Chapter 21: The Price of Humanity
Part 1: Welcome to Black Lesbo. No! I mean Black Lily!! (Kuro-Yuri)
(((AN: Sorry guys, I couldn't resist hahaha. Aside that, Chap 20 was titled as Part 1 of this arc but that had been an error on my part. This chapter is the real Part 1 of The Price of Humanity arc)))
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(((Narrator)))
"Hey, what are you doing, Jaune?"
"Oh, just rechecking my notes."
Jaune is reviewing the notes he made over the quest they will be investigating once they arrived at their destination.
Normally, Soren wouldn't tell him anything. This ain't school buddy. 'You either learn from observation or look up on the lore from somewhere'. Being an apprentice under the mentorship of Soren Coldforge was less about formal teacher-student relationship but rather just Jaune learning on the job. If he feels like it Soren may drop some lore and tips but usually Jaune has to figure things out by himself.
This time however there is no time for Jaune to do his own research, so Soren had given him a rundown on the lore of ghoul and alghoul.
"Yeah, Jaune. Can you believe it? Our first quest going pro and we're dealing with alghouls already? Just the name alone gives me the chills.", Ruby shivers.
Jaune read on his notes once again.
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Name: Alghoul
Type: Necrophage
Weakness: Silver, Fire, Holy
Attribute: Poison, Rot, varying extra mutations from victims they had eaten.
- A dreadful creature that has evolved from ghoul. Alghoul looks indistinguishable to regular human being. Capable of speech and higher reasoning.
- A ghoul evolve into an alghoul when they either consume enough fresh corpses or kill and consume a person that is fundamentally good.
- An Alghoul must keep consuming good people once in a week at the longest. Failure to do so will revert them back into a mindless ghouls.
"Is alghoul that common around this parts, Ruby?", Jaune asked.
"Not really. Most of us cremates our dead for centuries. In history, necromancers had abused graveyards to make their undead armies, along with how much of a problem necrophages are. So our ancestors simply decides to no longer perform burial rites and defer to cremations. Better deny the dark creatures free food and manpower than have them used the dead against us.", said Ruby.
"But shouldn't necrophages went extinct if that's the case?", asked Jaune.
"No, that's not how that works. Necrophages aren't like animals that can breed. They are born from corpses that were denied proper burial. For example, someone murdered someone and hid the corpse in the woods. He just bury it in a shallow grave and be done with it. After a few days, some kind of dark creature will spawn from that corpse. It could be a ghoul. It could be a graveir. It could be strigoi. Other times you get wraiths. Circumstances of unnatural death and method of improper burial can narrow down what kind of creature you can expect to be spawned from it, but the point is that necrophages cannot be eliminated from spawning as long there is wrongful deaths and improper disposal of the dead in the world."
"I see."
Back when he was a child, he remembered hearing the news that a nearby village was raided by bandits. The whole village was massacred. His father along with a dozen of men hastily ride their horses to burn down all the corpses. He was told that it is important to salt and burn down bodies as soon as you can but he doesn't understand why.
Now he knows.
["Ladies and Gentlemen, we will arrive in Kuroyuri in 10 minutes. The wind around the Kuroyuri Plateau is rather turbulent today, so please get off the deck and take a seat as we descend."]
Hearing the announcement from Roman the Sailor, Jaune stood up from the deck floor he was sitting on and walk into the cabin along with Ruby.
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"Bweeerghhhh."
Ruby rubbed Jaune on the back as he vomit out his lunch. It's storming at the Kuroyuri Plateau and the turbulent descent to the airship docks upsets Jaune's sense of balance. Added with the higher concentration of Dust in the air around the plateau, Jaune had yet to adapt to the higher atmospheric Dust level leading to his nausea going worse.
"Come on Jaune, circulate Aura in your body. It will help."
Listening to Ruby's guidance, Jaune circulate the Aura within his body and slowly his nausea recedes. After while, Jaune can stand up, albeit a bit wobbly in his steps.
"Take your time Jaune. No need to rush."
As Jaune was slowly adapting to the Kuroyuri's air, Neo had hopped down the ship going who knows where. She will be nearby and there is some agreement between her and Soren over her duties and restrictions but other than that, she's free to loiter around the settlement.
