A Day in Spring's end

It appears your diversion was a resounding success, allowing you to lose the Grimm. Though, you did like that sword. You can only hope that Hazel has another.

Finally arriving at Spring's End, what awaits you is a group of people by the gate. They seem quite distressed and sullen. You walk up to one of the random Faunus and ask what is happening.

"Oh...didn't you hear? The search party's cancelled. I doubt anyone thinks they'll find anything left of the kid anyways, poor lad"

Someone's Lost? Who?

"Ah, it was that new kid, Murdin Sulos or something. He kinda looked like you." Wait, they think you're dead? Why would they think that?

"Anyways, we're going to bed. If you want to help or something, go talk to Hazle, she's in her house." With that, he and everyone else leaves.

Having nothing else to do, you head towards Hazel's house.

The last thing you had expected to happen when you knocked on her door was for her to slap your face, then give you a quick hug.

Really, today had been a weird day. You only hoped the next could be as exciting.

After taking a quick bath and getting a new pair of clothes, you go and have some well-deserved food.

Finishing your food, you say goodnight to Hazel and head off to bed, promising you'll explain everything tomorrow.

Laying in bed, you embrace sleep. Too exhausted, you completely forget about your fear of sleeping.

=====

As you Sleep, you dream of a city. A city full of life, shining with its inhabitant's hopes and dreams.

Great metal ships roam the sky, ever vigilant. Armies of metal golems patrol the borders.

Machines extract the very life energy from the world and then transform it into crystals.

At the centre is a palace, in the palace is a throne, and on the throne is a king.

The golden king waits. He turns and looks at you, then turns back towards the horizon.

The sun sets, and when it rises...the city is in flames. Once great wonders are now nothing but burning rubble. An Army lies in pieces.

At the centre of all the fire, destruction and chaos, is the king. You can just make out a figure towering over the King. Completely enshrouded in darkness, it looks at you.

It's....

....

..

========

Dreams, such a curious thing. You can only make out small details of last night's dream. A king, a city and a monster. You can't help but feel a sense of....familliarity

towards something in the dream. Sadly, the dream has faded and you can't remember what exactly is familiar.

After getting out of bed and readying yourself, you head off to the best part of the day, food!

You greet Hazel and sit down on the kitchen table, patiently waiting for your food.

"So, mind explaining what exactly happened? I already have Brick's side of things. How you were spotted by the Grimm and had to run away. How you decided to stay and distract them." You can still hear the annoyance in her voice. Hadn't she gotten over it last night?

Maybe explaining your side of things will calm her down.

You tell her how having you distract the Grimm was the optimal choice. You are significantly stronger than Brick, and escaping would be much easier for you. So you decided to draw them to you.

She silently and patiently waits for you to continue.

You explain how the Grimm stalked out of the forest and engaged you, how you left none of the Beowulf pack alive.

At this, she simply narrows her eyes. "You...you killed off the entire Beowulf part of the nest?" You tell her that you killed enough that no more came to help when the call for reinforcement was sent out.

"Alright, anything else?" she says in a serious tone.

At this, you go into detail about the lightning Grimm. How you fought it, how it swatted you aside, and how it apparently gains strength when enshrouded by lightning. Lastly, you let her know that you'll need a new sword as you used the last one to secure your escape.

She just stares at you, taking in everything you've said. You continue to eat your food, really, pancakes taste amazing!

After a quick sigh, she tells you that a new sword can probably be found in the warehouse you visited last time.

She follows this up by telling you that you have the rest of the day to yourself and that she went and made an emergency call

to Vale. The hunters are rushing and should be here in two days. The town is also going to be building up its defences in case of a Grimm attack.

Finishing your pancakes, you say goodbye and head off to grab your new sword.

With a whole day to yourself, you decide to train a bit and explore a new day of life here in spring field.

=====

Your training goes just as you had expected. Sadly, there really aren't many other Great Sword users that you know about, so

you had to work out how to improve by yourself. After many complaints about you destroying the training dummies, you went off

into the nearby woods to train. With much experimentation, you realized that you were leaving a lot of openings when swinging your

sword. Shifting your fighting style as to remove these openings, you found the recovery time after a swing shortening significantly. Having cut down many trees, you decided to ask if anyone in town needed the wood. Thankfully, the town carpenter was overjoyed and gladly accepted the trees, he even gave you 30 "Lien". Apparently "Lien" is the local "Currency", it's used to trade for goods and services. You wonder what

to do with it.

