Chapter 26

Jaune wondered how much worse his seasickness would be if he didn't have such a high vitality score. He made his way to the deck, where he watched the sailors go about their business shouting nonsensical nautical terms at each other, like "Fore," "Gaff," and "Arc of Visibility." Hey, that was his name!

He held in a small giggle and went over to the steering wheel where the captain, a rather young man by the name of Ercanbald, was shouting commands.

The ship hadn't looked overly big in the harbour, but now that he was actually on it he could admit that he was somewhat impressed by the size of the brigantine. He loitered around, not disturbing anyone and looking around the deck until the captain turned to him. "Is there anything I can do for you sir..." The twenty-something man hesitated. "Light Bringer."

Jaune looked at him blankly. Why are you talking to me man? I'm just loitering around. He had concealed his name, only letting his title be shown, which added to his momentary confusion.

Think of something smart to say Jaune. "I'm just looking around, but while I'm here I might as well inform you that I will occasionally be sending out magical attacks into the water to kill Grimm." Jaune thought for a second before adding another bit. "Maybe fish a bit. I heard sharks taste very good."

Ercanbald gave him a weird glance while scratching his sad excuse for a beard. "I didn't know that there were Grimm in these waters, at least not so close to the shore, sir."

Jaune blinked. Well that was weird, he was sensing thirteen right now, tentacle creatures that seemed to be made up of small Taiji with a skull mask covering the bundle of knots holding them together. "I sense several," he blithely commented.

The captain sank a bit further into confusion. NPCs usually didn't understand Grimm behaviour, after all. So Jaune decided to explain further. "They aren't attacking, mostly because there is not much negative emotion to latch onto this ship, and because they simply are not aware that ships are inhabited by humans." He pointed down. "From down there they only see wood. They probably think we are a washed-up log."

The captain seemed skeptical. Well that was bad; Jaune had just decided not an hour ago that he would be gathering renown, and the captain was probably starting to think he was a bit of an idiot. Words in the end didn't convince that many people. Actions though...

Jaune waved at the man to follow him, making his way to one of the guard rails. "Just because there are no dangers perceived by us, does not mean that none are present. We must stay vigilant, in mind and body, if we are to thrive." Jaune sent out an arcane bolt as he said those sophomoric words.

The bolt travelled into the sea, changed direction so it was going up again, and hooked itself into the mask of a tentacle Grimm. He pulled it upwards, creating an arc that ended on Jaune's upheld fist. He splattered his surroundings with the remains of the corpse before the entire thing dissipated.

A mask and some Lien clattered to the ground. One of the younger sailors nearby picked up the items and handed them over to Jaune before he himself had the chance to pick them up. "Here."

"Thanks." Jaune wondered if he should pursue the fact that the man had slipped one of the dropped coins into his own pocket. It would only be problematic if others had seen it as well. If he did not pursue the matter then, he would lose the respect of the other sailors and the captain.

The atmosphere filled with tension as Jaune continued to stare at the man who he'd just thanked. The facial recognition of dimensional comprehension had gone up a level, so he was able to watch the faces of some surrounding sailors morph from glee into slight apprehension. Glee that one of their own had one-upped a hero, probably. The captain was not gleeful, however. He was sweating and his heart was beating quite fast.

Jaune sighed. Seemingly everyone had noticed the thief pocket the coin. Jaune would usually not care. It was one Lien. It was literally not worth his time to pursue the matter. But people had noticed the incident. What was he supposed to do?

As they continued to stand there, the apprehension slowly turned into fear. The thief especially was unable to look away from Jaune and was starting to sweat as well. Honestly. If you weren't good at sleight of hand, why try to steal from a hero? Especially one who had just gained a new commandment to live by.

"Respect is everything," Jaune said lightly, locking eyes with the thief who now started shaking even more. "It is the basis of a society, something that we all participate in." He let his eyes glide down to the pocket containing the coin. "Is this respectful?"

The thief, appeared to be fairly young, with a very patchy moustache. He looked down, hiding his face, and didn't reply. What the hell? Just because you didn't look at a problem didn't mean it would disappear. How old was this guy?

The captain, now that he noticed conflict was unavoidable, finally stepped in. "He asked you a question!" He barked at the thief… Prometheus. Jaune had wasted enough time on the man to start referring to him by name.

"No." A pause. "Sir," Prometheus whispered, still shaking. But no matter how the man tried to conceal it, he could not hide from Jaune. Prometheus face was a rictus of hatred, he wasn't shaking with fear. He was shaking with anger, and the words were meant as an insult.