Roman on the other hand had gone back to sleep, while Neptune is checking on the supplies to be restocked. Sun on the other hand is cleaning the ship.
Meanwhile, Soren escort Tessa to the settlement. Jaune had been told to move to the town hall in an hour to give him time to adapt.
"It's a beautiful place."
Spring flowers blooms across the plateau. While the storm did made the atmosphere to be a bit gloomy, it doesn't take away the scenic colorful fields of Kuroyuri Plateau. Ironic that a plateau that is named Black Lily is full with colorful flowers except black lilies.
"Yep! It's one of the top 10 tourist destination in Anima. The Lie family founded this town as a perfumer town, and they raise many flowers to harvest their oils. It was named as Kuroyuri as they discovered black lilies up here.", Ruby explained to him.
"Really? Still I'm surprised they can raise flowers up here."
"well, it is mountain flowers afterall."
The Kuroyuri Plateau is a flat land over 2000 meters above sea level. Original, it was a mountain with significant height, but legend says that a Rank 7 being cut away the mountain top horizontally just to test out her sword technique. This created an artificial flat plateau on top of the mountain.
The Lie family brought terramancers and floramancers to turn the arid, rocky plateau into arable soil and turn the plateau into a mountain flowers nursery.
"Okay Ruby, I think I'm ready."
Jaune jumped several times, testing out his body. He shadowboxed and satisfied with his body performance.
"Alright! Let's start our quest!"
The two rookie Drifters hopped down Rust Bucket, and walk into the town of Kuroyuri.
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(((Soren)))
As a Remnantian…. Lord, we need a better name for this planet. Anyway, as a Remnantian who has the tidbit of memories from Earth, I can make an easy relation of the Remnant continents to the Earth counterpart.
East Sanus is North America. You got white people going around the place, a vast flat plains where tornadoes hit every year, hell, down south there's even cowboys.
South Sanus that bridged between the East and West is pretty much South America. You get mexicans, mayans, incan, aztecs and so on. The border between South and East are rife with conflicts. Yea, while I said the South is like South America I didn't mean most of the beings living there to be humans. There's a race of humanoid serpent-vampire down there that been raising humans like livestock for their blood. How they look like? Have you ever watched a movie called From Dusk till Dawn? Yep, like that. They are Aztec snake-vampires. Or Mayan. I dunno.
West Sanus on the other hand is a mix of Middle East and Africa. The southern part is tropical jungle and savannah plains, while the northern part is a huge desert with few oasis
Oh yea, did I ever mention that the canon Remnant continents are just the known landmass in the North Hemisphere that we know off, and we have zero idea what's out there at the South Hemisphere? Food for thoughts. This is why most of the continents are 4 season countries with only the southernmost part of the map is tropical.
Now.
Anima can be split into 3 distinct sections. The Southwest Anima is pretty much Far East Asia. Chinese, Japanese and Koreans all packed together into the narrow Yangchen Peninsula.
The North Anima is pretty much West Europe. Britain, Germany, France and so on.
The East Anima is pretty much India, while the Menagerie Archipelago is sort of SEA.
Solitas up north is East Europe and Russia. I mean, duhh.
As for the dragon shaped continent? We call it Dracarys. And we don't talk about Dracarys.
It strike to me as odd that the Lies named this place Kuroyuri out of all things. Why would a Chinese-ish family named the town they founded in japanese? Shit makes no sense, considering, well, you know if you know. Well, only I found it odd. Everyone else just roll with it.
"And here is the food court."
"Waaaaa.."
I brought Tessa around the town, showing her where is where. While I'd like to make this into a vacation time, in less than an hour I will be dropping her at the Lie Mansion and move on to work with Ren. So for now I take her to know about the town and the good spots.
Since she's a cook, she's probably going to want to try out the food around here.
"Oh look, Soren. Its Neo."
I look over her shoulder and there she is, Neo, eating…..
Ramen?
Tessa then go over to her and asked,
"Hey Neo, you're a vampire. Why are you eating some noodles?"
