CHAPTER 5

Vale is split up into a total of 18 sections called Sectors, with more sections increasing as the Kingdom gets back more land from the Grimm. Each sector is about the size of a Rhode Islands, back in my original world, so about 1.5 thousand miles squared

Sector 1 to 8 is dedicated to normal everyday life. Businesses, houses, apartments, public buildings, this section of Vale is called the "Commercial Zone" to Valeans. Though, the Commercial Zone is then split between the public zone for the poor and the rich, with the rich part of the community taking more than 2 sectors for themselves to build extravagant buildings and entertainment for their own leisure.

Then, Sector 9 to 14 is used for factories, docks, anything that the sections can have any industrial development, to be frank. This section is called the "Industrial Zone" of Vale. Most of Vale's economy relies on these factories and docks since the Kingdom is the center of the world, meaning Vale is the king when it comes to the trading industry. Therefore, the need to use so many sectors comes as a certain.

Lastly, Sector 15 to 18 is used to train the future generation of Huntsmen. Beacon Academy, one of the four best Huntsman Academies for their success rates and performance in cultivating powerful Huntsmen Teams in the world of Remnant.

There were more sectors in the past, the most recent example being Sector 23 to 28, being near Mountain Glenn. It was originally Vale's Mountain, but a lot of money was put into making the mountain and its surroundings the next Kingdom after the normal 4.

The mission failed a few years after its success in making it the fifth Kingdom, however, as it was overrun by an insane number of Grimm, which professionals estimated reaching over 476,000 Grimm a few years into its prosperity.

More than a hundred thousand lives were lost, and it became the running joke of Vale, since Vale invested over 68% into the failed the Kingdom. Our economy took a drastic plummet that took half a decade to recover.

Why was I thinking about this? Because I am currently studying for a geography test that was happening in two days, on the 12th. I know, ridiculous, right? The finals on December, just a few days before Christmas? This school is just toxic.

Did I ever mention the horrible thing when it comes to reincarnating? No? I'll tell you then. I have to study this shitty subject again.

"Why do I even need to get an C or above for this? I doubt I'll even use it! SON OF A BITCH! "

I roared as I threw my textbook on my table. Fucking geography and history, I'm never going to use this anyway, but I still have to study for it to advance to the next grade? Fucking hell, this is primary school all over again!

The amount of F and D grades I got that affected my school standings because of these two subjects still haunt me to this day! The only reason why my standings in school were decently high back then was because of my love for Mathematics and English!

"Jojo, no cursing!"

I could hear Tai in the living downstairs yelling at me, but I simply ignored it as I ruffled my hair with annoyance at the book in front of me. Please, the reason why I even dared to curse now was because the girls were out on a girls' day.

I shuddered when I thought about Ruby's curse jar, I'm sure I placed so much Lien in there that I practically funded her cookie addiction. I swore to not curse in front of the three women in the house, however. Tai and Qrow were a different story.

Fuck it, I'm spent for studying so hard. Grabbing my long coat and scarf, I walked down and slung it over my singlet as I passed Tai in the living room, who was watching some boxing match on the TV.

"Going out?"

"Yeah, I'm going to go clear my mind in Vale, geography's a bitch."

"It sure is, I never once thought of it to be useful, but doesn't mean that you have to curse so much, kid."

He gave a sage nod at my remark on the useless subject, but instead scolded me because of my language. Tai was such a bro. Speaking about my bros...

"Right, before I forgot, Qrow said that he's coming back in a few days. We're going out for that action movie you've been wanting to watch, yes? What's it called again... Right, "Blast-Kill: The First Act", isn't it?"

"Totally! I even booked the tickets already!"

Flashing a few tickets, Tai gave a grin as he starts thinking about the movie.

"Action, tons of blood and gore, good choreography, and a man's romance of explosions! Summer and the other kids would never watch this kind of stuff, man, I'm so glad you're a guy, Jojo! I have so few guy friends that it's sad!"