"The youth of today," Jaune commented and shook his head. He gave out an aura of unbothered authority and power on the outside, but Jaune's inner self was at the stage of biting his nails down to the root.

The youth of today? Are you fucking kidding me, that's what you came up with? Just verbally admonishing someone but leaving them unharmed and with the money they stole from you reeked of cowardliness.

Arrrghhh. Something more, something more, what could he do!

"Lien is a very special concept," Jaune started lecturing to the still-bowing Prometheus. "You gain it by investing your time into something. It is a physical representation of time and effort." He looked around, pupils glowing an electric purple. "I think everyone here agrees that life itself is time and effort. A life is simply the time you spend doing things. So Lien, in fact can be considered to be life itself, a part of your existence."

Jaune raised his hands into the air, as if revealing a divine truth. "Therefore theft can't really be considered a petty crime. The logical conclusion is that theft is attempted murder of a small part of someone's existence." The lower part of his face that was visible to others contorted itself into a grin. The upper, non-visible part was sweating.

"And the attempted murder of a hero is followed by an immediate execution of the perpetrator!" Jaune shouted out, wheezing out a laugh to appear more menacing. Fame and infamy, two sides of the same coin. Both were good.

All hatred had fled Prometheus' features. He had collapsed to his knees, trembling with a pale face. He didn't try to run; there was nowhere to run too. They were out on the sea.

Everyone was quiet, except for the soft sobbing of the would-be thief. Maybe Jaune had gone too far. He didn't want to kill anyone. A way out should be offered. The captain was the first to come to himself. Well, he was probably the captain for a reason, even if he left Jaune personally underwhelmed.

It was his fault for not stepping up that Jaune had to think fast and conclude the situation in a satisfactory manner. Something he was struggling with, but not something he could stop now that he'd started.

Jaune raised his hand, shutting him up before he started. "I'm not a cruel man." Everyone present was a bit too terrified to give him weird looks, although some of the older sailors cast doubtful glances at Prometheus' still-crying form. "I have a possibility of redemption for you, young man. While I don't like apologies, accepting labour for the coin you stole is completely acceptable." Jaune stepped forward and laid a hand on the thief's shaking shoulder. "Is that fine with you?" he asked gently.

Prometheus broke down crying. "Anyth-ing, I'll do anything." Jaune stepped back to avoid getting his robes cried on and smiled. Even if Prometheus wasn't looking up to see it. Jaune had harboured the fear that the sailors would simply gank him. He was the outsider, after all. But looking around and seeing the faces surrounding him, he realized that that would never happen. They looked scared shitless.

"Now we should probably determine exactly how much time you owe me," Jaune continued as Prometheus' sobbing stopped completely. "The problem you are faced with young man, is that you don't only have to pay back the one coin you stole, but also the time I wasted resolving this situation." He thumped his chest. "Now as you have noticed, I am of the hero caste. I am also good at what I do."

Another shark-like smile. It didn't feel quite right, so Jaune decided to practice it in the mirror later. "Extermination. In the ten minutes I spent resolving this issue, I could have killed approximately two hundred and thirty Grimm, each valued at maybe five or so Lien." And there it was. The hope vanished from the thief's eyes, replaced with incredulity and then despair in quick succession.

Sailors around him gasped as they plodded through mental hundred and thirty times five equalled about twelve hundred Lien. That was more money than most of them made in a month.

This was kind of fun, now that he'd managed to stumble into controlling the situation. "Now again, I'm not a cruel man," Jaune said before anyone could call him out on his bullshit. "Instead of calculating the potential maximum of what I could have earned in those ten minutes, I'll instead give you an estimate on how much I could have actually earned considering my location." He stomped on the ground. "As you know, we are on a ship. There aren't two hundred and thirty Grimm in the vicinity of course, but there still are some." Jaune pretended to get a bit miffed. "Some that I missed. We sailed past them due to the fact that I was dealing with you."

"You said thirteen," the captain whispered from behind his right shoulder.

"Yes. One of them I killed, creating this little issue. Twelve left. Three of whom are still in range so they can't be counted against you. That means I could have killed nine of them, which amounts to forty-five Lien." Some of the sailors goggled at him as he calculated at what to them seemed a fast pace. "Captain, how much does our murderer here earn in an hour, an estimate please?"

Ercanbald crossed his eyes, steam rising from his ears. Sailors weren't paid per hour, they were paid before going on land, a percentage of what the ship in total earned. But Aschirngthvarbuddhstak was understandably unwilling to argue that fact with Jaune and was thus calculating it in his head.

"I would say... five per hour sir."

Jaune clapped his hands and glanced at the relieved thief. "See, it's that simple. You'll just pay me off by working eight hours. Now, is there anything you're particularly good at?" Jaune asked, having no idea what the hell the man could actually do that would help him.

