A/N: I don't know if it's the app (I been uploading my stuff on mobile app) or the FFN server is just buggy but the site is sorta glitchy now.

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Chapter 19: Jaune Wick: Si Vis Groceries, Para Bellum

Part 3: The Fast and the Furious: Buffalo Drift

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(((Soren Coldforge)))

"Urrghhhh"

"Here, take another sip."

Man, what a mess. I almost died getting sucked a vampire and I don't know if its because my red liquid get sucked or my white liquid get sucked.

I have a problem.

"How much blood have you regenerated?", Tessa asked me as she fed me another spoon of liver.

I chugged another vial of Blood Serum. "About 45% I think."

"This is the 10th liver you had been eating."

"That's just how it works, Tessa. Potions can't restore your body out of nothing. There's need to be materials for the potions to work with. And the higher your Rank is, the more material per gram of body mass you need."

"We'll have to wait for Jaune to return with the Iron Bear livers then."

"Yep. Man what took him so long. It's just a simple groceries errand.", I ranted as I ate another spoon of liver.

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(((Jaune Arc)))

"Stop!! Just stop!!!"

The cloud buffalo however refuse to stop. The bond between it and Jaune is still in infancy, so Jaune had yet capable to assert his will to the beast. The beast moves by instinct, trying to get it's master out of the way of danger.

The beast could not understand that what it only do is endangering it's master further.

BANG

BOOM

CLANG CLANG CLANG

The buffalo ram through a barricade of police cars as if it is just styrofoam. The beast weave between the busy traffic on the road with the grace of agility one would never expect from a buffalo. Jaune can only hang on to its wool, clinging desperately to not get swept away by the speed.

The Mistrali Cloud Buffalo is an animal species that lives on top of the Mistral mountain range. Despite it's big, wooly appearance, it has immense agility and capable of controlling wind in order to traverse the steep, barren landscape of the mountains. On ground, the buffalo was known to be capable to run at the top speed of over 500 km/h and produce tornadoes in its wake.

This buffalo which Jaune had contracted too is still a young calf, so it's still have a long way before manifesting the full power of it's species.

It did however prove to be enough to make short work of the pursuing police cars.

Knowing that surrender is no longer an option, Jaune decides to do the next best thing. He grabbed the arching horns of the buffalo and try to steer the beast.

As if it has been trained to do so, the buffalo follows the gentle steer and proceed to make a sharp turn to the right.

"Whoa!!"

The buffalo spread its hooves for stability and smoothly drift into an alleyway to the right. Then, it run past the alleyway and enter the road on the other side.

"Wow! Okay. Let's do this?"

Jaune is no stranger to handling a beast of burden. While he is not a farmer himself, he did help out some of his neighbors at their farms whenever there's not many orders to be forged at his father's smithy. The villagers has no money to afford machinery nor hire Terramancers to till the soil, so they use buffalos and horses to pull the plows.

Steering the buffalo as if it's a really fat bike, Jaune let the beast do most of the work. He noticed now that he barely feel any wind resistance. The cloud buffalo had shielded him from the wind through some kind of an air cocoon.

You can wonder about animal magic later Jaune! Focus!

The buffalo moves like the wind. As long as there is space, there is no gap it can't pass through. The polices cars was unable to keep up as they cannot slip between traffics like the snakelike movement of the buffalo's stampede.

Jaune keep riding to the setting sun. He just need to get out of the city and then circle back to Oldtown.

ZASSHHH

CCRRRGGGGG

To conserve speed, the buffalo drifted as it turned around each corner of the road. Drift to the left. Slip between those two lorries. Leap over spikes.

There! I see it!

Jaune finally see the edge of the city, however the police has pull the big move and deploy barriers to block his way out from every exit nearby. Jaune either has to turn back and find another way, while risking more polices to pursue him.

Or just ram through the barrier.

Determined, he unconsciously channel his Aura into the buffalo, empowering the buffalo.

"Moohhhhh!!!"

The buffalo increased it's speed as it charge forward. Jaune let go of its horns, grabbing its wool to hang on. The buffalo use the extra surge of energy to fuel another ram charge

[Gale Charge]

The buffalo ram through the barrier and it broke like fragile grass. The buffalo bellows in victory and charge into grassland.

The police groans as they had lost their runaway criminal. The let the rider go, as now it is out of their jurisdiction. Now, they have to prepare mentally for the rant torpedoes by their superiors.

))))))))))))

"Aww, thanks Jaune!"

Tessa takes the items from Jaune and go back to the kitchen to cook the livers. Iron Bear livers are rich in content needed to replenish blood. This should settle Soren's vampire-induced anemia.

"What's up with the buffalo?", Soren asked.

"Oh this?" Jaune patted the beast as he fed it some cabbages. "I sort of grabbed this guy while running out from Black Friday. Guy really save my butt!"

"Black Friday? You've gone to Black Friday?"

"Yeah, Continental ran out of livers, so I had to go there to grab it."

Soren laughed. "Man, you gotta tell me about it later. So, what are you going to name it?"

"Err… I thought I want to return it back. Or sell it?"

Soren whipped him with a table cloth. "You idiot. You only get to make a familiar bond once! Da hell did you mean you want to sell it?!"

"Wait what? Familiar?!"

Fucking Jaune Arc's dumb luck.

Soren shake his head in annoyance. "Yea buddy. Familiar. You have bonded with the beast. It is a sacred bond. You can't just get rid of it now. He's basically family. Besides, that is a Mistrali Cloud Buffalo. They rarely accept bonding and they are highly sought after as a familiar due to their intelligence and immense control over the wind. People pay huge money for it."

