Author's Notes

The story will be on pause until January due to me and stuff, so I'll be posting two chapters this week, one after the other, to make up for it.

Happy rats, and don't do crime!

Chapter 28 – New Digs

Spending money has never been so stressful for Jaune.

It turned out that buying an airship was actually a rather user-friendly process. That wasn't to say it was easy, or that Jaune wasn't giving it due consideration as he reviewed the options, but it wasn't nearly as snooty and restrictive as he'd expected.

Privately owned airships were an extreme luxury to most, so he'd imagined that it would be some sort of Rich Folks Only clubhouse that didn't like to let in the riff-raff, but it turned out to be much more like going to a car dealership. The vendors wanted business, given the huge profits that they made off of a single ship, so they did everything in their power to make sure you stuck with them and chose their product. That included giving tours, offering test flights, answering any and all questions, and even abandoning one model altogether to move on to another when Jaune said it wasn't what he was looking for.

I guess that, in the business world, they'll get all walks of life. Companies won't send their CEOs to buy the airships that they plan to use for shipping or personnel transport, so they must be used to normal folks like me.

He still came alone, though, as Team Job's representative. Just in case.

Blake had given him an idea of his budget and strict orders to not get suckered into buying something impulsively no matter how good a deal they offered. Even though she couldn't join him (rather, she didn't think it was a good idea for her to join him), she and Velvet would know much more about what was a good product for the price than he on his own ever could. All that he needed to do today was scout out the info on anything with wings below his price cap and bring it back home. Purchasing it could come later.

"Perhaps something a little smaller," Jaune said, in regard to the current airship in the lot that they were browsing.

"Of course, sir," said the salesman.

So far, everything they'd looked at was basically the top of the line for his price range, and all of them would cost Jaune everything he'd been offered to spend by Blake. It was tempting to just tell the guy to stop showing him the same airship but with minor additions to the wings and move on to something cheaper and more humble, but Jaune just kept mentally taking notes (and sometimes physically on his scroll when the details got too verbose).

Maybe there's some hidden gem that I'd miss if I skip anything. I'll see them all, and then the girls can advise me on which one we actually want.

"Our next model is the Xanthid Enforcer. It's similar in design to the small fighter jets used by Atlesians in their military, with minor adjustments made to remove the guns and instead improve the speed."

Jaune looked it over from the outside and through the open side doors, but he could already tell this one was a no go. Too much of the rear was cargo space, and there were only two actual seats behind the windshield. Unless one member of Team Job agreed to sit on the roof like a hobo on a train, they were going to have to go for something else.

Still, Jaune jotted down a brief note on his scroll just in case Blake or Velvet knew something he didn't and asked to continue on.

"If you're looking for something to act as a workhorse, we have the Aureate Twin and the Gala Canary." The salesman gestured to two slightly smaller and much more promising airships, at least based on their physical appearance. "Both are popular among businessmen who seek to make quick jaunts between the kingdom and local settlements. If you're looking for something to fit in your garage that guarantees the safety of you and your crew for day to day flights, it's the airship for you."

These two did look promising, so Jaune decided to give them a closer look.

The first airship was a twinjet with one helico-engine on both wings, which were conventional rotation engines that also had external blades to provide extra lift. The wings could rotate on their axis to allow for a purely vertical takeoff and subsequent propulsion. Jaune counted just one pilot's seat, but there were four in the back that could fit the rest.

It would be useful if we ever hire another employee to have space for them on the ship.

The entire thing was painted with a metallic gold coloring that Jaune didn't much care for, but as long as it worked, it could be painted polka dots.

Or could it? Bright colors might give us away if we're fighting hostiles. Most bandits don't have SAR missiles on hand, but that doesn't mean there won't ever be.

"Is it always gold?" Jaune asked.

The man smiled and nodded.

"Oh."

Realizing that this was a downside for his customer, the salesman immediately backtracked and said that it was some sort of calling card to show off ownership of a finely crafted vehicle, but at no point did Jaune hear any actual retraction of the statement.

I'll just ask Blake and Velvet if it's going to be a problem. They'll know for sure.

As for the other one, the canary thing, it only had one engine at the rear of the ship, but it was probably one and a half time the size of its counterpart. The wings looked frail and flimsy, more like rudders for steering. There was no way they could generate enough lift to oppose the bulky fuselage's weight.

