Author's note: By the way, I modified a small part of the previous chapter, the interlude, to fit the number of days left until the Great Feud (Arachnia doesn't count today as the third day, which is why she says two days instead of three). I also modified the fate of the fake Jaune. Now, instead of disappearing, he will merge with Jaune, because I thought it was a very cruel move.
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The climb from the depths of the Dungeon was always different from the descent.
When you went down, each step carried the weight of anticipation, the uncertainty, that familiar tension that Jaune Arc had learned not to suppress but to channel. The Dungeon had a particular way of making you aware that you were a visitor in its territory, that the rules that applied above weren't the same as those that applied down here. There were adventurers who described that feeling as fear. Jaune described it as discomfort. The difference was subtle, but it mattered.
But when you went up, the steps had a different feeling. Jaune didn't know how to describe it, but if the Dungeon was "conscious" as he had been told, then maybe the Dungeon was realizing that he was trying to get out of its interior, so even though there were still monsters trying to kill him, it wasn't the same quantity as when he was going down... as he understood it, the Dungeon detected them like a virus inside its body and the monsters were antibodies. So leaving the Dungeon would be comparable to a sneeze, another mechanism of the body.
The crunch of his boots against the stone stairs from the tenth floor to the ninth, from the ninth to the eighth, from the eighth to the seventh, etc. And although Jaune admits he got lost looking for the exit of this place, which led him to waste another hour just to reach the main exit.
So in total, he spent four hours diving just to go down and one hour just to go up. The Dungeon had consumed him in a total of five complete hours.
Jaune came out through the main entrance of the Dungeon with a sigh that came from some very deep place in his lungs. The sunlight of Orario greeted him with that punctual and honest warmth that midday had in the Labyrinth City, and he received it by briefly closing his eyes, letting the heat touch his face.
Fresh air, he thought. How much you miss it until you no longer have it.
He had had that same thought the first time he came back from a long mission in the world of Remnant. Somewhere near the borders of Vale, after a week of hunting Grimm in the countryside. Pyrrha had asked him what he was looking at with that expression, and he had said the sky, and she had laughed softly because it was too simple an answer for the question but also completely true.
The memory came and went in the space of a heartbeat. Jaune opened his eyes.
Around him, the plaza in front of the entrance to Babel continued its usual rhythm: adventurers emerging with the same tiredness written in their posture, groups checking their gear leaning against the walls, street vendors offering recovery potions at prices that Jaune still found absurd considering the equivalent of a bottle of healing semblance in Remnant could be gotten for a fraction of that cost. The bustle had that specific texture of a place that never truly slept, that breathed like a living organism at any hour of the day.
Jaune adjusted the bag he carried over his left shoulder — or rather, he tried to adjust it, because the damn thing was so full that the strap threatened to give way at any moment — and glanced at his Scroll.
Twelve-fifteen in the afternoon.
Five hours inside. Five hours that had felt like double, not from physical exhaustion, but from everything they had contained. The fights. The monsters. The discoveries.
The Semblances.
Jaune tightened his jaw slightly and expelled the thought. Not now. Now he had concrete things to do. First the Guild. Then the orphanage. He could think while walking.
He oriented himself in the plaza and began to move towards the Guild building with that paused determination he had developed in the last few days — not the anxious haste of a newcomer afraid of missing something, but the measured step of someone learning to move through a place without attracting too many glances.
Although the bag on his shoulder made that second objective more complicated than he would have liked.
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The Guild doors opened with that sound of well-oiled hinges that Jaune had already begun to associate with entering familiar territory. The interior had the same organized and bustling atmosphere as always: several lines of counters staffed by uniformed personnel, adventurers filling out forms or making inquiries, and the constant murmur of dozens of overlapping conversations.
And at one of the front counters, with her dog ears moving slightly, catching the noise of the hall, and her unmistakable red hair, was Rose.
The girl looked up from her documents exactly at the moment Jaune crossed the entrance. Her brown eyes widened with a mix of surprise and relief, and that professional expression she usually wore softened into a relieved smile.
"Arc-san!" Rose called out, raising a hand to get his attention, momentarily ignoring the strict etiquette of the Guild. "I see you're back safely!"
Jaune approached the counter, maneuvering carefully through the crowd so as not to hit anyone with the bulging bag hanging from his shoulder. It felt heavy, loaded with the proof of his "little" adventure.
"Hello, Rose," Jaune said upon reaching the counter, offering a tired but satisfied smile. "Yeah, I figured it was better not to push my luck today and stuck to safe places."