Prometheus licked his lips and stammered, "W-Woodworking, uh, ropemaking..." The man scratched his head trying to come up with something more.

Jaune interrupted his thought process. "Say no more, woodworking it is." He pulled out several pieces of wood from his inventory, but flourished his newly acquired spacial storage ring so as to make it seem like it came out of there instead. "You will work eight hours carving out this symbol." He pointed to the symbol drawn on his hood. "The size should be appropriate for necklaces or bracelets. Maybe one big one as a room decoration."

A nod.

Jaune had spent enough time on this, so with those last instructions he departed amidst wide-eyed gazes of what must have been awe at his eloquence and graciousness. It felt good to be respected.

-/-

Back in his cabin Jaune threw himself onto the berth. "Why is this bed so hard," he muttered while marvelling at his quick-thinking ability to get out of crap like that.

It had been harder to think up ways to steer the situation than it should have been. Normally he would have just ignored it, uncaring about the fact that the NPCs might lose respect for him. But the appearance he had to cultivate now was a different animal entirely. Respect, fame, infamy. Behaviour and reactions to things around him would have to be changed to fit the mould of someone trying to gain all these things.

Jaune had considered the deal he made with Morilec quite one-sided towards Jaune. He gained his life, basically, and Morilec received another person spreading the renown of his symbol. One amongst many, most likely.

But the way he had just forced himself to act made him reconsider that belief of unfairness towards the demon. He would have to change how he reacted to things and what he valued. Wasn't that basically changing who he was?

Morilec had simply invested one day of his life. Jaune would have to change his entirely and invest the rest of his.

A deal's a deal. It was time to construct a persona.

-/-

The premise for his future behaviour, Jaune decided, would have to be an act of mysterious ambiguity. He wasn't powerful, therefore even going all out, he wouldn't be able to impress anyone. But if he acted ambiguously, keeping his thoughts and capabilities hidden to a small extent, people would most likely overestimate what he was actually keeping from them. It was common sense. Better to overestimate someone than to do the opposite.

The rest of his actions would have to be situational, fitted to every person and group he interacted with individually. Kindness in front of some. Cruelty in front of others. Even so, he wasn't a cruel person and would try to avoid it if he could.

Now that he had a very vague idea of how he was going to try to act in future situations, Jaune constructed and ran himself through several internal scenarios, imaginary scenes where he interacted with others in all manner of situations, all aimed at gaining the greatest amount of renown possible of course.

The memory of how he'd thought to himself that he should practice his threatening smile in a mirror came to him and thus Jaune pulled out the aforementioned object.

Then he went through more mental simulations, all the while pulling the appropriate faces. His facial muscles were underdeveloped in comparison to the rest of his body. Which was only natural, so he got sore quickly.

He was not willing to give up after only a few hours, so Jaune pulled out one of his many empty journals and titled a section of it Linguistics. Being able to articulate properly was helpful in the pursuit of renown.

Jaune wondered why he was so motivated to chase down the goal of someone else. While he was thankful to Morilec, he rightfully shouldn't be this eager to work on his promise.

Then he remembered that every human wanted respect from others. It made life easier, more enjoyable, and the body released some internal composite that was supposed to make you feel good.

Now Jaune wasn't sure what the basis of that was, but the researcher who had written that book had been highly acclaimed. Hadn't his name been Jain? Strange coincidence.

Back on topic, by fulfilling his obligation of getting renown Jaune was helping himself as well.

Jaune would say that making that deal had actually been good for him. Otherwise he probably wouldn't have come to the realization that he wanted to be respected for some time. Wonderings of what intangible things he actually wanted and how to achieve those things didn't really come up often in his inner monologues.

Enough of that. No matter how enthused he was thinking up ways to gain renown, he still got sick of it after a while.

It was night out and the ship was quiet. The only sound Jaune heard were the waves crashing against the hull. He would normally be asleep by now, but he had a few more things to do first.

Like checking out his new space ring and what was inside it. Jaune pulled the thing out of a pocket and prodded at it, magically and with a finger. He had been leery of putting what was basically an inventory into his inventory; it sounded like a potentially bad idea. The implosion-of-reality-around-him kind of bad.

Examining the ring physically revealed nothing. Dimensional comprehension however had quite a few bits of interesting information to deliver. The ring itself wasn't magical in the strictest term. It was simply a physical object that was used to anchor the dimension of the ring's inventory to the world. The dimensional space was a balloon that would fly away if it wasn't bound by rope to the ground that was the ring. Or rather, more like a balloon that would dissolve.