[Trait: Path Of The Great Sword Get!, Great Sword(E) -> Great Sword (D--), 30 Lien Get!]

====

Once again, you devoted time to experiment with your time domain. Others might say that your results were disappointing, but

you would just point out the fact that you're able to bend the very laws of time. What you improved upon, was the efficiency of your current powers. Really, walking around as the world slowed both you and everyone else, was...boring. This did lead to an increase in the amount of time you could resist the world, though. It was a welcome boon, after all, any progress is better than nothing.

[Penalty for using "A Clockwork World" decreased]

====

Words, you know what they are, but you can't understand them in written form. It was with the thought of solving this issue,

that you stepped into a bookstore hoping to find a book on how to read. Explaining your thought process to the owner, you watched as he simply laughed in your face, complimenting your funny "Joke". Biting down your frustration, you told him that you were serious. He gave you an odd look, but he said that he'd teach you how to read if you paid him 20 Lien. Thankfully, you had that exact amount! After an hour of lessons, you were able to easily read simple books. On your way out, the owner spotted your sword and called you back. Apparently he was really thankful for what you did yesterday, you wonder how

he even knew that, does Hazel share information so easily? Either way, He offered to give you one book for free!

[Gained Skill!: Reading(E),Gained A Book!, Lost 20 Lien!]

=====

Having finished your training and reading lessons, you head off to find Brick. Your last conversation did not end very well, and then he had to run back to town. You wonder if he's ok.

After asking a guard for help, you follow his instructions and reach Brick's house. It's a small place on the edge of town. You can see all sorts of trees and plants surrounding the brown house. There's even some kind of garden in the corner, you wonder if it has anything edible.

Walking towards the door, you remember that it's courteous to knock before you enter. Hazel was quite clear on that before she let you wonder off.

After a while, you hear the sound of footsteps coming towards the door.

As the door finishes slowly opening, you see Brick in some kind of sleepwear.

"Tch....what do you want?" The annoyance in his voice is quite clear.

You simply tell him that you wanted to check up on him and make sure he was fine.

"You...are an idiot" He states with a blank face

After informing him on how that was a rude thing to say, you ask if he IS alright.

"..." He pauses

"I'm fine. You know what, come on in. It seems no matter what I say, you'll still want to talk to me" He steps to the side, inviting you in.

After you take a seat, he throws something at you. Looking at it, you see that it is food! After tearing off the wrapping, you eat the "Pumpkin Bar".

The taste is...different, but it's new, so you make sure to finish it all.

"Hazel was right, you'll eat anything. Those things taste horrible." He says with a sour look

You think it tasted fine

"You would, wouldn't you."

The rest of your stay is a peculiar one. You try to see if he has any more food, after all, everyone likes food. You had thought it would be a great conversation topic. Sadly, he didn't seem so interested. You both just sat silently and watched the "TV". Really, mankind sure has made some amazing inventions. After a while, he looks at you and lets you know that you should probably leave, as it's getting late. He had apparently done this as a thank you, you had saved his life, so he wanted to do at least this much. Though he made sure to let you know that he wasn't your friend now or anything, he even made sure to call you an idiot for extra effect. Overall, you hadn't reached the so called "Friend" status, but at least he wasn't angry with you anymore.

[Brick no longer angry at you! Closeness with Brick increased!]

=====

At the end of the day, you go back to Hazel's house. You had wanted to know more about her, so you went up and asked about her life.

"Oh? interested in me huh? Sadly, you're a bit too young for me" She even does that weird little laugh after she says this. It does nothing but frustrates you, this, of course only makes her laugh harder.

"Hmm, but if you really want to know, I guess I can share a bit." She sits and motions for you to sit on a nearby sofa.

"Well, I wanted to become a hunter. It was my dream as a little girl, though I'm sure everyone in town already knows this story."