Rose scanned him more thoroughly with her gaze, looking for wounds, or any sign of trauma. Seeing that he was whole and without visible injuries despite the few bloodstains on his body, her shoulders relaxed visibly.
"I'm glad to hear that," she said, recovering her strict advisor tone, although her eyes showed approval. "Many rookies get carried away by excitement on their first day and end up making serious mistakes. I see you took my warnings about safety seriously."
Jaune laughed nervously, scratching the back of his neck. If she only knew he almost crashed into a wall at supersonic speed on the tenth floor...
"Yeah, well," he lied fluently, a skill perfected after years of hiding fake transcripts and crazy plans. "Let's just say I found enough action without needing to look for trouble. The Dungeon is... intense."
Rose nodded solemnly. "It is. Especially for a solo adventurer." Her gaze dropped to the bag Jaune had placed on the counter. The fabric strained under the weight of the contents. "Were you successful?"
"Sort of," Jaune said modestly. "I think the monsters were a bit... hyperactive today."
He opened the bag, revealing the pile of magic stones and drop items he had collected. He had carefully hidden the rarer items from the tenth floor at the bottom, leaving mostly visible the stones from Kobolds, Goblins, and some from Killer Ants and War Shadows that could pass for "unfortunate encounters" in the middle floors.
Rose's eyes widened.
"Arc-san?" she said, her voice momentarily losing composure. She reached out a hand and picked up one of the larger stones. "Is this...? Did you clear an entire nest by yourself?"
"Huh? No, not a nest," Jaune hurried to correct, realizing he might have brought too much proof of his efficiency. "Just... they kept appearing. One after another. You know how it is, right? Fast 'respawn'."
Rose looked at him incredulously, then looked back at the bag.
"Arc-san, most Level 1 adventurers return with a handful of small stones on their first day. This..." She did a quick mental calculation. "This is what I would expect from a full party after an entire day, not from a single rookie in one morning."
She looked up, her light brown eyes narrowing with that analytical suspicion that reminded him so much of Weiss when she was checking his homework.
"Are you sure you stayed on the upper floors?" she asked, her tone lowering so nearby adventurers wouldn't overhear. "You didn't risk going down to the fifth or sixth floor?"
Jaune swallowed. He could tell her the truth and say he had gone down to the tenth floor, but he didn't know Rose completely yet and she wasn't yet accustomed to all his strength, so for the moment he decided to remain cautious, it wasn't that he distrusted her, he was just being a little careful.
"Maybe... I went down a bit further than I should have," Jaune admitted, raising his hands in surrender. "But don't worry, they really weren't a problem, all those monsters were easy to kill. It's an Arc promise."
Rose sighed, a mix of exasperation and resignation. "You..." She shook her head, but a small, proud smile tugged at the corner of her lips. "You really are an anomaly, Arc-san. It's okay. I'll believe you. But don't get used to taking risks."
She tilted her head towards the interior of the Guild.
"The exchange counters are in the back on the left. With that amount, it's going to take you a while to process it all." Rose looked him in the eyes, her expression softening. "Good work, Arc-san. Truly."
"Thanks, Rose," Jaune said, feeling genuine warmth at the praise. "See you later."
Jaune picked up his bag, relieved to have dodged the full interrogation, and headed towards the back, making sure to keep the bag tightly closed so no one would see the golden egg resting at the bottom.
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The exchange counters had a different design from the registration counters: wider, with a reinforced counter surface that allowed emptying the contents of heavy bags. Behind the reinforced glass, the specialized staff had that characteristic evaluating gaze of people who spent their days calculating the value of life and death with just a glance.
The employee who attended Jaune was a middle-aged woman with dark hair pulled back in a severe bun and eyes the color of worn amber. She had the look of a half-breed Kobold who had seen absolutely everything in her professional life and very few things could surprise her.
Jaune placed the bag on the counter. He knew he had to be smart about this. If he pulled out a magic stone from an Orc or a Bad Bat from the tenth floor, his lie to Rose would crumble in seconds; the Guild recorded which items adventurers turned in.
So, carefully, he emptied only the top half of his bag.
A cascade of small magic stones rolled across the counter. They were mainly from Goblins and Kobolds, with a few from Killer Ants that he could justify by saying he "wandered a bit" on the fifth floor. It was a lot for a single day, yes, but not so many as to raise questions.
