Jaune. He finished his water. "Thank you for your assistance today. I'll get out of your hair."
"Now hang on a moment, kid. You can't just be saying that and making me feel bad." Keith ran a hand through his bushy beard and sighed dramatically. "How would I look my missus in the eye if she found out I'd just let you wander off? At least let me grab you some food to take with you – and I'll see if I can't scrounge up a hard copy of the map."
"Thank you, sir." Jaune bowed again. "You would be surprised how rare kindness such as yours truly is out here."
"Yes, well, you'd be surprised how rare it is in Vale as well. Whole world's gone mad if you want my opinion, but what's that count for? I've never disliked the faunus, never judged them, but they'll as soon cut my head off as anyone's now. What's a man to do but help fight them back? I may have no grudge with them, but they have a grudge with my home and my family and that's all that matters. You'd better watch yourself out there, especially if you're headed near to the coast."
Jaune frowned. "Would they really attack me on sight?"
"I'm not one to demonise, son, but that's what I've heard. Impossible to know if it's us only hearing the bad stories or what, but this war ain't been pretty. I'd call it propaganda on our parts but I've seen the burnt out villages. I've seen the piles of bodies they set alight." He sighed. "Got enough spirit in them to gather up the dead and give them a funeral pyre, but that doesn't excuse what they're doing."
"And what is Vale doing in return?"
"Not that much," he said. "Now, Atlas? Aye, I can't say they aren't as bad. Dropping bombs on Menagerie and all. But that's not us. Just because we're allied with them doesn't mean we agree with their methods." He sighed. "But doesn't much matter what you or I think. What matters is what they think when they see a lone human on the wander. My advice is to stick to the woods and stay out of sight. Don't look for trouble."
"I understand, Keith. Thank you for your advice and for your help."
To his surprise, Keith came through with both a map and a better rucksack for him to transfer his scrolls into, along with some packaged ready meals that could be cooked over a fire. He was even able to find a thermos borrowed off another worker, filled with purified water for Jaune to take away with him. The lumberjacks were kind, more so than the locals of Rest had been, and Jaune shook hands with many of them before he left.
He'd soon realise such generosity was a rarity in Vale, and that he wouldn't find people as kindly as they for a long, long time.
Next Chapter: 16th April
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