(((Authors Note)))
I wrote my fics on my phone. Yes I know. I typed with my thumbs. Oh the horror. I copied it into the story file in the fanfic app, adjusting which paragraphs are in italics and which are in bold and which are normal. Then I saved it. Looks fine when I saved it.
Then I upload the chapter and it went into whatever upload error it becomes. So sorry about the random ass bolds and italics at not appropriate places.
Guess we all have to sticks to static normal alphabets from now on. Stupid fucking app.
I will try one trick to ensure this one uploads normally without the bold and italics error. Hopefully it goes well in this chapter upload.
Chapter 2: This is not a crossover fanfic. Nuh uh.
I looked at my final haul from Orario Express.
634 Vali. If you think that is a lot of money in this stupid town, then you're in a rough time.
To give the gist of how bad the inflation within this city is, here is an example.
What is a food you think worth 1 dollar?
A small burger?
Okay, that fucking small burger cost 100 Vali to buy here.
Yep. My profit is currently worth 6 small burgers. That's my economy now. The thing is, food cost and loving expense is supposed to be normal outside the walls, but in here, everything had its value skyrocketed.
And they still pay you minimum wages here. Unless you work diligently as a Miner, you don't have much of a good prospect in life here.
So here's the plan. I'm gonna keep leveling until maybe Level 5, then fuck off outside and open a mercenary business. Coz fuck this city man. Its only good for levelling up.
Who the hell thinks going into a hole is an adventure? Fucking dumbasses. Never let the ads fool you. You are a fucking Miner and you will not be fooled to think of it as anything else.
Anyway, its nice to finally be clean, well, as clean as you can get by jumping into a pool of dubious water by the church and cleaning your teeth with charcoal as toothpaste. One step at a time, Soren. This fanfic name is Awakened as a Hobo in Orario, not Surviving. Surely I wont stay a hobo forever.
Anyway, this pair of doughnuts tastes awesome after weeks of just eating trash. Finally, some real food. I was just peacefully minding my own business on Floor 1, practicing my murder skills on some goblins, when the wall of the dungeon bulged and spit out what I was pretty sure not a goblin. Can't be. I'm pretty sure goblin isn't tall. Or blonde. Or wielding a sword and a shield with double crescent crest.
Holy fuck, is that fucking Jaune Arc???
"Urghhh, where am I?"
I poked the delirious dude with the butt of my short sword sheath. Oh good, he is real.
"w-who are you?"
I looked up to the ceiling, asking my Writer. This isn't a crossover is it? Coz I really don't want to deal with anymore RWBY characters here. Lord have mercy if Blake spawns in here. I know I had no canon males to act as my bros here since I am 5 years back into canon but did you seriously just fucking spawn in fucking Jaune Arc just so I have some dude to work with?
"Hey? Where am I?"
Urghh.
I took out my pocket mirror and began to scroll my menu for the add party member function.
You're lucky I enjoyed Coure al Aran fanfics, you blonde bastard. I was half-mind to leave you stranded here.
)))))))))
"Oh, so that's what's going on in this world?"
To save us all from boring exposition texts, I take the executive decision to do it all offscreen and save us the boredom.
"Yep. And now you're in my party. Now, keep munching those magic rocks."
"Err… okay. Can't believe you can power up by eating rocks here."
Jaune Arc is now the second member of White Raven Agency, just registered him an hour ago. Right now we are powerleveling by using Orario Express to provide us the good cereal bowl that is farm fresh magic rocks.
Now, with each 100 increment of stats, the cost to raise 1 stat point is the double the previous SP. Something of a built in nerf to prevent me from just raising stats to 1000 right of the bat I assume. I'm waiting to see if the next increment would either triple or just set it to be 3 SP per 1 stat. God I hope its just simply 1 instead of multiplication. It would took me forever to level if that's the case.
"Alright, let's raise our stats up. I'll cover for you.", I order Jaune as I looked around the dungeon of Floor 3.
"Again, thanks a lot for helping me out, Soren."
"No problem. I need someone to cover my ass anyway, so just think of this as me investing in you."
You're an MC, Jaune. I gotta have to cling to your plot armor to survive.
According to Jaune, he was camping on his way to Beacon, when he got attacked by Grimm. Pretty stupid of him. Why the hell you camped right in Grimm territory? Well at least I wont have to deal with him sobbing over losing his friends. Never really liked the RWBY characters that much really. The only good thing about that show was the Monty-animated fights.