The employee began the count with mechanical, rapid movements, separating the stones by size and quality into metal trays.
"Standard quality, high quantity for a rookie," she murmured, without looking up. "Kobold stones, Goblins... some damaged Ants. Okay."
She finished the quick count. "So far that's 24,500 valis. Anything else?"
Jaune swallowed. Here came the hard part.
"One more thing," Jaune said.
He reached into the bottom of the bag, pushing aside the tenth-floor stones he wasn't going to sell today, and pulled out the object wrapped in the piece of cloth he had cut from his own shirt. He placed it on the counter with reverent delicacy and unwrapped the cloth.
The golden gleam was immediate. It wasn't the magical light of a monster stone, but the solid, rich shine of a natural treasure.
The employee stopped. The scribe behind her dropped his quill.
The golden egg of the Jack Bird rested on the wood, perfect and oval, reflecting the magical lights of the Guild's ceiling.
The woman looked at the egg. Then she looked at Jaune. Then she looked back at the egg, her amber eyes losing for the first time that professional boredom.
"Is this...?" she began to ask, her voice rising an octave.
"I was lucky to find it on the first floor," Jaune hurried to say, using the perfect excuse that fate had given him. "I was about to go down to the second floor, when suddenly a really fast, feathered thing came out of the wall. Honestly... at first I didn't believe it, but I guess luck was on my side, this time."
"A Jack Bird," the employee whispered. She quickly took a jeweler's loupe from her drawer and picked up the egg with hands that trembled slightly, examining the surface. "Shell intact. Aureate shine without blemishes. It's authentic."
The murmur in the hall changed tone. The mention of "Jack Bird" had an electric effect on the adventurers. It was the jackpot, the rookie's lottery. A monster that rarely appeared on the first floor and almost always escaped due to its immense speed.
"You killed it?" the employee asked, looking at him with a new mix of respect and suspicion. "A Level 1 caught a Jack Bird?"
"It was a lucky shot," Jaune insisted, keeping his expression flat and then sighing exasperatedly. "I think it crashed into my shield and got stunned."
The employee shook her head, letting out a short, incredulous laugh.
"Luck is a skill in itself in Orario, kid," she said. She made a quick sign to her supervisor, who verified the item and nodded vigorously.
The woman wrote a figure on a piece of paper and turned it towards Jaune.
"The standard market value for an intact Jack Bird Egg is fixed due to its rarity, that's why it's so sought after," she explained, regaining her professional tone, although her cheeks were slightly flushed with the excitement of the transaction. "Plus your lesser stones..."
Jaune looked at the number.
1,024,500 valis.
Jaune blinked. He had to make a conscious effort to keep his jaw from dropping to the floor. He knew it was very valuable, but still seeing the number written down was different. In a single day, he had earned what many lower-class adventurers took months, or years, to accumulate. He didn't know if it was enough to repair Crocea Mors, but this money would be very useful to help Lady Dia, along with the orphanage and maintaining his armor repairs.
"Do you accept the exchange?"
"I accept it," Jaune said, his voice coming out a little rougher than normal.
The sound of the heavy money bag hitting the counter was loud. Too loud.
Jaune felt the stares boring into his back. Veteran adventurers, other rookies, and curious onlookers had stopped what they were doing. One million valis. The news would spread. "The lucky rookie." "The Golden Egg Boy."
It was exactly the kind of attention he didn't want, but it was the price for the reward.
"Thank you," Jaune said, taking the bag and quickly stowing it inside his jacket, making sure to feel the weight against his side.
He turned to leave, walking a bit faster than casual. He needed to get out of there before someone decided to ask friendly questions about how exactly he "stunned" one of the fastest monsters in the dungeon.
He passed near Rose's counter. The receptionist was attending to another adventurer, but seeing the movement in the hall and noticing Jaune walking hastily towards the exit, she looked up.
Their eyes met. Rose noticed the tension in Jaune's shoulders and how several adventurers were looking at him with undisguised envy. She frowned slightly, concerned, and opened her mouth to ask.
Jaune shook his head almost imperceptibly, offering her a quick, tight smile.
"All good," he told her as he passed, without fully stopping. "Had... a lucky day. See you, Rose."
Rose, demonstrating why she was one of the Guild's best employees, read the atmosphere instantly. She saw the greedy looks of some in the exchange line and understood that Jaune needed to disappear, not chat.
"Go straight home, Arc-san," she advised him, her voice projecting with authority, reminding everyone present that the Guild watched over its rookies. "And rest. Good work."