"How does it…"

"Gravity Dust," filled in the salesman. He seemed very proud to have a question he could positively answer. "Most conventional airships use Wind Dust and aerodynamic design to provide thrust and lift to counter weight and drag, but the Gala Canary has a one-of-a-kind engine that completely negates the need. The wings, truth be told, are mostly for show, to keep people inside calm. I know what you're thinking – Gravity Dust is more expensive, so why should I buy an airship that runs on it? See, that's the trick. The Canary doesn't use even a quarter of the fuel that other airships of similar size use. Pound per pound, fueling up to full costs more, but you can stay in the air far longer on that same tank."

"I do like these," Jaune admitted. "Both of them."

"Would you be interested in receiving a quotation for either of them?" the man offered.

"I don't think I'll be buying today, as I need to run it by the guys in accounting, but I'll almost certainly be taking one of those two if we don't see something better."

It would have been easier to not have to make any promises to the guy, but Jaune wanted to clearly send the message that he wanted more airships in this vein and less of the giant but somehow extremely useless other ones.

"Of course, sir."

Jaune perused the lots for three more hours, getting detailed rundowns on every airship that fit his criteria. Most of them looked pretty much the same to him aside from minor cosmetic changes, but he dutifully copied down the specs just in case. By the end of it, he could probably recite the eight major criteria of the radar chart that airships were judged by.

There were so many names as well. The Hyperion, the Polar Starline, the Shadowdragon, the Pondhawk, the Flare's Breath. They started out really cool, all of them epic sounding in their own way, but as more and more came Jaune's way, he started having difficulty distinguishing them, until he could see them as nothing but pretentious. Jaune tried his best to categorize them into three columns – Yes, No, or Maybe – based on how well they fit what he knew the team needed, but by the end of it, there were fifteen airships in the 'yes' category and twice as many in the 'maybe.'

I've done my job, Jaune thought to himself, his mind numbed by the copious amounts of memorization he'd had to do. All they asked me to do was go to the airship dealership and get the stats on the ships. The others can sort out the rest.

Promising to come back later, Jaune got the name of the salesman so that he could request they picked up where they left off and ensure he got the commission when the time came. Then, it was back home.

Blake herself had taken on the task of scouting out a working space for them so that Team Job Security would actually have a brick and mortar place when a customer came knocking. All of them so far had done it remotely through the website, but Jaune understood that even just adding a picture of them standing in front of an office of some sort would do wonders for them.

It was so weird, when he thought about it sometimes. They were planning to increase their rates to 25,000 lien per job, which would still undercut the average huntsman mission by a half or less, but most of the stuff that they were getting wasn't going to change the quality of the job they did. Having their own airship, which Jaune had already decided would be christened the Job Hunter when the time came to name it (because, like, come on), would cut costs for Team Job because they wouldn't need to rent Benson's rust bucket, and having their own office space would give them a place to stay and keep their stuff other than their personal apartments, but a client wouldn't care about that. It's sole function in terms of advertising was to make them look more professional and thereby more employable, but it still disturbed him a little bit to think about.

We could be the best security consultants in the world, but we'd be at the mercy of a client's whims because we don't have licenses. I mean, we aren't the best security consultants in the world, but…

Actually, come to think of it, there probably aren't many other people doing what we do, and those that do won't have their auras unlocked, so maybe we are the best security consultants in the world. At least in the kingdom; we've got that one locked down for sure.

Velvet was out getting their weapons inspected by a blacksmith, which, in spite of the name, was not just some sweaty dude in a forge as Jaune had been expecting. Like the SDC's stagecoach, it was a thing that took a familiar name for convenience of understanding, but the career of smithing had evolved with the times to become a modern science at this point. A blacksmith was more of a weapons engineer, the kind that would design Gambol Shroud or Anesidora using computerized schematics, 3D-printing, and high-tech machining. Perhaps the original type of blacksmith, one who used a hammer, anvil, and forge, had built Crocea Mors, but that only made it a relic from a bygone age. Jaune had insisted on keeping it, but Velvet had insisted he at least get it looked at for faults and potential improvements as she saw fit.

Since they weren't sure if Blake would find a good place in one afternoon, they were once again meeting at the apartment, but it was hopefully for the last time this time. Jaune arrived last, finding both girls already there and waiting for him when he pushed through the door.

"Ladies. How'd everything go for y'all?"

"Not bad," Blake said, going first. "It took me the better part of the day, but I think I found a nice spot for us. It's basically just a front lobby where we can put a desk plus a single back room, but the price is just barely acceptable, provided we pay up front."

"And that price is…?" Jaune asked.

"Two hundred and sixty thousand lien."

Jaune could have fainted. "All that for two rooms? We sold 800 acres for about twice that!"

"It should, but land in the city is expensive. Trust me, this is the best I could find."

He did trust her, but that didn't mean he wasn't a little upset at having to fork over a large portion of their biggest payday yet just to get a scrap of land.