Neo just take a quick glance around making sure no one actually heard us. She then shove her left hand into the pocket of her doctor's coat and when she draw it out…..
She had gloved herself with a sock puppet.
Huh????
"(UwU), Miss Neo isn't like the lesser species of Sanguin. Nuh uh. Miss Neo can eat and enjoy human food like any normal people! Miss Neo doesn't even need to drink the red stuff to survive! She just drink it for fun! Yep yep!", the sock puppet then speaks as Neo just busy herself slurping the ramen.
"Ooooo. Hey what's your name mr puppet?", Tessa asked.
Oi, are you sure this isn't just Neo playing sock puppet just to avoid talking directly? Why do you believe immediately that the sock puppet is sentient, Tessa?
"Oh wee, my name is Vanille, cos you know, I am as white as a vanilla ice cream. Mmmm mmmmm! Also I am a miss, okay! Miss Vanille! Not Mister Vanille!"
White as vanilla my ass! You're just a random white sock that she just glued a pair of googly eyes and call it a day!
"Well nice to meet you Vanille. I'm Tessa."
"Why are you introducing yourself to a sock puppet?", I asked as my sweat dropped.
"Hey! Who are you calling a sock puppet!", the sock puppet reprimands me. "That is racist!"
You are literally a sock puppet! How can I be racist to you? You aren't even a real creature!
"Miss Neo! This new bloodboy of yours is very insensitive! Vanille does not approve him!"
Neo nodded sagely as she drank the last drop of the ramen broth.
Then, she dipped her right hand into her labcoat pocket and when she draw it out, her right hand is gloved with…..
Another sock puppet.
A chocolate brown sock puppet.
"( *A* ) Oi oi, why it is so noisy out here huh?"
The brown puppet which is voiced by Neo's terrible attempt to sound like a deep hardboiled male began to hardboiledly complains about noises that interrupted it's slumber.
"Trivia! This boy just call Vanille a sock puppet!", Vanille complains to him.
"Oh really?", the brown sock puppet try to raise its nonexistent eyebrow before it suddenly pecked me in the eye!
"Gahh!! Neo wadafak?!!", I press my hand over the eye that she just pecked.
"That's for hurting Vanille's feeling.", Trivia try to sounds like a badass deep voiced male but Neo, you're just bad at this ventriloquism thing. Props on you for being able to voice them all while barely opening your mouth and trigger your hypnotic voice thing but your sock puppet voices are just silly.
"That's right, Soren. Now apologize to Vanille.", Tessa the demands me to apologize to a sock puppet. (*M*)
"Hah?" (-_-)
"Apologize.", Tessa then stands her ground, hands on her hips like a mom that about to give her kid a long lecture.
Deciding I don't want to deal with this nonsense any further, I bow slightly to Vanille.
"Sorry Vanille."(-_-)
"Hmphh!!" (*-* ) ……… (-_- )
I just shake my head. I guess this is Neo's alternative communication method now. She can't exactly write dialogues in blood in public afterall.
This whole sock puppets thing is going to be annoying tho.
"Fine. Look, Neo, can you take care of Tessa while I'm going out for the quest?"
Neo then whispers to Vanille and she relays her reply to me.
"Miss Neo says she'll look out for her. Girls in a poly relationship need their time to bond afterall."
"Oh, guess I'm on a date with Neo then. See you later, Soren.", Tessa concluded and send me away.
Is it just me or is Tessa is actually excited to date a girl?
Welp, not my problem right now.
Oh, there's Jaune. Guess I'll join him.
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(((Narrator)))
After regrouping with Jaune and Ruby, Soren goes to the Lie Mansion and received news that Lie Ren had already departed from town. They received the message that Ren had gone to Shion, a trading down just a dozen miles down south.
Soren then fetch over Tessa and Neo and brought them to the guest house. The Lies had invited him for dinner, but Soren had declined as he wants to catch up to Ren as soon as possible. Along with Ren and Ruby, Soren went down to the docks.
Only to find…. Or rather not find his zeppelin there.
By the guard post, Neptune was frantically trying to explain what had just happened. Sun Wukong saw them from afar, and so he went ahead to fetch them.
