I don't own anything.
My name is Jaune Arc, and for as long as I can remember, I've wanted to become a Hunter. A hero like my father before me, and his father before him. The protectors of humanity that stood between the people and the creatures of Grimm that would see us destroyed.
There was just one problem with that. I, Jaune Arc, was also the runt of the litter.
Jaune Arc
Level: 1
HP: 100/100
AP: 200/200
Vigor: 10
Mind: 10
Endurance: 10
Strength: 10
Dexterity: 10
Intelligence: 10
Dust: 0
The screens had also been there for as long as I could remember. At first, I had thought that everyone saw them, that it was normal. The first time I had mentioned one to my mother, I had been 6, or was it 7. Doesn't matter. That day, I had learned that it was most definitely not normal, and thus I had never mentioned it again.
As far as I could tell, they showed me how strong I was. Which, admittedly, wasn't very. Hell, even my younger sister was stronger than me, and she was 2 years younger than I was. It was almost like a video game, but then again, in video games your characters generally got stronger, I didn't.
Exercising never increased my Strength, Dexterity or Endurance, no matter how hard I pushed. My Vigor didn't go up by eating healthy foods, my Intelligence and Mind didn't increase by studying. And most of all, I never got any experience. Not from training or sparring at least.
I idly kicked a rock further into the clearing, brooding like this wasn't exactly the most useful way to spend my time, but I didn't know what to do anymore. I wanted to become a Hunter, I had never wanted anything as bad as I had wanted that. And while I knew that my parents and sisters meant well, their 'subtle' urging to look into a different career path was not helping my mood one bit.
"Grrrr"
The soft growl broke me from my thoughts, as I turned towards the sound. Behind me stood a small, bipedal wolf. Black fur and small white bone plates covered it all over, and though it was no larger than a regular dog, it was a hell of a lot more intimidating. 'How the hell did a Grimm get this close to town?'
Beowolf
Level: 3
I tried to back away slowly, avoiding any sudden movements, but the thing wasn't having any of it. It leapt at me, its little legs carrying it further and faster than I had expected. It hit me in the chest, its small bone-white claws trying to savage me as best as it could, taking a chunk out of the blue aura meter at the edge of my vision.
Frantically, I grabbed one of the rocks on the ground next to me and slammed it into the Grimm's side, pushing it off of me. The red bar hovering above its head dropped a little, though looking at how much damage it had done to my aura in comparison to how much damage my own hit had done did not bode well for me.
As it ran at me again, I tried to kick it in the face, but instead of hitting it in the jaw, it went wide, hitting the thing's ribs instead. It might be a higher level than me, and it was probably stronger than me too, but the Beowolf was still just the size of a dog. I weighed maybe 3 times as much, and no matter how strong you are, if it couldn't hit me because I sent it flying every time it came close, I would eventually win.
My moment of triumph was short lived, however, when it dodged my kick on its next charge, and bit into my extended leg, taking out another quarter of my aura bar. Desperately, I slammed the rock into its head as it hung on, using its claws to take more and more of my aura off.
By the third time I hit it, my aura bar had gone completely empty, and stars covered my vision as the fucking thing's teeth sank into my calf, drawing blood. Its own health bar was nearing empty as well, though, and I frantically slammed the rock into its head again.
'Come on. Come on. COME ON!' I thought as my own health bar neared half. With one final Crack, the bone plate on the monster's forehead broke completely, bringing its health bar to 0. I dropped to the ground as the fucking thing began dissipating into flecks of black dust, and the wound on my leg stopped leaking blood.
ENEMY FELLED
+487 DUST
It was the last thing I saw before I passed out.
When I woke back up the clearing, my HP and AP bars were full again and the sky was colored orange from the impending sunset. The wound on my leg was gone, the only evidence left was the ripped and torn pantleg stained red from where the Grimm had mauled me.
As per usual, my 'attribute page' greeted me as soon as I opened my eyes, the translucent grey screen blocking the center of my vision. This time, though, something was different.
Jaune Arc
Level: 1
HP: 100/100
AP: 200/200
Vigor: 10
Mind: 10
Endurance: 10
Strength: 10
Dexterity: 10
Intelligence: 10
Dust: 487
For the first time in my life, the page had changed. There was Dust there now, whatever that was, and next to my attributes, there were little arrows. Experimentally, I poked at one of them.
Jaune Arc
Level: 1 - 2
HP: 100/100 - 110/110
AP: 200/200
Vigor: 10 11
Mind: 10
Endurance: 10
Strength: 10
Dexterity: 10
Intelligence: 10
Dust: 487 - 337
CONFIRM?
I could level up? I could actually LEVEL UP? And all I had to do was KILL FUCKING GRIMM? I had spent years wasting my time training to no effect, and now I find out just killing one little Grimm could increase one of my attributes, which had not budged once in my life, by 10%. The rage I felt bubbling up was quickly smothered by the sheer excitement of it. Finally, FINALLY I could do it. I could become a Hunter, and nobody would be able to tell me otherwise.