"Oh… oooohhhhh…"

Jaune patted the beast with admiration. The beast is quite powerful alright. To think that he managed to bond with one by accident.

"Alright, I name you… Windjammer."

"Heh, sounds like an ironic name for a wind buffalo."

Jaune just chuckles.

"Alright. We got most things to be ready now. Jaune, go tell Neptune to get the ship ready to fly. I want to move out in the morning."

"Oh! Now I remember! I found us a pilot!"

Soren quirked an eyebrow.

"Pilot? What pilot?"

"hey Roman! Come in!"

Roman Torchwick came in, wearing blue and white flower pattern shorts, a red unbuttoned shirt showing off his abs and a straw hat.

"Hi, I am Roman Torchwick and I would like to work for you as the pilot of your brand new airship!", Roman brandished him a pearly white smile while raising his hand for a handshake.

Soren froze up for a sec, before bursting out in laughter.

"HAHAHAHHA! FUCK IT! YOU'RE HIRED!", Sky curled on the floor laughing while his anemia sent him dizzy and collapsed to the floor.

And he still laughing his ass off.

))))))))))))

Jaune then go over to the chapel to show off his new pet.

"Ruby! Velvet! Look at what I got!"

Ruby was sharpening the blade of her scythe outside the chapel as Jaune came by riding his buffalo. At the same time, Velvet was tending the flower pots that's had just start to regrew their leaves as spring has begin.

"Cool!", Ruby hopped over and rushed to the buffalo. "You got yourself a buffalo! A cloud buffalo at that!"

"That's a good beast you got there, Jaune.", Velvet also came over to see the beast.

"Yeah! His name is Windjammer!"

"Hey they're Jam!", Ruby pats the buffalo.

"whoa! Look at that cow!"

The orphanage kids came out to see the buffalo Jaune had ride.

"Come up, kids! Let me take you for a ride!", Jaune invited them.

"""yay!!"""

With Windjammer, Jaune plays with the kids. The past few months had been a tiring period of training. When he traveled to Lake Lullaby, he thought he will join some bigshot Hunter guild and work his way up to be famous and rich. Simple Hunter wannabe dreams.

But instead, he met a murderhobo and had to learn how to be a professional. It had been hard work but it pays. He had supported a group of Hunters in exterminating goblins, fought a fledgeling vampire and survived an underground battle royale.

And he get a pet buffalo too! Its no horse or jackalope but buffalo is awesome too!

And tomorrow, he will begin his journey and become a proper new Drifter. What kind of monsters awaits? Which village they will save? Tomorrow, he will find out.

For now, let's just take a break and relax.

(((Soren)))

Hmmm. Yea I finally feel my blood volume restoring.

Man, Iron Bear liver sure taste ironic.

As I chew on my last scoop of liver, my phone rang.

Wait they call them scrolls. I mean scrolls.

I take out my scroll out of my pocket.

And I mean it's literally a scroll. I unrolled the scroll and the ink on arcane paper morphed into the hyper-realistic drawing of Lie Ren.

And the drawing moves like it is animated.

"Howdy, Ren."

"Howdy.", Ren looks as stoic as ever. "How's your zeppelin project going on?"

"Oh that?", I drink some water to wash down the taste of liver down my throat. "I finished it. Even got a whole crew?"

"Really.", Ren quirked an eyebrow. "Guess I'll have to wait for you to pick me up then."

"Yep. I should arrive at Kuroyuri in a week if the wind sides with me. Gotta fetch my ranger afterall. Bow Fu goes pew pew pew!"

"I wonder why I was foolish enough to join you and make CQC bow combat to be an actual thing.", Ren shakes his head with a faint smile.

"Hey!", I point my spoon to him "long range bow snipe is cool, but here in the White Raven Company we focus on making combat as fancy and cool as possible! So yea! We made Bow Fu coz why not?"

"Sure. Anyway, I'm calling to see if you can get here faster."

"Sure Ren. I think I can speed it to five days if I keep pushing the turbo periodically. Again, that is if the wind is on my side. Why the rush? You got a job?"

"Yes.", Ren enter his business mode. He's all for the work now. "I got a request to investigate disappearances across many neighboring villages."

"Grave robberies?"

"Used to be, but not anymore. That's 2 months ago."

"Only good and kind people went missing?

Ren was quite for awhile.

"I haven't checked but based on the victim profiles… perhaps."

Shit.

"Its fucking alghoul isn't it?"

"Most likely. I was tracking some ghouls back in winter but then I got occupied by a Grimm. Nothing major, just a Beowulf. Anyway, when graves had stopped being dug out and people start went missing, I suspect that the ghouls may had either ate fresh corpses or stumbled to a person with fairly good morals and evolved into an alghoul."

"How much people had went missing?", I asked Ren.

" it started off to be one person a week, but for the past 3 weeks, it has been 3 person a week now."

"Great, it's making more of its kind."

"Yes. So hurry up, Soren. The Alghouls are multiplying and I need backup. I'm trying to set curfew and patrols with the villagers but you know how stubborn these people are."

"Alright. I was planning to fly tomorrow but I will speed things up and fly tonight. Hang in there"

Ren nodded and he cuts the call. The scroll sheet return to be blank. I rolled the scroll and put it back into my pocket.

Great. Our first quest as a proper Drifter crew and it's fucking alghouls already. What's the next arc name gonna be? Mistrali Ghoul?

"Oshiete, oshiete yo, sono shikumo wo~"