Chapter 12

It's been a week since the Guild story mission and I've gained three levels in that time.

This past week has been spent sending out some of my men to do a ton of small robberies or simple reconnaissance, even putting aside personal training to tackle the harder missions myself. Things so far have been going smoothly for the most part, aside from the occasional minor bump along the road like unexpected police turn up (luckily the crazy blonde stalker of mine didn't show up). I've even managed to grind out thirty extra luck for my Luck stat, now it sits at a nice forty-three, and I've also figured out how to level it quicker if I wanted to. I can power level the stat through mass guessing with dice, although it's comparable to a hammer in its application. But from what the help section my ability gives me says it levels faster with money on the line, instead of a hammer think of that as a surgeon's scalpel. As I'm trying to not lose money right now, I figured I'd put that on hold for the moment.

Forty-three luck is good enough to give me some more breathing room right now anyway, getting extra stat points over forty has become a chore using the dice method and my time is better spent doing something else right now.

Like burning a ton of Aura to get that next Aura skill level that's been teasing me for the past hour. I've been sitting in my room pushing Aura out into a wall-like shield, which had given me a familiar skill.

[Aura Shield (active) Lv3 Exp 55.4%

One of the most basic defense skills using Aura that can be manipulated to cover a wider area. Not to be mistaken with a person's own personal Aura shield that naturally coats their body.

Cost: 30 MP

Additional Cost: 46 MP/Min

Up to three shields can be created at once, this increases the cost by three.]

Come on… yes!

["Aura" has gained 1 level!]

[Aura Lv52 (Passive/Active) EXP 0.1%

The manifestation of your soul. When active it creates a sort of force field around your body, protecting it from harm.

Passively increases all stats except LUK by 30%.

When active, increases all stats except LUK by an additional 30% and allows MP to be used as a second health bar.

Extra effect (lv50): 50% extra Aura.

Cost: MP regen disabled until deactivated. (Parameters to remove this cost not yet achieved)]

Finally. I've been trying to level up my Aura skill as much as possible ever since I first bothered to check the skill. I had glanced at my stat window one time and I noticed I had a bit more Aura than usual. Apparently, at level twenty-five, the Aura skill gained an extra effect that I didn't notice, a bonus twenty-five percent to my base Aura level. At level fifty the bonus Aura went up to fifty percent. I had a good feeling that this might be what makes all the hunters in training (and Jeanette) have more Aura than they should have. Unless the "NPCs", as I like to call them, have some sort of arbitrary numbers stuck to their stats and don't level like I do.

I don't know anymore, but I'm not too concerned.

My Aura isn't the only thing I've been power-training during the week. My Summon Elemental hit level seventy-two yesterday, and I'm getting excited when it comes time to prestige it. When it does hit that first cap, I'll be celebrating by making contracts with the other elementals.

Observe hit level fifty-five, but nothing really changed at all about it. Aside from a little extra snark.

The three big things so far are the increase in my personal level, the three hundred thousand I've made this week, and the thirty-five extra men I've hired. I was already close to level thirty-nine when I completed that story mission last week, so I decided to push my men a bit harder for the extra two levels. I gave them a small break here and there by finally using my Find Instant Dungeon skill (I've been avoiding it because I was still kinda sulking from the massive nut shot my ability gave me), to search for Grimm to fight during the day. I also noticed that I've begun to slow down a lot with my stat gains by using the training method to get the free points in strength and dexterity. I'd all but given up on dexterity since it was one of the skills I put my actual points into.

The extra hired men I hired during my training also helped ease some of the stress for the others, and twenty of them were even skilled sailors!

Speaking of the men I hired, I've hit the "official" member cap of my Guild. A good size of sixty-five thanks to the base thirty and the thirty-five extra space I had granted to me thanks to my bounty. I gain five more member openings for every five-thousand bounty I acquire, it would seem. I can still fit thirty more thanks to my title, but I didn't want to hire any more than that just in case I needed to switch my title out. I didn't know what would happen to the extra's I'd hire, and I didn't feel like testing it out. I am starting to near my goal, and I don't need too many distractions right now.

But, back to the dungeons, I found a few dungeons out in the wild using my skill and my minimap, most of it was kinda trash quality with a slightly harder Grimm acting as the boss. Sure it was a great way to level a few combat skills, and more importantly level up my Aura, thanks to the sheer number of Grimm, but I got nothing substantial in terms of items from it.