Tai shed a single tear of manliness as I rolled my eyes. This guy sure is dramatic.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, Tai. I'm heading out now."

"Alright, stay safe now! And come back in two hours, I'm ordering out today!"

Walking to the front door, I gave him a short wave before exiting the house, making sure to lock the three locks on the door and gate as per requested by Summer and Tai.

Feeling the chill winds blowing at me, I buttoned my coat and tightened my scarf around my neck as I breathed out heavily, fog forming from my breath alone. Shit, it's cold, maybe I'll go grab a cup of hot coffee and window-shop a little before returning to Patch...

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Warming up my hands with my breath, I held back a shiver as I walked around Vale's Sector 4, which is mainly businesses with cafés and restaurants that were affordable for the poor and middle-class.

The ferry that transported me from Patch to Vale took nearly 20 minutes of travel time, and 10 to 15 minutes of waiting for a ship to send me to Vale. And I've been taking my time, enjoying the weather and scenery walking around Vale's Sector 1 to 2 for about 30 minutes now, looking at nice clothing that were still too big for my size.

Damn this child body, but from my calculations, once I reach 15, my body should be near an adult's size from the rate of my growth spurts. I can't wait to enjoy all the clothes my body can fit!

'Alright, enough window shopping, I should get my coffee now...'

Turns out, there was a chain of coffee cafés that's similar to Starbucks in this world, called Williams. Their selling point is their cheap coffee of 1 Lien per cup.

For reference, 1 Lien had around the same currency power as 1 British Pound, give or take. So 1 Lien a cup is actually decently cheap with the quality they provided.

Anyway, Williams is basically in every Sector, sometimes even more than one pop up if the demand is more than its supply. From a business perspective, it was one of Remnant's most powerful companies, racking in nearly 7 billion Lien yearly. And last I checked, the company's annual revenue from this year alone increased by 18%.

It may sound little, but in Remnant only about two handfuls of companies reach the billion mark, so it was quite impressive that a café franchise made it to the top 10.

Finding a Williams just around the corner, I was about to turn when a tall man suddenly collided with me. The impact was powerful enough for me to fall to the ground with a loud thud, but luckily, ⌈Silver Bullet⌋ stopped me autonomously by placing a hand between me and the ground to soften my landing.

"Oh, sorry kid, didn't really notice you at all."

The apology came out from the man's mouth, but not a single ounce of sorry was in his tone at all. Looking up, I was about to curse the man when I saw what he was wearing, and wow.

Wearing a black fedora hat with a red band, the man was tall and lanky with slanted, dark-green eyes and the brightest orange hair I'd ever seen, and his long hair covering his right eye while his left was traced with jet-black eyeliner.

Meanwhile, the man rocked a red-lined white suit that was tight enough to show his muscles and stature, with fitting black pants and black shoes. Around his neck was a gray short scarf with pink polka dots.

He had this... feeling that I couldn't quite understand. That was the scary part, it was like I was looking at something that came out of a Jojo universe from how flamboyant he wore. This feeling was... Bizarre, to say the least.

"Sigh... It's alright."

The man tried to pull me up, but I slapped the arm away and got up by my own. Dusting myself off, I passed the man and was about to head into the Williams when suddenly...

I felt a tug. That was all I felt when an arm of ⌈Silver Bullet⌋ shot out from my body to intercept something. Grabbing onto it tightly, I heard something akin to a grunt as I quickly turned around.

ゴ

ゴ

ゴ

ゴ

A-An arm? No... This texture... This color... ⌈Silver Bullet⌋'s arm was holding onto a black mannequin-like arm.! My eyes trailed the arm up to its head, and gaped in surprise.

A white fedora with a black band covered the upper part of the head, as the being that ⌈Silver Bullet⌋ was holding onto had no mouth or facial feature. It was black, jet black, like a mannequin that one would see in a clothing store.