Jaune nodded gratefully and pushed through the Guild doors, stepping out into the afternoon light of Orario.
The fresh air had never felt so good. He had a million valis in his pocket and a secret from floor 10 still safe. For now.
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After using the Guild's showers and buying some basic clothes in his size, he began to return to the orphanage.
Goddess Dia's orphanage was a fifteen-minute walk from the Guild, if you took the direct route through the western residential sector. Jaune had walked it enough times already to do it without consulting the map, letting his feet find the right turns while his mind rested or, in this case, silently processed everything that had happened that morning.
The Semblances. That was what occupied the center of his thoughts, although he still resisted the temptation to give it too much space.
Penny.
Her name crossed Jaune's mind with the silent weight of all the things that couldn't be said out loud. Penny's semblance had taken him by surprise, but the energies of the different semblances were becoming familiar to him, he began to recognize each of the signatures, at least the signatures he had used, he felt others he didn't fully recognize, but he didn't know how to use them. Penny's was quality and Pyrrha's was a comforting aura.
Jaune tightened his jaw, focused his gaze on the street ahead, and kept walking.
Not the time. Later.
The neighborhood around the orphanage had that particular character of sectors that have been inhabited for generations without pretensions of grandeur: well-maintained but unadorned streets, buildings prioritizing functionality over appearance, small gardens on the windows of the upper floors. It was the kind of place where people greeted each other as they passed because they truly knew each other, not out of formal courtesy.
Jaune had always found it comforting.
He turned the last corner and the orphanage appeared before him: a two-story building with a light stone facade, surrounded by a front garden larger than the sector would seem to suggest — clearly Goddess Dia had given importance to outdoor space for the children. In the first-floor windows, the warm glow of an active kitchen could be seen, and from somewhere inside came the muffled sound of children's voices.
Jaune opened the garden gate.
And then he saw the girl.
She was standing by the main entrance of the building, with the posture of someone about to leave. She was young — no more than nineteen or twenty years old, by the look of it — with hair of a silver-gray tone that caught the sunlight in a curiously beautiful way, as if each strand had its own shine. She wore simple but well-kept clothes: an apron over a dress of muted blue, of the type used by working staff in various establishments in Orario.
She had a quality that Jaune wouldn't have known how to describe precisely if someone had asked him at that moment. It wasn't that she was particularly notable in any obvious sense. Rather, it was the opposite: she had that strange quality of certain people who seem completely ordinary until you realize you can't stop looking at them, and then you can't identify exactly what it was that made you look.
She wasn't anyone Jaune recognized.
But in the exact moment her eyes found his — in the precise instant their gazes crossed through the garden — the girl stopped.
It wasn't a stumble or a visible start. It was something more subtle: a kind of momentary freezing, like when an image takes a fraction of a second longer than normal to be processed. Her eyes — a very particular shade of violet, like amethyst looking at the light — widened briefly. Just a fraction. Just the time of a heartbeat.
Then, with a fluidity that was in itself remarkable, all of that disappeared. The girl blinked, and when her eyes were fully open again, her expression was one of complete normalcy. A small, calm smile. A barely perceptible tilt of her head.
As if nothing had happened.
Jaune frowned slightly as he continued walking towards the entrance. What was that?
Jaune raised an eyebrow at that, wondering if she recognized him from the previous events he had participated in, but dismissed it. It didn't seem like she recognized him, it looked like a look of interest... what kind of interest Jaune wasn't sure, but since he didn't detect any ill intent, he decided to let it go. After all, Ren and Nora had taught him how to detect ill intent in people, while traveling through Mistral and Qrow even more so during their stay in Atlas.
He looked at those grayish eyes for a moment longer and let it go. Maybe she was just shy. Maybe he reminded her of someone. Maybe there was something about his clothes or gear that she found unusual in the context of Orario, which was what sometimes caused that kind of reaction in people who had never seen the type of clothing he wore, after all he still had his modern boots and pants. And his armor had been upgraded with Atlas technology.
"Good afternoon," said the girl, in a voice that was exactly as calm, she smiled with a kind, innocent smile.
"Good afternoon," Jaune replied, stopping at a conversational distance. "Is Lady Maria inside?"
"Yes, she's in the kitchen," said the girl. And then, with that same natural fluidity: "You must be Jaune-kun. Maria has told me about you."
Jaune raised an eyebrow. "Good things, I hope?"