"Cap!", Sun calls frantically. "That Roman guy had stole our ship!"
"WHAT?!!", Jaune exclaimed haphazardly. He looks to Soren, expecting him to explode and went into a murder spree any moment now, but instead…
Instead, Soren just go, "Well that took him long enough."
"Boss!", Neptune rushed over to meet them. "Roman-!"
"I know, I know, he stole our ship."
Neptune flail his arms as suggest, "We need to get it back!"
"Nah.", Soren just wave him off. "I got work to do."
Jaune then interjects. "But we do need our airship, right? If we don't chase it down, Roman going to sell it off somewhere!"
"Yeah!", Ruby joins in. "Boss, I can chase it down in a jiffy! Just point me a direction!"
"Naaahhhhh.", Soren still declined, unconcerned about his stolen aircraft. "This alghoul thing is more important. Sun, are you familiar with Mistral?"
"Mistral? No Cap, I'm from Vacuo. NepNep's the one that came from Mistral. He went to a technical school there."
"Oh.", Soren looks over to Neptune, who slowly backs away to escape but was grabbed by Sun by the shoulder before he could. "Well that's easy. Sun, you go to Mistral with Nep and try look up where's the black market. Take this card to the receptionist at Continental and he will provide you accommodations for the time being. Just look for the ship but don't do anything when you find it. Don't capture Roman, don't reclaim the ship. Just keep track of it until I come to Mistral."
Sun take the card and pocket it into his wallet. "Sure thing, cap! I'll look for Rust Bucket. Now NepNep, lets go!"
"FFFUUUUUU"
Soren then turn to his trainees.
"So, how good are you kiddos at gliding?"
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(((Jaune)))
Elementakinesis 101: Bend the elements to your will
Chanting is for pussies. Why read a long ass spell when you can just punch the air and shoot out fireballs?
Pyrokinesis, hydrokinesis, dendrokinesis, you name it! By learning the exercise in this tome, you too can be a kickass Bender!
I mean Elementakinesis user. That's what I meant.
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Whoever wrote this book is a weirdo, but Soren demands me to learn this kind of Elemental Magic instead of the usual spellworks, so I have no choice but to study it back when I start my training.
"Mage-build is for pussies."
~Soren Coldforge, 6016 AP~
I don't know why but that guy has a deep hatred for that sort of build. Soren allows me to use Skill Gems but eventually I will need to be able to use a lot of chantless magic. In his own words, if you have time to stand still and read spells, you have time to hack shit up with swords.
Anyway, he had told me to focus on just learning the Four Common Elements just for utility purposes.
Earth to build basic structure.
Water to cleanse filth.
Air for mobility.
Fire for basic attacks.
Seriously why did he hate spells so much? Elementakinesis is one of the most difficult arcane branch to be learned from! I can barely light a candle damnit!!!
According to him, I will be sent to learn from an Elemental Master in Mistral for two months after we're done with this Alghoul Quest. He says something about a cowardly lion. As of now, I had learned enough of Aerokinesis to glide. In theory, it's pretty simple, just grab ahold of the air surrounding you and raise the air resistance magically.
In practice, I think I'm going to die.
"ARRGHHHHHH!!!!"
10 seconds ago, I had leapt from the edge of the cliff of the Kuroyuri Plateau and now I am tumbling down like a retarded flying squirrel.
"I'm going to die!!!"
"Oh relax Jaune, you're doing pretty well for the first time. Just remember your landing strategy.", Ruby encourage me as she glides beside me, her red cloak spread like bat wings while leaving behind trails of red petals.
Meanwhile, I just spread my arms and legs barely holding on air. I look like an idiot.
"Oh shut up.", Soren rants from under me. "I'm the one that has to keep blowing wind under you to keep you afloat."
Soren doesn't glide. Instead he ski across the air. Apparently he can walk on air by making air solid. His Aerokinesis is that good apparently.
I keep my mouth shut as I fear what form of harsh training Soren may throw at me if I annoy him any further. Calm down, Jaune. This is what you have been wishing for! Adventures and magic and all that good stuff!