It was best to move on to the next problem. "Velvet? The weapons?"

She nodded and picked a duffle bag off the ground. Inside of it were Gambol Shroud, all folded up, a sheathed Crocea Mors, and a bunch of other things that Jaune didn't recognize.

"Blake, the smith guy said your weapon looked like it had been cobbled together from spare parts," Velvet stated, handing it over to its owner. From what Jaune knew of her origins as a White Fang agent in the impoverished country of Menagerie, that may very well have been true. "Anyways, he made the ribbon a lot sturdier using some metal thread weaving, and the Dust usage is now 3 times as efficient. Some of the parts that would have eventually failed due to compressive or tensile stress were replaced with…well, with parts that won't."

Blake took back her sword and began to turn it over as she visually inspected it. To Jaune's untrained eye, it looked exactly the same, but he wasn't its owner and would freely admit that he probably wouldn't recognize any major changes even if there were any.

"Jaune, uh…Crocea Mors was actually in perfect shape. He said it was the most well-built blade he'd ever laid eyes upon."

Wow. I guess that my great-great-great-grandfather's blacksmith must have done a decent job, then.

"I did purchase some of the smith's commercially available sidearms, just so you could have a few somethings when a plain sword won't cut it."

The duffle bag was handed his way, and Jaune shuffled through the remaining contents after claiming his ancestral blade. Velvet had also gotten him a small crossbow and an angled dagger that was probably a few inches shy of reaching a full foot in length.

"You'll have to collect the arrows for the crossbow after shooting them if you don't want to buy new ones, but they're made with metal hafts and poly-fibers fletches, so they won't break when you fire them," Velvet explained, pointing out a small bundle of the arrows that the crossbow had been on top of. "And the dirk is for extremely close-range fights. If you can't find the range to swing Crocea Mors, you can pull that out to give yourself an edge when hand-to-hand combat starts."

Hand-to-hand combat was probably where Jaune needed an edge, given how atrocious he was at it. Swordsmanship was progressing faster now that he could train with Blake at the gym they'd subscribed to, but he really had trouble with fist-fighting. Ironically, Velvet often seemed just as deadly without a weapon as she was with one.

"Good job, Velvet," Jaune said, looking over the new weapons. The crossbow's limbs and stock folded up neatly into the shape of a single rectangular prism, and both it and the dagger were light enough that he could put them on his belt or in his pockets without hindering his movements. "How much did it all cost?"

"Everything? The tune-ups and the new stuff?" Velvet shifted in her seat. "Eighty thousand."

Once again, the sheer absurdity of the price nearly made Jaune flop over and die in a heap on the ground. It was common knowledge that huntsman-weapons were prohibitively expensive (yet another way that they kept outsiders from joining, Jaune was slowly beginning to realize), but that much for just some inspections and two tiny side weapons?

"It's supposed to be one-time investments," Velvet explained, clearly seeing the distress on Jaune's face. "These are weapons that won't wear away or break down over time. It's the same thing as buy land vs. renting – we probably save more money in the long run by getting tougher stuff in the first place than paying to have it fixed every time a screw unfastens or a groove is eroded until it's flat."

"It's fine," Jaune said, trying his best to believe it. They had the money, and it was supposed to be worth it to spend it, after all. "Did you get anything for yourself?"

"Nope." Velvet patted the camera slung over her shoulder by its strap. "Don't need anything."

Blake sat up. "Wait, so it was 80 grand for just our two weapons? That's…That's a bit high."

Velvet just shrugged. "It sounds about right to me, pretty consistent with the receipts we used to give Beacon for reimbursement. It's very technical work, you see, to build these kinds of weapons to such exacting specifications, and the blacksmiths that do it have to study for a long time to learn their trade."

Jaune looked down at the folded-up crossbow in his hands that probably cost about three times as much as one of Team Job's early missions paid out in total. To him it looked just like a regular piece of treated wood with some metal added in, but it probably required very special materials in order to make a crossbow that could fold up as it did without being ruined. Still, Jaune had to wonder just how truly valuable 'mech-shifting' was as a tool. Blake's sword became a gun, but that made it cost three times as much as either of them combined, and with barely any benefit. Twenty thousand more lien for a touch of convenience at not having to tote around two weapons and switch between them.

"Was there no way we could have gotten a discount?" Blake asked, testing the strength of her new and improved ribbon. "First time customer or something like that…?"

Velvet rubbed her cheek. "I considered trying to haggle with the blacksmith and see if he would lower the prices, but I'd just gone down on him, like, ten minutes before I got the bill, and I didn't want him to think that that was just so that he'd give me a discount. It would have been unethical."