Something flickered in the girl's eyes — brief, almost imperceptible — before the small smile widened a millimeter. "Interesting things," she said.
From inside the building, Maria's voice arrived with that characteristic power she had, capable of piercing walls as if they didn't exist. "Jaune! I heard the gate, come in, we're in here!"
Jaune raised his voice in response. "Coming!" He turned to the girl. "You didn't tell me your name."
"Syr," she said. "Syr Flova."
"Jaune Arc." He gestured with his head. "A pleasure."
"Mine," Syr replied, her tone of voice warm and informal. She seemed like a calm person, and she also had extra points for being a pretty girl. Jaune looked at the watering can she had in her hand, and smiled slightly at her. She also seemed like a good person.
Jaune opened the building's door.
The interior of the orphanage had that specific warmth of places where cooking is done regularly for many people: the smell of fresh bread, of something simmering slowly in a large pot, of clean wood and washed clothes. There were drawings stuck on the hallway walls — clearly the children's work — and a corkboard with schedules and notes written in dark ink.
Jaune followed the sound of the kitchen until he found Maria.
The woman was exactly as always: a presence that filled the space without needing to raise her voice or make any effort. She was standing in front of the stoves with a wooden spoon in her hand and an apron stained with what seemed to be tomato sauce, and when Jaune appeared at the kitchen entrance, her face lit up with that genuine warmth that Jaune had learned to recognize as one of the constant sounds of this place.
"There you are!" Maria said, pointing with the wooden spoon towards a stool next to the preparation table. "Sit down. Did you eat?"
"I ate before going into the Dungeon."
"That was this morning. Sit down, there's enough for everyone."
Jaune obeyed Maria without question. She was one of those people against whom resistance simply made no logical sense.
From the rest of the building came the sounds of the children — some smaller voices, an occasional run down a hallway — and Jaune listened to them while settling onto the stool, leaving his empty bag on the floor by his feet.
"How was it?" Maria asked, without stopping stirring the pot.
"Good," Jaune said. And because Maria was the kind of person you could tell the truth to without her dramatizing it: "I got to the tenth floor."
Maria stopped. She turned her head to look at him. "The tenth?"
"The tenth."
Maria nodded with the gravity of someone who genuinely appreciates information. "That's good, Jaune. That's very good." She went back to stirring the pot. "And the girl from the Guild? Rose? Did she help you well?"
"Rose was excellent." He paused. "Hey, I met someone outside. A girl. Syr."
"Ah, Syr!" Maria's face took on that specific warm expression she reserved for people she particularly liked. "Syr has been helping us for some time. She comes to spend time with the children, helps with some things when she can. She's a good girl. A bit mysterious sometimes," she added, with the tone of someone mentioning a quirk with affection rather than criticism, "but a good person."
Jaune processed that. Mysterious. Yeah, that fit with what he had seen.
Outside, the garden gate was heard. Footsteps in the hallway. And Syr's voice, warm and unstrident, greeting the children who had apparently come out to meet her.
"Syr!" — high-pitched voice, probably from someone around eight years old — "You're done! Come, I'll show you the drawing I made!"
"Coming, coming," Syr replied, left the watering can on one of the small tables and then walked towards the children with a warm and comforting expression. "Show me."
Jaune listened to the orderly small chaos of the children dragging Syr towards some corner of the building, and Maria observed his expression with a smile.
"She really likes children," Maria said.
"It shows," Jaune said with a smile.
A few minutes later, Syr appeared at the kitchen entrance. In one hand she had the drawing they had shown her — something with several bright colors that from where Jaune was seemed to represent a battle or maybe a tree, it was hard to tell — and in the other hand she had a little girl who didn't want to let her go.
"Maria," Syr said, "do you need help with anything?"
"Always," Maria said sincerely. "Can you check the bread in the oven? It should be ready."
Syr entered the kitchen with the child still hanging on her arm, which didn't seem to bother her at all. She put the drawing on the table — Jaune could see that it was indeed a tree, with flowers of various colors — and went to the oven with the calm of someone who knows the space.
Her eyes passed briefly over Jaune as she crossed the kitchen. They didn't stop, but they didn't ignore him completely either. She gave him a playful look and gently winked at him before focusing on the task at hand.
Jaune wondered if she was always like this or if there was something specific about him that generated that kind of curiosity.
"Hello again," Syr said, as she passed.
"Hello," Jaune replied.
The girl hanging on her arm looked at him with that total frankness that young children have. "Are you the new guy?" she asked. "The knight who accompanies Lady Dia?"