"Alright, let's get outta here. We wont start a proper mining work until we got decently 100 stats across the board Jaune. Lets go wait the next Orario Express."
"Aye aye captain.", Jaune gives me a goofy salute.
)))))))))
After weeks of grueling powerleveling through Orario Express, me and Jaune finally crossed the 300 stats threshold.
"Hooray to our 300 stats mark! Hurray!"
"Woohoo! It was hard just eating rocks and sleeping with hobos for weeks, but we're finally can become proper Miners!", Jaune cries some tears of happiness over our hard achieved hard work.
And thank god it was just 1 SP cost increment instead of multiplication. That would be a nightmare to level!
Its probably not going to reset and keep increasing as we level up but at least its not at some impossible rate to keep up with.
We cashed in our Express haul this time, and got to carry off so much more rocks to haul upstairs with our new third member, Liliruca Arde.
"And we are getting so many magic rocks easily too, Lord Soren! Lily wished she think off this Orario Express idea earlier!", the 10 years old, not as jaded Liliruca is excited with this rookie cheat scheme I came up with.
I pat her head as she squirms in excitement of a life turning around for the better. Now that I am eating better, my body starts gaining its much needed fat and meat. Based on what I looked in the mirror, I estimated this body of mine to be maybe 15 years old. Maybe older, had it not been malnutrition stunted my height. Pretty sure I'm not a Pallum.
Man, I hope this system boosted growth fixed my height. I'm like barely reached 160cm in height, man.
Its good that I managed to save Lily earlier than canon.
((((((Two weeks ago((((((
So, I was walking around the slum when I see Liliruca got beat the shit outta her by Zanis and his goons.
Something something about not keeping up with her quota something.
So, I figure, you know what, lets say hi to Zanis.
"Oh, its you Soren. Looks like you had been filling out."
"yea Zanis. Funny how just a bit of fresh doughnuts can really fill you up huh?"
"Good for you."
"Anyway, do you have any good job for me-!", in a flash as he is distracted by my question I swung my knife as fast as I could and slashed his throat.
Zanis fall clutching on his throat and gurgled in his own blood.
"YOU! YOU KILLED HIM!!?", the two goons screamed.
"what? No. He isn't dead yet.", I correct them. "Now scram. I'm like Level 3 and stuff. I'm totally above your paygrade."
I totally bluffed, but eh, I don't expect much IQ from Soma junkies.
As Zanis squirms in his last breaths, I approached Liliruca which was paralyzed in horror over me having just killed Zanis just like that.
What? It's 5 years in the past. I hardly doubt Zanis, the lazy bastard that he is got Level 2 that quickly. He probably slowly level up safely over 5 years, which means If my guess is correct, he's still a level 1 currently and not that much of a superhuman yet.
I saw a chance to get rid of him and took it. Plus, I can finally take Lily away.
"Alright kiddo, wanna join my mining company?"
"Huh???"
((((Current time))))
"And that's 2000 Vali for today. I have to say, for a rookie group, you guys works fast.", Rose praised our clearly superior entrepreneurship.
Seriously, I have zero idea how no one figured out about Orario Express. I don't even bother hunting monsters most of the time, I just have Lily carry around a big ass bag and me and Jaune would shovel as much of those magic pebbles as we could. Had we not need to eat it for power, we could have had like 10k to 15k income every day easily.
We ate most of the rocks to powerlevel and trade the spare for food expense. As we had become a 300 stats tier Level 1 now, we had gone to the abandoned church and shoo away all the hobos and junkies there, and turn it into our base. White Raven Agency now has its own office. I even registered it. Turns out it was an unclaimed land.
Welp, its free real estate.
Right now, we planned to ride the Orario Express as deep as we could until we reached Level 2. Then we took this mining job seriously becoz at some point the SP cost will be too big to sustain with just picking up leftovers in Upper Floors.
"Well, Rose, you got any idea how can I get Blacksmith development skill?"
"you just have to keep doing smithing, and then when you Level up, the option will be open for you to choose."
"heee, I see."
))))))))
I take out the small piece of burning red metal and began to hammer it.
Everyday, as per Rose instruction, I had been forging a small blade everyday before going to bed. Now normally, it would be expensive for me to afford forging even for a small knife. Even charcoal is overpriced here, man.
However, it was neat that I unlocked my skill the other day.
Skill:
-Firebending: control and generate flame and other sub element associated to it with expressing it via body movement. Drain Mind.