Of flippin' course. For a second, with all the recent good business advice she'd given and upcoming promise of motherhood, I'd almost forgotten who Velvet was, and how she'll chase after anyone with a pulse. I guess that she's already pregnant, so at least there's no more risk.

"The money's already been spent, either way." Velvet looked over at Jaune. "I guess we'll need to take how much we have left into account when we choose an airship. How'd that go, Jaune?"

Jaune took out his scroll and opened up the list he'd made before handing it to Blake. "I've got forty-seven options to choose from, but there are fifteen that I think are particularly viable. Given how much Velvet sp…how much Velvet had to spend, we can narrow that down to about ten options that really slap. We've first got the Gala Canary, which is in the 'light cruiser' category. It's got a top spee–"

"Sounds good. Let's get that one."

Blake returned the scroll to him.

"B-But…the…V-Velvet, do y–"

Velvet nodded. "Any name-brand airship fresh off the dealership is good. If it's in the right price range, I don't really mind."

"Wait, but I thought that you guys knew more about this than me! I spent hours looking through their offerings to find the best one."

Blake looked up at Jaune and frowned. "We never said that."

"B-B-But…"

"Jaune, I was worried you'd get swindled into buying an over-the-top battleship or some box of junk. We don't care what airship we get as long as it's cheap but not a lemon.

Jaune tried to form a rebuttal in his head, but nothing came up. As he reran over the conversation they'd had this morning, he slowly realized that they'd never actually ordered him to do anything but not buy something impulsively.

I…I assumed that they knew airships, but only because they were huntress who'd flown in them before. Well, I've flown in them too. Does that make me an expert?

"So…"

The conversation had continued without him, and Blake and Velvet were no chatting about the changes they eventually wanted made to the website. "Yeah?"

Jaune bit his lip. "Actually, never mind."

"Where's the rest of you lot?" Benson asked as Jaune walked into his shop.

"They're not coming." Jaune handed him the punch card. "I'd like to go to Ansel."

"Ansel?" asked the middle-aged man. "What's in Ansel? They havin' Grimm troubles?"

"Nope. My family lives there."

Benson uncomfortably shifted from behind his desk. "You, uh, throwin' in the towel?"

Jaune just shook his head. "Nope."

"Alright, then. Ansel it is."

If they were going to own an airship, then they would no longer need the taxi service they'd been using up until this point. Thus, Jaune felt no guilt or shame in squandering its last use to make some random, impulsive flight when it would have otherwise been thrown away.

It's not like I can go back to the dealership and buy the new airship today. I told the sales dude that I was going to have corporate take a look at my findings or something to buy time, time that I was supposed to use consulting the girls on which airship is best. If I turn up less than a half-hour after leaving, it'll be obvious I lied.

So Jaune was just D-wording around on his own and visiting his family.

The realization that Blake and Velvet weren't these all-knowing master huntresses he'd assumed them to be may not have been something that should have shocked him as much as it had, but that didn't change the shock Jaune felt. Thus, he'd decided to pass the time by just doing whatever.

If the girls didn't have some concerted plan to account for his actions, he felt like he could just take the night off and be back before midday tomorrow. Velvet was doing her doctor's appointment, and Blake would be signing the deeds of the office space (it would be in her name to balance out the bank account being in his). Perhaps it would be better if he stuck around and did something productive, but Jaune was feeling diet nihilistic about everything, so he was just taking the night off.

It wasn't like he'd thought Blake knew all knowledge in the world about business, nor had he believed Velvet was the finest living huntress in the universe, but he'd always assumed by default that they at least knew more than him about everything. To learn that there were instances where they too just made it up as they went…

I thought for sure that Blake would scrounge up some deal and get us the cheapest land there was, or that Velvet would come back with indestructible weapons for a bargain. But they just did their best, no different than me.

Jaune supposed that this was the moment he'd become an adult, so to speak. There had always been a parent or a teacher or a boss to tell him what to do before, but right now, Jaune was a self-employed man, and he was taking the evening off because he felt like it.

It felt…free.

Coming Soon: Later

Velvet tells her story, and Blake has to wrestle with some uncomfortable truths about herself and her teammates.

Author's Notes

There's no supreme meaning to the ending or something, nor is this Jaune losing his faith in his fellow Team Jobbers. It's not some sort of villain Arc arc or something. I just once had a similar life experience once and wanted to write up my feelings on it as best I could. Although my personal life experience involved chocolate cake, so it's sort of paraphrasing.

A lot of their money is spent, but now they actually have an office and a bird and tuned up weapons. A company lasts longer when it has equipment, so this is probably for the best.

Happy rats, and don't do crime!