She goes on to tell you how she trained and trained so she could join a combat school, only to be rejected because she was a Faunus.

Why was that a valid reason for rejection? You ake sure to ask Hazel this.

"It was a different time back then kid, though I guess you wouldn't know huh? Having no memories must be tough." You're sure it would be difficult, not remembering anything.

From what she tells you, humans were apparently quite racist, and some still are to this day.

You think that such things are stupid and tell Hazel such.

"Damn right they are! Thankfully, they've started to get past all that. Now, if only those damn terrorists stopped being such extremists."

She returns to her story quickly after that comment, seemingly annoyed at the topic of these "Terrorists"

After being kicked out, she went off and decided to train on her own. Eventually becoming a mercenary that guarded traveling caravans. Many years later, she had gained a good enough reputation and created her own caravan. Eventually, she and her caravan would settle down in a tiny village called Spring's End. Having gained the Previous Elder's trust, she would be given the position of leader. With her skills as a caravan owner and mercenary, she would go on to make Spring's End a very successful town.

"So that's it, not very exciting huh?"

You tell her that it was quite a wonderful story and that you would most definitely have failed in her shoes.

"A flatterer huh? You know, you're a good kid, kid. Don't let anyone change you alright"

Hazel does say some weird things sometimes. After all, why would you let anyone change your body? You're the only one allowed to do that.

[Closeness increased with Hazel!]

=====

With that, the day comes to a close. Sleep comes quicker, your fear slightly dulled by the happy thoughts you've gained today.

You spend the next day helping around town and Reading Your new Book!

Reading for Dummies, a surprisingly helpful book.You had chosen it due to the fact that it was the only one that was made specifically to help people new to reading. It used a lot of pictures and the words were quite big, but it definitely helped you. Your reading speed improved by leaps and bounds, not to mention that you could now write simple paragraphs. Though it looked very messy and you still needed a lot more work to reach an acceptable level.

[Reading for Dummies 35% Done, Reading: (E) -> Reading: (D-), Writing: (E-) Gained!]

====

Finally, after no attacks from the grim, the hunters arrive. You don't get a chance to see them, but they come to you, the sole person to fight the now named "Tyrant of Lightning" and ask if you 'd like to join them on their hunt.

You accepted of course, leaving a threat like that around is never good. You will help them hunt down the "Tyrant of Lightning" or "Zinogre" as it is often called. With your acceptance comes information. The hunters share all the knowledge that has been gained on this type of Grimm.

Zingores are a somewhat rare breed of Grimm. They generally build a hoard of lesser Grimm and then travel the world, attacking any settlements they might pass. The storms they create can grow to uncontrollable levels if left alone for too long. Apparently, a long time ago a storm created by a Zinogre destroyed a coastal city. All that remained to prove that there was once a city, is a large clearing where nothing will grow. Adult Zinogres are covered in black fur and the lightning they produce is often colored black or red. The hunters had seemed very

relieved to find out from you that this Zinogre was still quite young, as you hadn't noticed any black fur or extremely resilient skin.

Aside from the overall boost gained from enveloping themselves with lightning, they also had the ability to discharge all of their stored energy into the surrounding area, though, this left them weakened and vulnerable. Worst of all, they told you that under the right circumstances, a Zinogre could turn into Lightning itself for a suicidal attack. Thankfully, this one was much too young to pull something like that off.

After being debriefed on the Zinogre's general abilities, the hunters went off to find Hazle and finish the plan of attack.

Hours later, Hazel came to you and informed you on what was decided.

The Hunters and you would be ambushing the Grimm the day after tomorrow. Hazel's fastest people would be acting as scouts, and she would be going out herself to make sure none of her people were killed by stray Grimm.

When you asked how strong she was, she simply smiled and said, "Strong enough".

She had also noted that the hunters seemed interested in your skill. When you asked her to explain further, she told you that they would be watching your performance and if it was good enough, they would be offering you a recommendation for a combat school

in Vale.

Either way, she convinced them to take you back to Vale when they returned, though she recommended you get a job as a cook or something and not as a hunter.

And so, the day ended and a new one began.

Having only one more day before the attack, you decided it would be wise to focus some more on your training.