I spammed my MGI stats so hard on the day that I unlocked it. What a boon. Is this my OC hax? To firebend like a champ? Huhu.
Anyway, I mostly used it to fuel my furnace. Its very convenient to heat up metal without the need of much coal. After a day of work, I came to my impromptu forge and do a quick knife forging for an hour before sleep. Gotta grind those smithing levels man. I have plans.
As I'm done with my daily forging, I enter the church… no, our home now.
The place look like a pig sty and is probably is, but renovation had to wait. I had discussed with everyone and we concluded that there's nothing more important than breaking through Level 2 before we can do anything fancy like making this rundown half rubble church into a proper home. That can wait.
As I stare at my sleeping comrades, I steel my resolve.
We will become Level 2s, and start building a new life. But for now, we grind our stats, every single day
"Soren?"
"Hmm, You hadn't sleep yet, Jaune?"
"I was thinking. I think I'm going to learn to forge too."
I sat, thinking for a bit.
"I don't think we need to 2 smith in our company. Wouldn't it be better if you train to have other development ability instead?"
Jaune rise up from his…. Stack of rags of a bed and sat crosslegged. yea, we burned all our woods to make fuel for the forge before I got Firebending. So no furniture here.
"You try to learn forging. While Lilu try to learn alchemy by mixing up random poisons. I try to think what kind of skillset I should develop, and cant just figure out any. If I learn to smith, I can help you out ", he reasoned.
Well, that do make a lot of sense. But I still think we better off have a third skillset instead of double the same one. I would suggest him try out magic item engineering, but then we don't know anyone that can teach us that.
Maybe it is better if we just have a second blacksmith. The things I plan to produce is pretty complicated afterall, even with a Development Ability.
"You said back in your world, you have this complicated weapon technology right? Do you think you can make it here?"
"I don't think I can.", Jaune shrugs. "Not as complicated as back in my world that is. But I used to fiddled around my family's firearms. I think that coupled with a Development Ability, I can reverse engineer it from memory."
I smirk. "That'll do Jaune.", I gestured him to follow me to the forge outside. "Let me show you the basics of knife forging."
)))))6 months later)))))
I don't know if its 4 seasons in canon or this is just fanon as I observes the snow fall under the roof of my forge. I didn't check the calendar, but lets just assume its December now. Easier for me to relate the timeline.
Usually, we would already waiting at the entrance for Orario Express, but today, we will no longer do that.
Yesterday, we finally broke through Level 2. All 100 stat cap on every category. 6 months of hard work finally paid off. We can finally take a break.
Finally, we can make our own money and afford better things, but I think we still going to leech off Orario Express for the next 6 months. Its still easy money for rookies afterall. Can't afford to go deeper for better magic rocks to mine when the only person with good weapon was Jaune and his special dust-alloy sword. Fucking thing never need sharpening.
We're gonna keep quite about our Level Up for may be 2 years mark. No need to get anyone's attention especially when our "patron" god, Malsumis isn't here to protect us from other gods scrutiny. To everyone else, we're just one of the many low tier Miners littering all over the city. Completely irrelevant as far as they're concerned.
"Hmm", that pile of snow looks a bit odd over the edge of my lawn. Curious, I aproached the bundle of green cloth almost completely covered under the snow.
As I reach it, I sighed. And looked toward the grey sky.
Damnit, is this a fix it fic?
Dafak is Ryuu doing dying on my lawn?
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Name: Soren Ravencroft
Level: 2
Title: The Hobo of Orario
SP: 0
STR: 0
AGI: 10
DEX: 40
END: 0
MGI: 0
Skill:
-Firebending: control flame and sub element related to flame with your body movement.
Development Ability:
Blacksmith H
Name: Jaune Arc
Level: 2
Title: The Fool of Ansel
SP: 10
STR: 0
AGI: 0
DEX: 0
END: 0
MGI: 0
Skill:
- Aura Defense: cast a layer of aura forcefield over the body of the caster and his chosen allies. Offsets a certain amount of damage.
Development Ability:
Blacksmith H
Name: Liliruca Arde
Level: 2
Title: The Princess of the Slum
SP: 70
STR: 0
AGI: 0
DEX: 0
END: 0
MGI: 0
Skill:
- Artel Assist: offset a portion of percentage to weight of cargo being carried.
- Cinder Ella: Change the caster appearance once a day. Can only transform into person that is the same size as the caster.
Development Ability:
Alchemy H