No more 'You aren't improving, Jaune. Isn't it time to look at something different.' Or 'Come on Jaune, this school looks good, doesn't it?'. No, now I had a way to finally get stronger, to finally chase my dream. If all I had to do was kill Grimm to get stronger, I would be a Hunter in no time.
I popped one point into Mind, and one point into Strength, leaving me with 137 Dust. As I pressed the confirm button, I felt a rush of strength fill me. I felt light, like I could do anything. It was amazing.
With a big grin on my face, I hurried home, carefully avoiding Mom as I made my way to the bathroom to wash the blood and dirt off before she locked me away so I couldn't get hurt again. Being the weakest of the brood, my parents and sisters were understandably a little overprotective of me, but that wouldn't do right now. I was not giving up my chance to become a Hunter because they thought that it was too dangerous for me.
Crocea Mors
A legendary blade with a storied past. Wielded by heroes of old to hold back the monsters of the world.
Scaling:
Strength: B
Dexterity: D
Intelligence: E
At night, after my parents and siblings had gone to bed, I snuck into the attic. Avoiding the creaking steps that would assuredly wake my mother. She had always been a light sleeper, and if she caught me leaving the house at night, it would be game over for me.
Silently, I looked at the sword that my great-grandfather had wielded during his time as a Hunter. From the stories dad had told me, the man had been one of the strongest hunters in all of Vale, and had not only served to hold back the creatures of Grimm, but it had also held the line against the Mistrali armies during the Great War.
Even now, 80 years later, the blade was in pristine condition. Its steel surface gleamed in the soft rays of moonlight that poked through the attic window. Touching the edge, I saw my aura flare up on my finger and the blue bar at the top of my vision dip slightly. 'Still sharp.' I smiled.
With a quiet hum of steel, I put it back into its sheath.
Heater Shield
A collapsible shield that was adapted into being a sheathe for the legendary blade Crocea Mors. Created with the first examples of Mecha-Shift technology, the shield can swap between forms by expanding or collapsing.
There was a whole list of its defensive properties beneath the description, but I paid it no mind as I strapped it to my arm. It was heavy, but with the strength increase I had seen earlier, it was manageable. Slowly, careful not to be discovered, I made my way back down and out of the backdoor.
In my excitement, I never noticed the verdant eyes that followed me on my way to the edge of town.
Ansel was not a large town. In fact, it was one of the smallest towns in the kingdom of Vale. With a population just shy of 6000, it barely even qualified as a town. The main reason it could even function this far from the city of Vale without being overrun by Grimm was the fact that several Hunters called it home. In fact, the town had the most Hunters-per-capita in the whole kingdom besides Patch, which was home to Sanctum, the prep school for Beacon academy.
So, it should be no surprise that it only took me a good 20 minutes to make it out into the wilderness. The fact that the Arc household was already near the edge of town certainly didn't hurt.
"Now what does a man have to do to find himself some Grimm around here?" I murmured to myself with a little smile on my face. The fight earlier today had been scary, yes, but the rush that leveling up gave me overshadowed that completely. Just knowing that I was getting closer to my goal was exhilarating. And I couldn't wait to do it again.
I didn't have to wait long before I heard a rustle in one of the bushes to my right. Looking over, I saw another Beowolf crawling out of the underbrush, larger than the last one I had fought. On four legs, the thing's head came up to my elbow, and at 6 foot and change, I was not a small guy.
Beowolf
Level: 4
With the ringing sound of steel on steel, I drew Crocea Mors and expanded the sheath into its shield form. And it was a good thing I did, because not a moment later, the monster was upon me. The wolf crashed into my shield, bashing a paw the size of my face into it, almost knocking me off my feet. Even with the metal blocking the hit, my aura dipped a little, though only a little bit.
Before I could retaliate, another hit pushed the shield to the side, leaving me open and off-balance. Hurriedly, I stabbed forward with my sword, the tip crashing into, and tearing through the bone plating on the Grimm's chest. Looking at its health bar, it had dropped nearly a quarter. A smile split my face from ear to ear at the sight. The rock had not even taken a tenth of the lower-leveled Grimm's HP, and now I could kill this thing in 4 hits?
'Note to self, don't get distracted in the middle of a fight.' I thought as the Beowulf took advantage of the lull and tried its hardest to take my head off. The hit took nearly half of my aura with it and knocked me to the ground. I rolled out of the way of the follow-up swipe before slashing at its paw, cutting it off completely. When it bashed its face into my shield again, I strained as I shoved, pushing it off its feet. With a final stab, I brought its HP bar to 0, and the Grimm dissipated.
+520 DUST
With a smile, I put another point into Strength, relishing in the feeling of power flowing into me. The smile never left my face as I continued further into the woods.