"I guess so," Jaune said, responded, he hadn't seen this girl before, or maybe he had overlooked her.
"Maria says you're an adventurer."
"Maria says true things."
The girl pondered this seriously. "Did you kill lots of monsters today?"
"Enough of them."
"How many is enough?"
Jaune considered the question with the seriousness it deserved. "Enough to consider it an adventure. Actually, they weren't that difficult for me."
"Amazing."
The girl seemed to find this completely satisfactory and turned her attention back to Syr, who had taken the bread out of the oven and was letting it cool on a rack with a skill that suggested real practice.
Maria watched the scene from the stoves with that expression of a person who has spent a long time building a home and recognizes when things are going well.
The next twenty minutes passed in that particular rhythm of an active kitchen: Maria and Syr moving with the natural coordination of people who have worked together long enough not to need verbal communication for the simple parts, the children coming and going with that specific energy of the hour before mealtime, Jaune answering the occasional questions thrown at him while little by little doing what he always did in this type of situation: he rolled up his sleeves and started helping where he could.
He cut the bread when it was cool enough. He took the plates to the dining room when Maria pointed to the pile. He helped seat the little ones.
Syr watched him do these things with an attention he perceived at the edges of his visual field, although every time he looked directly towards where she was, her eyes were elsewhere.
At some point between taking the second round of plates to the dining room and returning to the kitchen, Syr appeared in the hallway at the same time as him.
"You didn't have to help," she said.
"I know," Jaune said. "That's why I do it."
A brief pause. Syr tilted her head slightly. "You know, I've never seen anyone like you before. Are you new to Orario?"
Jaune nodded. "Actually, I am. I arrived a few days ago."
"I imagined as much, I know a lot of people in Orario," Syr said. "I like getting to know people; there's always beauty in the stories that each person can tell."
Jaune smiled. "I guess you've heard a lot of crazy stories then."
Syr smiled more broadly, with a mischievous glint in her eyes. "You have no idea."
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It was during the final preparation of the meal that Syr, while reaching for a dish on the top shelf, said with the naturalness of someone asking a question because they are genuinely interested in the answer:
"By the way, is that true from before? about you having reached the tenth floor?" There was no judgment in the question, nor the exaggerated tone of impression that Rose had. It was simply a direct question born of curiosity and interest.
"There were favorable circumstances," Jaune said, which was the most honest way to describe the role Aura played in situations where other adventurers depended only on their Falna.
"Where are you from?" Syr asked.
"Far away," Jaune said. And then, because vagueness without some concrete anchor could be more suspicious than a partial answer: "A place you probably don't know. I came alone."
"I came alone" was a way to describe the situation that was exactly true and contained nothing inconvenient to mention.
Syr nodded, as if that was enough information for the moment. She had that particular quality of a person who knows when a conversation has reached a limit and doesn't need to push beyond it.
"Do you have a Familia?" she asked, changing the angle.
"Yes. I recently joined Lady Dia's Familia."
"I see, I didn't expect her to agree to form a Familia, but life can always surprise us." She paused. "By the way. If you ever need a place to relax after a long day in the dungeon. There's a pub called 'The Benevolent Mistress'. Believe me, it's the best place you can go to spend a quiet time or if you want to celebrate."
Jaune frowned slightly. "The Benevolent Mistress?"
"Yes," Syr confirmed, and something in her tone was deliberately neutral in a way Jaune couldn't quite read. "It's a tavern where I work. I'm a waitress. The owner can be really scary, but the food there is delicious, much better than anything any adventurer can cook."
"Ah." That explained the apron, at least partially. "Is the food there really that good?"
"It's the best," Syr said, with a simple conviction that didn't sound like advertising but genuine opinion. "It has the best food in Orario, combined with the best atmosphere and the best service." She smiled innocently.
Jaune laughed. It was a small sound, but real. "Then I guess... you'd be recommending I go?"
"I would be doing exactly that," Syr said, and her eyes looked at him with that calm attention he still couldn't quite categorize. "When you have the chance, of course. No need to rush."
"I'll keep it in mind. I'll go when I have the opportunity," Jaune said, memorizing the name. A good place to eat that wasn't the usual bar full of thugs sounded excellent, especially now that he had the valis to afford it, and sooner or later he was going to need a place to eat that wasn't Goddess Dia's orphanage.
Syr seemed genuinely satisfied with that response. Her eyes sparkled with a mischievous light. "I'll be waiting for you then, Jaune."