I did create two brand new Aura based skills. The first skill, the most basic but I figured had some interesting applications for the future, was called Aura Bolt.

[Aura Bolt Lv1 EXP: 0.0%]

One of the most basic of all outward Aura attacking skills, although oddly it is extraordinarily rare for any Hunter or well-trained individual to utilize it. It seems people forgot about this skill, but where do you think civilization today got the concept of energy attacks in their cartoons?

-Increases attack power with higher INT.

-Max range of 10 meters.

I'll have to see if it was possible, but I hoped to add elemental effects to it when I can get the chance to do so. I might be able to make Cinder green with envy by lobbing fireballs around like it wasn't even something special in this world.

The second skill is named Spiral Aura Bolt, I created it when I was just messing around with my ability, to be honest. I really just needed a good hard hitting move to use in case of emergencies. It even had the same effects.

[Spiral Aura Bolt (Active) Lv1: EXP: 0.0%]

A skill created from the memory of Roman Torchwick, an immense amount of Aura is gathered into a single attack and spun rapidly to increase its penetration power.

-20% Defence penetration.

-600% Attack damage increase.

-4 Second spin time.

-Depending on the user's wish, it is possible to spin the attack up to 10 seconds.

-There is an additional attack damage increase as spin time increases.

-The more MP used in the skill, the stronger it becomes.

Cost: Varied.

Both of these were honestly just Jee-Han's Energy Bolt and Spiral Energy Bolt from the comic with a slightly different name. In the dungeons, I ended up spamming these skills, Bind, and also leveling up Far Strike instead of using my conventional weapons. Getting them higher leveled now was probably a good idea and it's not like I didn't have basically unlimited Aura when the Grimm commonly dropped Dust for some inexplicable reason. My Aura Mend didn't care about quality.

Things changed for me dungeon wise when I entered one of the dungeons close to Vale's wall. Going inside that dungeon led me into an area that closely reflected the forest I just left, and in it I found a lot of higher leveled Grimm, mostly level thirties whereas the other dungeons had low-level twenties, roaming around like typical RPG mobs. They gave some pretty good EXP and interesting drops like Ursa Claws or a Boarbatusk Tusk (finally got my first health potions too!). I still wasn't sure about what to do with these Grimm parts, but I stuck them into my inventory anyway. I could hang them over my fireplace or something.

But the supposed big bad of that place is what really drew my attention if I was even able to see it. Towards the middle of the dungeon, things got a little harder, not too much trouble for me but it was a noticeable change in tempo. I stopped before I entered a strange clearing, figuring that doing that would prompt the beginning of the boss battle of this place and I wanted to know what I was about to get into.

I eyed the clearing and noticed something interesting, or some things I should say. Four Nuckelavee Grimm, all level sixty-five, were patrolling around the clearing. I remembered this Grimm from volume four, although these looked quite a bit smaller than the one in the show. They didn't stray far from the center of the clearing, which I noticed had a fancily decorated chest covered in moss.

My gaming instincts were screaming that that chest had something very awesome in it, and I needed to have it.

But I held myself back as several red flags were popping up in my head like I had developed Spider-Sense (I kinda did, but it doesn't really tell me anything specific like Spiderman's can). Greed was the downfall of many a gamer, and I don't think I have any lives beyond this one. The first red flag, and a major one, in my opinion was the fact that the second I peeked over the bush all four of the Grimm looked directly at me. They didn't move to attack or stray from their patrolling, but they did glance at me.

The second red flag came when one of the Grimm strayed close enough for me to spot its name.

Lv65 Nuckelavee Minor

A minor. That implies that these were just the pre fight before the main event, so to speak. Like those weaker mobs, you have to sometimes fight just before a boss fight in an MMO. And the name gives a good indication on why they looked smaller than the Nuckelavee in the show, they were obviously younger and weaker.

There is one interesting thing of note about the Grimm's name I saw. It had a bronze stylized head of the Grimm dragon from volume three just behind its level. It reminded me of elite or rare mobs from World of Warcraft, and if the bronze was any indication there had to be two more levels above that. I took a glance at its stats when I noticed the bronze, I didn't notice anything odd about it. It had some good strength and vitality sure, but nothing super extravagant. I wasn't sure what to make of it.