We landed about halfway from Shion. Soren complains as if he weren't carrying my ass he could have just run on air straight to Shion and arrived already. Ruby just looks a at me sheepishly.
"Now kiddos, you know how to conceal your Aura, right?"
"Yes!", Ruby and I replied in unison.
"Good. Now enter the Zen State."
The Zen State is a basic but is perhaps one of the most important technique for survival. Outside the settlements, the Frontier is a cutthroat world. In Remnant there is no true Herbivore, not after the Apocalypse. Yes, there is animals that mainly eat plants, but they will and had killed other animals to eat their flesh. I once seen a cow eat a flock of chicks. It was hella weird.
Specifically, every creature eat to top up their Dust intake. The higher their rank, the more they are dependent on Dust and need to eat either more flesh or eat a creature with high Dust Reserve. Mortals in particular is attractive to beastly creatures because of this.
Ruby and I had yet to learn Intimidation, a particular Aura technique where we project Aura with harmful intent to drove away potential predators. Soren can do it but he rather not. It will warn off the alghouls we are hunting. So we use Zen instead and lower our Aura so much that we are indistinguishable to pebbles.
However, the problem with using Zen is that you essentially run on low battery. I feel like I have been working for hours despite I actually not. Zen's side effect become worse the stronger you are, so I can only imagine what it felt like for Soren. Dude looks like he haven't slept for days.
No wonder he was pissed that we could only glide halfway.
Eventually, we managed to reach Shion without encountering trouble and we get out of the Zen State. I felt like a dried plant being finally watered as I am reinvigorated by Aura permeating across my body once more. Once you unlock your Aura, your life depends on it. Most people with Aura never travel on land unless absolutely necessary because Zen sucks so much.
We were stopped by the guards manning the gate, but the moment they see our armbadge they let us pass through immediately.
"Wow, they didn't even bother to check our ID.", Ruby commented.
"This badge,", Soren tapped his own, "can get you past many towns without checkups. Criminals will leave you alone and many businesses will cater to you. Only ignorant idiots will mess with you as long as you hold this badge."
I asked. "Drifters are that influential as a group?".
"Before Hunters become a fad, Drifters was the best you can ask for. We don't give the badge to just anyone, so its mostly just passed down within old families. This badge was once regarded as an all-powerful passport. 300 years ago, Old Oz founded Beacon at Lake Lullaby and he eventually outcompete us through sheer volume."
"We never heard of Drifters back in the big cities.", Ruby commented.
Soren shrugs as we walk past another alleyway. "That's just how the market goes. Remnant doesn't need Drifters anymore. The world is mostly stable now with Hunters taking care of most of the settlements securities and expansion. Guys like me are old relics. Most of the Drifter clans had been disbanded or just fade away in obscurity. Even the guards earlier doesn't understand exactly why the Drifter Badge gets privileges. I've been to towns where they don't even know what we are and don't give the service this badge deserved."
"That's… kind of sad.", I said.
"It's just basic economics, Jaune. It is more convenient to have an abundance of mediocre products than a limited supply of premium items."
We don't talk any further as we enter an inn. Soren went up ahead and knocked on a door. There we meet Lie Ren.
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(((Ruby Rose)))
The briefing was brief, lasting over 10 minutes as Lie Ren had done most of the investigative work already. After the briefing was done, the boss had rent another room for her
Ruby Rose keep up her bubbly façade to hide her anxiety as she says goodnight to Jaune and went into her room. She sighed as she can finally let go on keeping on the façade.
Her first mission going pro and it's alghouls already. What a rotten luck.
Ever since Ruby was a child, she has been dreaming to become a Hunter. Slayer of monsters, savior of villages Her father, Qrow had discouraged her interests, and so despite being mostly raised by Uncle Taiyang as Qrow was often gone for weeks for who knows what for, Ruby wasn't trained in combat.
At the age of 12, Ruby had wandered too far from home and found herself to be surrounded by wolves.
A regular child would have been dead
Ruby is not a regular child.
Ruby still remembers the thrill of her first kill. How natural it felt. How exciting it is. Instead of fear she had felt joy as she grabbed a rock and bash the wolves' head to mush as if it was the most natural thing to do.