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It was perhaps an hour later when Syr prepared to leave.
The process of saying goodbye to her at the orphanage was evidently a ritual that had its own established protocol. First, she went to the dining room where the children were finishing eating, and she took her time with each of them — listening to what they told her, answering questions, promising specific things for the next time she came.
Then she returned to the kitchen to say goodbye to Maria, who greeted her with a brief hug and the admonition to eat more.
"I know, I know," Syr said, with the patience of someone who has heard the same thing enough times to have internalized it. "Goodbye, Maria."
"Goodbye, dear. Take care."
Finally, Syr stopped at the kitchen threshold. Jaune was stacking the plates Maria had indicated.
"It was a pleasure meeting you, Jaune Arc," Syr said.
He looked at her over his shoulder. "Mine, Syr."
"I hope you stop by The Benevolent Mistress soon." And then, with that small smile he had seen at first in the garden and that hadn't really changed throughout that whole time: "I think you'd like it."
"We'll see," Jaune said.
Syr nodded once more and left. Her footsteps in the hallway were nearly silent, and in less than ten seconds the garden gate was heard closing with a soft click.
Jaune finished stacking the plates.
"So?" Maria said from the stoves, with the tone of someone who has been waiting to ask that.
"So what?"
"What did you think of her?"
Jaune thought about it honestly. "She's fine," he said, using the same word Syr had used before to describe what Maria had told her about him. "Kind. A bit playful, but I don't get the feeling she does it out of ill will."
Maria laughed. "That's Syr. But her heart is good."
"I don't doubt it."
Jaune stared at the pile of plates for a moment, with that expression of someone who is actually looking inward and not at something concrete.
"Hey, Maria," he said. "Do you know where Goddess Dia is?"
"She went to talk to Astraea," Maria said. "They had some pending business. She won't be long."
Jaune nodded. "Understood."
And with that said, he set about helping with the rest of the afternoon.
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Syr Flova left the orphanage garden at the leisurely pace that was her natural way of moving when no one was watching who required her to adjust her speed to theirs.
The streets of the western sector of Orario at that hour had that golden texture of late afternoon leaning but not falling, when the sunlight comes from a low angle and turns the stone facades into something that could almost be called pretty. Syr walked through that light without particularly looking at it, because she had been in this world too long for the afternoon sun to occupy the larger mental space she had available at that moment.
That space was filled with something completely different.
Jaune Arc.
Syr pronounced it mentally, without the words. Just the recognition of the name, the face, the presence. And with that presence, everything that had come attached to it when her eyes had first found him in the orphanage garden.
Now a little way from the orphanage, walking briskly through the winding streets of Orario, the girl known as Syr Flova maintained her usual smile on her face. She nodded to merchants, greeted familiar passersby, played her part to perfection.
But inside, the mind of the Goddess of Beauty was a whirlwind of pure, absolute, and chaotic ecstasy.
Freya, hidden beneath the disguise of Syr, could barely contain the trembling of her hands. Her breathing was shallow, and her divine heart beat with a force she hadn't felt in centuries.
What was that? Freya thought, her silver eyes darkening as the vision from just minutes ago replayed over and over in her mind.
When she had turned in the orphanage courtyard, she hadn't seen a human. She had seen a sun.
Freya possessed the innate ability to see people's souls. For countless millennia, she had observed the true color and essence of gods and mortals alike. She had seen souls the color of forged steel in the bravest heroes. She had seen souls that burned with the fury of red fire in bloodthirsty warriors. She had seen translucent souls, pure as crystal, and even murky souls black as tar in those corrupted by the world.
Always, without exception, a mortal's soul was a flame. A profound entity, confined in the cage of flesh and bone, waiting to be polished and released in the afterlife. An inner spark that shone with variable intensity depending on the individual.
But Jaune Arc's soul... the soul of that young outsider was not a spark locked in a cage.
It was unleashed.
Even now, Freya trembled remembering it. His essence was distinct from anything she had witnessed in her eternal existence. The boy's soul did not hide in the center of his being; it overflowed outward. It manifested physically. It enveloped him, creating a mantle, a protective barrier of pure warm energy. It was a soul that had awakened and extended beyond the limits of the physical, beating with astonishing vitality.
Freya had no idea that this was due to a phenomenon known as "Aura" that the Huntsmen of Remnant used. To her, this was an impossible phenomenon, a beautiful heresy against the laws established by the gods themselves in Gekai. A soul that spilled out onto the physical world to protect its bearer!