Breakfast at the Arc household was always a loud affair. Especially in the summer when all the kids were home, other than Saphron who had moved out to live with her fiancée earlier that year. All of us looked rather similar, especially the girls. Lithe figures with blonde hair, all with eyes in some shade of blue or green.
Across from me, Violet and Lavender, the youngest, were doing their best to take as much of Sapphire's bacon as they could before she stopped them. Sapphire, who had graduated Beacon last year, and was now a fully-fledged Huntress, pretended not to notice what the little brats were up to.
Next to them, Rose and Indigo were arguing about some cute dress one of them had inevitably 'borrowed' from the other without asking, while mom did her best to mediate. And lastly, Jade sat there, not touching her own food while she stared at me. For a moment, I wondered if there was something on my face, but even after I wiped my mouth with a napkin, she was looking at me.
Well, when in doubt, ignore it.
"What's got you so chipper?" I looked over to my father, Nicholas Arc, as he spoke. He looked exactly like me, or rather, I looked exactly like him. If you ignored the fact that he had 4 inches and a hundred pounds on me. The older man was built like a tank.
"Dunno, it's just a nice day, isn't it?" I said, the shit-eating grin from last night still plastered on my face. He gave me a weird look, but after a moment, he just sighed and went back to his own food.
Now that I think about it, that's probably why Jade was looking at me funny, too. I probably looked a little strange, smiling for no reason after spending the whole of last month being down about the fact that I probably wasn't going to make it into Beacon. There was only one more month of summer left before the new school year would begin, and before that first fight with the Beowolf, I would have never made the cut.
But I couldn't help it. Every couple of minutes, I would pull up my attribute page, just to look at the numbers that had finally changed.
Jaune Arc
Level: 10
HP: 100/100
AP: 240/240
Vigor: 10
Mind: 12
Endurance: 11
Strength: 15
Dexterity: 11
Intelligence: 10
Dust: 383
I had spent 16 years of my life wasting time training. And apart from the small bits of weapons training I had picked up, the time had been wasted. Now, after a single night of fighting Grimm, I had become half again as strong as before. My aura had also grown and I was nimbler and less likely to get exhausted.
Sure, it was getting more costly to level up, but it was also easier to fight the Grimm. The weaker Beowolves that I found in the forest around Ansel were no longer a danger to my life except for when they ganged up on me. And while, intellectually, I knew that any Beacon initiate was probably still a whole lot stronger than me, the fact that I had made so much progress in a single night was still encouraging.
"So Jaune, have you decided what you're going to do this year?" I snapped back into reality as my mom stopped trying to break Rose and Indigo's spat up, and instead turned her attention to me.
"I'm going to Beacon, mom." I told her, and I already knew what the answer would be. A sigh, a frown, and then-
"Come on Jaune, I don't want to discourage you, but we both know that as you are now you won't pass the entrance exam, let alone the initiation. Don't you think it's about time to start thinking of a backup plan."
A frown of my own wormed its way onto my face, and I couldn't help but feel a little hurt at the lack of faith. Sure, I knew that she wanted the best for me, and I also knew that if I hadn't found a way to level up, I would have never, ever made the cut. But it still stung. She didn't believe in me, and I could tell that the others at the table who were paying attention didn't either. Even if they didn't say it.
"I'll make it mom, you'll see." I shot back. And I did my best to ignore the look of frustration that flashed across her face.
"Just, Jaune, I thi-" She started, "You know what, never mind." She gave up. And the resignation on her face was even more hurtful than her doubt. She was just waiting for me to fail, ready to pick up the pieces afterwards. Looking back at dad, I noticed that he had that same look. They were so certain that I wouldn't make it, and that stung more than any Beowolf bite ever would.
A/N: Okay, I really need to stop. Another story, but I was re-reading The Games we Play and Another Dance at Death's Border and I couldn't help myself. A gamer story on Remnant, Soulsborne style, which I think fits perfectly with the world.
First off, despite this being a gamer story, Jaune won't be OP, or even strong for a long, long while yet. To give you some perspective, the Deathstalker they fight in initiation is Level 94. Pyrrha is around Level 50 and the average Beacon initiate is around Level 30-40. If you are familiar with the Soulsborne games, you should know that his leveling will taper off significantly now, and with the enemies available around Ansel, he'll be lucky to reach Level 30 by the end of the month.
He's also not going to have magic, but he will have a different semblance than he does in canon. That is what INT will scale with. Just like in Soulsborne games he also doesn't have skills, since this way he will have to learn how to do things the hard way, and his classes will have an actual point to them. Skills are also annoying to keep track of and often boost a character too much for my liking.
Anyways, if you guys enjoyed or have any feedback, feel free to leave a review. If your review has a question, I will respond in a PM, so make sure to check your inbox on the website, since the app doesn't sync your PMs. (Don't ask why.)
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