Wearing a white suit over its naked obsidian colored body with a navy blue tie around its neck on its upper body, the humanoid being had a similar color scheme below the torso with the same white pants and navy blue leather shoes.

Pieces of padded armor with the same color scheme as its clothing surrounded its body, each on the shoulders, forearms, wrists, knees, and shins.

S-Stand! It's a Stand! After 3 years of being in this world, I finally meet a Stand! And it's User...

Holding onto the arm that had the imprints of a hand gripping hardly, the flamboyant man simply looked at me before muttering a curse.

"Out of all targets, a god-damn Stand User?"

Target... The Stand reached out behind me... Its arm was near my pocket where my wallet usually was... This guy is the thief that pickpockets in Vale, from the news! The thief looked at his Stand's arm, and mine before shouting out.

"⌈Smooth Criminal⌋!"

The man yelled out as the Stand's other arm raised in a knife stance. ⌈Silver Bullet⌋ manifested fully and prepared itself —

POOF!

In an instant, the Stand, ⌈Smooth Criminal⌋, sliced its own arm off without any hesitation. My eyes widened at the crazy move as the thief immediately ran away.

'W-What the fuck? He cut his own arm off — '

That was when I realised something. There was no blood at all... And no severed arm. I looked around in surprise when my instincts yelled at me to move, but I was too late as suddenly I felt my pocket emptying itself. My hand shot to my pocket, and I was shocked at the realization.

"Wallet's not here..."

Before I could register what just happened, ⌈Silver Bullet⌋'s precision with its eyes noticed the familiar shape and color of my wallet moving away through the wind, and started to chase after the wallet.

I immediately stopped thinking about the sudden disappearance of the arm, and started running to catch my wallet. With ⌈Silver Bullet⌋, I could easily trace the wallet, and was shocked to find that some kind of supernatural force was pulling the wallet away.

This is...!

A Stand Ability, that ⌈Smooth Criminal⌋ must have some sort of Stand Ability! Telekinesis? But the Stand User was nowhere to be seen... Perhaps not sight based? Shit, I had too little Stand experience and knowledge to think about what kind of Stand Ability this Stand had.

All I knew was that the speed of the supernatural force was just as fast as ⌈Silver Bullet⌋. That's why I had ⌈Silver Bullet⌋ pull me with its incredible speed.

A Stand could theoretically pull its user around, even toss them to the air. A good example would be the "flights" of DIO and Jotaro during the final fight of the Part. The only way that they were able to fly in the air was due to their Stands tossing them throughout the air. Or another example would be ⌈Silver Chariot⌋ throwing Polnareff's wheelchair to get away from Diavolo before said latter could use his Time Skip Stand Ability.

With ⌈Silver Bullet⌋'s speed and precision, I sped past the crowd of civilians with multiple throws without even coming close to colliding with anyone, and couldn't help but clench my fists at the thought of my wallet being stolen.

Bastard, I had quite a lot of money saved up in that wallet! And the most important thing is the precious gift that Ruby and Yang made on my birthday the first year I was adopted! A cookie stickman and a cat spitting out flames sticker! They each gave me one of their own sticker collections as my birthday present, and Ruby was especially sad to let that one go!

"⌈Silver Bullet⌋, keep your eyes on it!"

I had to get the wallet back in one piece, no matter what! Sorry Tai, but I'm gonna be a little late to return back home today!

◀——–– To Be Continued

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Stand Profile

Stand User: ???

Stand Name: ⌈Smooth Criminal⌋ – Composer: Michael Jackson

Stand Ability: ???

Stand Ability Description: ???

Stand Parameters

Power: ?

(Strength and ability to cause destruction)

Speed: B

(Agility and reflexes as well as performance speed)

Range: ?

(Range of manifestation, ability influence, and spatial mobility)

Stamina: ?

(Duration of how long an ability will last)

Precision: ?

(Accuracy of their abilities to specified targets)

Developmental Potential: ?

(Possible functions, utilization, and capacity to improve its capabilities)