Ruby Rose is a predator and she enjoys hunting and killing monsters. She is born this way.
Ever since then, Ruby had doubled down on playing up the bubbly girl façade to hide her bloodlust nature. She was enrolled into Beacon and despite her efforts to play it down, she easily surpass the other kids, causing her to skip two grades ahead. In fear of having others find her terrifying, she play up the role of a regular girl that is just as wary in fighting monsters as the others.
How was she supposed to tell Jaune that she looks forward to rip apart the alghouls limb by limb? Back in Beacon, she was only allowed to fight weak monsters, so she can play down her bloodlust as she found playing with weak monsters to be boring. But alghouls are strong.
That is exciting.
She doesn't know if she can keep playing up the ditzy personality when they encounter it.
KNOCK KNOCK
"Yo kiddo, it's me."
Soren knocked the door again, prompting Ruby to open it up. Without being invited, Soren went inside. Ruby looked at him scandalously as she had never been in a room alone with a boy before.
And she knows Soren isn't the kind of guy that play the nice, oblivious guy archetype.
"W-why are you here boss? It's late at night!"
Soren quirked an eyebrow before it clicked in his head. He just snorted as he answers, "Relax, I ain't here to do anything to you if that's you're worry about. I am shipping you with Jaune and NTR is a trash fetish."
Ruby grabbed a pillow and throw it at him. Soren just laughed. This means Ruby knows what NTR means.
"Hah! You must have learned all sorts of weird shit from Blake huh?"
Ruby face away from him with a pout. Soren took a chair and sit as he signal Ruby to do the same.
"Well, all jokes aside, how are you feeling?"
"About the hunt?"
Soren nodded.
"I feel like I can't wait for it anymore. My muscles keep twitching for some action. I…."
"Soren is an Old Blood like us. He understands the bloodlust that we all have. You can rely on him.", that was what Qrow had told her when he had decided to give her away to Soren. Ruby let go of her habit to hide her real thoughts and confessed.
"I can't wait to rip it apart."
Soren hum to himself. Contemplating.
"Are you ready to reveal yourself infront of Jaune? Reveal who you really are under that genki girl play? That Lil Red Riding Hood is the Wolf all along?".
Ruby mulls over it a bit, then she shake her head.
"Is that so? Then I guess you will be partner with me then. Jaune can partner with Ren. After this, I will be dropping Jaune to learn the elements, while you will be with me to let loose your killing instinct. Freakin Qrow throwing the parenting job to me.", Soren rants.
"Why are we like this, boss?", Ruby asked. She had long wandered as to why she was born different than the others. Ruby knows that being excited to kill monsters is not normal. The scarier and dangerous they are, the better. Ruby genuinely never felt fear against monsters personally. Fear for others, yes. For herself, no. She only feel excitement.
He snorted. "It's simple selective breeding really. Get a bunch of kids and pick the ones that is most violent and bloodthirsty of the bunch. Then make them mate. Repeat the process with the next generations and eventually you create a brand new breed of humanity. Just like how humanity domesticate cows and dogs, our ancestors for lack of a better word breeds predatory mortals for the past 6000 years."
Predators, that is their true nature. Ruby would admit that she couldn't harm a regular human for the life of her but send her to anything monstrous and her blood will pumps with excitement. The darker they are, the better. Since the day she swung a rock in hand to the wolf's head she can never go back. She tasted blood and she wants to keep bathing in it.
God, she sounds like a weirdo.
"Now sleep. Tomorrow, we'll walk out the town."
"Huh? Why?", she asked.
"You're leaking bloodlust here and there. That's going to warn off the prey. Besides, I want to visit the surrounding villages. Ren does good work but there's always a room for another perspective."
"I see. Goodnight then, boss."
Soren get up and leave her room, leaving her to contemplate her true nature.
Who is Ruby Rose really? The bubbly genki girl or Wolf in Red Hood? She drift off to sleep with this question in her mind.
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(((AN)))
Written this in-between works. It was either spend the few free time I have watching Danjin Mains insanity or writing this out.
I think I should have watched Danjin Mains instead. Would be a much better use of my time. Was off my game writing this down.