Jaune patted himself on the back for the great metaphor.

Since it was ring Jaune assumed that he would have to wear it to gain access to the thing. Which he only did because Morilec had used it in the past, proving that it was harmless. And even if it hadn't been, it probably was now after passing through the demon's hands. Jaune would need to be alive to conclude his side of the bargain, and giving him something deadly was not conducive to that. Not many people respect corpses, even less the symbol on a corpse.

Jaune put on the ring and marvelled as the seemingly magicless thing fitted itself exactly to the proportions of his right ring finger.

No magic to be felt, just like he hadn't been able to feel the insect crawling on the door of his cell. Both of those phenomena were tied directly to the now-deceased Black, which lessened his worry. Dimensional comprehension had weaknesses, but the man who had made him aware of these was now dead.

Accessing the dimensional space took some time, but was eventually solved by simply shoving mana in the form of a key at the link between ring and space. A slight mental prod assailed him from the direction of the ring and he lowered his meagre mental defences to let his mind be filled by...

An entire library, one that was at least a fourth as big as Brorusalem's. Thousands of books.

Holy shit. Jaune's mind flew over the titles of the books. A few written in languages he didn't know, others had nonsensical titles that he couldn't make heads or tails of. But most of them, most of them were books about magic. And at least a tenth of all of those books on magic detailed his branch of it. Dimensionalism and its offshoots.

"There must be at least a hundred of them," Jaune gasped to himself. It made sense. Black had been feverishly interested in a portal to another world, and something like that was best achieved by dimensional magic.

Jaune lightly slapped himself to awaken from his stupor. Just because the books were there didn't mean they were worth the paper they were written on. Though it did beg the question of why Black would fill up space with useless things. Regardless, the space ring had much more than just books. Brooms, magical ones, flying ones, like the one Morilec had flown. Wands, what must have been hundreds of them. Just as shabbily made as the brooms, but still evoking the feeling of a deep magic having been ground into its wood.

Jaune salivated when he came to the small pile of artefacts. And they were artefacts, clearly. No normal items could be so exquisite and enchanting to look at. It would make sense for Black to have a few of those. The man had clearly been making his own in the form of flying brooms and wands. He had definitely studied artefacts to help him with understanding how they worked and how to create them.

What really caught his eye, however was the Helmet. Capitalization intended. A closed burgonet helmet. A simple design, the only thing distinguishing it from others was the serrated teeth etched onto its mouth piece and its colour pallet.

It was beautiful because of its simplicity, not despite it. It was a flat gray, except for the serrated teeth, which were a glowing neon green.

Jaune chuckled and then grew melancholy. With this and the vambraces he'd spotted somewhere else in the pile, he could become a knight. Well, look like one at least. Not a full-plated one of course, but the style of a knight was often distinguished by the fact that they wore a helmet, usually a closed one.

Wasn't that something he'd wished for in his youth? To become a knight, or at least gather enough equipment to act like one? Jaune retrieved the beautiful helmet and the scaled steel vambraces.

He started putting on and taking off the newly acquired artefacts to determine what effect they had. The helmet had a glow-in-the-dark effect stemming from its toothy design. It also regulated the temperature within itself to fit the wearer's desires. Hilariously non-combat oriented, but useful in other ways. Ironic that he would find something to help him with the sweltering heat of Vacuo just as he was departing from it.

The vambraces held a more combat-ready effect. It slowly shaved away at the durability of weapons that struck them. Fitting, given the scale design. Not really something that synergized well with his fighting style, since Jaune seldom blocked or parried attacks, but it was a superior quality set made of metal that he could wear.

No more leather, just good reliable steel, even if it was heavier. The positives greatly outweighed the fact that he would be losing some of his speed. Jaune aligned the armour parts on his bed in order that one would wear them and started putting them on.

Greaves, chainmail, vambraces, and helmet. The only thing really missing were some shoulder pads and something to guard the thighs.

He pulled out a mirror from the space ring. Jaune set the thing down and looked at himself, quickly discovering Morilec's mark on every singe scale of the vambraces and on the temples of the helmet. Weird, how come he hadn't noticed before?

Most likely a spell that engraved the mark on everything once it was taken out of the space ring. Unimportant. Jaune looked at himself.

He looked like a knight.

Didn't he need a guise for Beacon that would make people suspect there was greater strength hiding beneath the surface? A knight he would be then, one who tried to hide the fact he was actually a mage, but was bad at doing so. A shabby knight, Jaune corrected himself.

"You carry yourself well, but clothes make the man and yours sure do suck. Maybe try to wear something that actually fits together next time, hmmm?"

The mirror apparently agreed.