And the color... Oh, the color.
It was a whitish gold, so bright, so immaculate, that it rivaled the light of the rising sun itself. It emanated a comforting warmth, a pure desire to protect, to shield others from harm.
But what had truly left Freya breathless, what had almost made her fall to her knees right there in the middle of the courtyard, was not just the overwhelming brilliance of his unleashed soul. It was the scars it carried.
Beneath that bright golden light, the goddess's all-seeing eyes had penetrated the depths of the boy's being. And there she had seen the heaviness. A monumental weight, a burden of pain, guilt, and loss so immense it threatened to crush his spirit. There were shadows of failures, echoes of recent deaths, and a pain so sharp that Freya had almost felt sorry for him. He seemed to be going through a tragedy that would have broken the minds of the strongest men in Orario.
In any other mortal, that amount of trauma, that crushing weight, would have withered the soul. It would have turned it murky, stained it black with hatred, vengeance, or absolute despair. Raw pain would normally corrupt purity.
But Jaune Arc defied logic once more.
Despite that crushing gravity, despite his soul seeming heavy with the ghosts of his past, the golden light did not dim. It was not stained by darkness. In fact, it was quite the opposite. His soul remained incredibly firm. Resolute. It took all that pain, all that unbearable weight, and used it as fuel to feed his will to protect.
It was the soul of someone who refused to break. A soul that, even when bleeding and bruised, decided to remain the light in the darkness for others.
A low, strangled moan escaped Freya's lips, and she had to cover her mouth with her hand, her cheeks flushed with anticipation. Possessiveness coiled in her gut like a hungry snake.
He's beautiful. Absolutely dazzling, the goddess thought, quickening her pace. Mine. Eventually, he has to be mine. I want to see how he shines when pushed to the limit. I want to know where he comes from. I want to see what that externalized soul is capable of.
Jaune Arc. A name Freya would brand into her mind.
But she had to be patient. Oh, yes. Rushing now would only ruin the experience. Orario was on the threshold of a great war, the Dark Age was about to reach its bloody climax. The city needed heroes, and Jaune had positioned himself right at the center of the board. She would watch him. She would guide him subtly. She would let that sun shine brightly against the darkness of Evilus. And when the perfect moment came, she would claim him.
Syr turned the last corner of the street, the immense, bustling building of "The Benevolent Mistress" appearing before her. With the bustle of the kitchens and loud voices filtering through the windows, Freya tucked her divinity back beneath the surface, and the humble, clumsy waitress returned to the forefront.
She opened the heavy wooden doors of the tavern. Although it was still early for dinner, the staff was in a frenzy of preparation.
Syr walked between the tables, humming a light, cheerful melody, bouncing slightly on her heels. Her good mood was so thick and infectious it almost seemed to radiate from her.
"Nya!"
A singsong voice stopped her near the bar. Anya Fromel, the brown-haired Cat Person, peeked out from behind the counter with a cleaning cloth in her hand. Her large cat-like eyes focused on Syr, her ears twitching with curiosity.
"Syr-nya! You're back just in time-nya. Mama Mia was about to start yelling-nya," Anya said, tilting her head. Then, her eyes narrowed, noticing the unusual sparkle in her colleague's gaze. "Huh? Why are you in such a good mood-nya? Did you find money on the street-nya? You're almost bouncing-nya!"
Syr stopped, bringing her hands behind her back. She leaned slightly towards Anya, her gray eyes curving into half-moons while a mysterious and purely innocent smile adorned her lips.
"Something like that, Anya," Syr replied, her voice a soft, conspiratorial whisper over the tavern noise. "I found something much more valuable and interesting today. Someone who is like a little sun in the middle of this gloomy city."
Anya blinked, completely confused by the enigmatic response. "A sun-nya? What are you talking about, Syr-nya? The sun is in the sky-nya!"
Syr simply laughed again, a crystalline, joyful laugh, before turning to go to the changing rooms to get her full uniform.
"Maybe you'll see him soon, Anya," Syr hummed as she walked away. "I hope he comes to visit us very soon."
Anya scratched one of her cat ears, shrugging before going back to vigorously cleaning the counter. "Syr is really weird sometimes-nya!"
Syr didn't look back. As she tied her apron, her mind was miles away, back in a small orphanage, watching a blonde-haired knight. The Dark Age of Orario was about to become infinitely more interesting.
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Timeline - 2 Days until the Great Feud.
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