The third red flag was the simple fact that my Sense Danger skill kept on giving me a pop-up and even leveled up by five levels during the short time I spent staring out into that field.

Yeah, fuck that noise. I'll have to come back once I've gotten a lot stronger. So I left that dungeon and marked it on my map for future reference. I only completed a few more dungeons that day, deciding to instead take the rest of the day off. Even I needed some time to myself to unwind.

I leaned back in my plush and very comfy couch and kicked my feet up onto the small table in front of it, taking a nice and long drag of my cigar. Right now there is a small amount of rare peace and quiet in my warehouse and I was using it as a chance to think in peace.

I'm having a pointless debate with myself if I should buy the boat now, or wait until I was six hundred thousand richer.

On one hand buying the boat now means that there is less chance that Walter won't sell it to the person who offers a very sweet deal. Walter may be a nice guy for a criminal, but he still operates on money and money alone. Plus, there's the fact that my more sailor experienced men can look it over and get familiar with the boat before we set sail for Vacuo.

The other hand, something could go wrong and I might need the money for something else. It's a weak argument and not one I can really buy into. Honestly, I think I'm just procrastinating at this point.

I sighed to myself and leaned over to tap my cigar over the ashtray sitting next to my feet before sticking it into my mouth once more. I pulled out my scroll and tapped on the screen a few times. The scroll rang for a few seconds before the call clicked through.

"Ah, Roman! How ya doin'? Got the money for the ship already?"

I snorted, straight to business like usual, "Yeah, I do. I can drop the money off tonight. How long 'till you can get it over by my warehouse?"

There was humming coming from the other side of the call and I had the strange image that Walter must be stroking his chin, "Got it movin' around ta keep it all inconspicuous an' all. I can place a call and get it over to ya by tomorrow, two days tops."

"Sounds good then, I'll come by later tonight," I replied. After a small exchange of pleasantries we hung up the call and I was left to my thoughts once more.

Specifically, what was I going to do in Vacuo, beyond finding Neo and dealing with Raven's tribe and all. I've looked up Vacuo and what I could do to expand my criminal empire there in the future. And it turns out... Nothing. Vacuo is already mostly lawless outside the direct influence of Shade Academy. So selling illegal goods is rather pointless, and other criminals would've already had strong operations going there already.

To be honest, I don't think I should be trying to expand myself in Vacuo, at least not right now. I should consolidate my power here in Vale first, build up my guild and all. Vacuo isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

I watched as smoke drifted up to the ceiling and thought to myself, "I should think about making a hideout somewhere in the forest. In case this building gets compromised at some point. I should work on getting Bullheads first, to transport cargo and men."

I really do need to get some Bullheads, it would make train robbing or stealing Dust shipments from sea ships viable methods of crime.

For now, I think I'll wait until nightfall to go buy that ship, then I'll finally do something that I've been wanting to do for a while.

The van came to a stop before Walter's place of operations and I quickly stepped out. I shut the door behind me and my henchman quickly rode off to find a place to quietly park, I myself began my journey to make my largest purchase so far in the underground world. As I knocked on the door I couldn't help but contemplate on how far I've come in this world.

Sure, my success is only thanks to the ability I somehow managed to obtain, but I still had next to nothing of note in my name. Now, I had my own criminal network and gang and was working my way up to the top of Vale's local kingpins.

The door guard let me through and I made my way through the various stacked boxes of illicit goods. I ignored most of the other criminals, they were either small time pickpockets, hired muscle, drug dealers, or just some of Walter's patrolling thugs keeping things as orderly as possible. None of the big timers were here tonight it seemed.

After making my way through I wasted no time and ascended the plush carpeted stairs that lead straight to Walter's overlooking office. I had no doubt that he had already seen me, he always keeps a watchful eye on things through the one-way glass panel. I slowly made my way down the rich looking hallways of the upper level, I wasn't in too much of a hurry.

Before I came to the door to Walter's office I stopped in front of a large portrait of the man in his younger years. He had a mischievous grin in place like he had just robbed you blind and you just haven't noticed it yet and was sporting a fancy suit and long coat.

I raised a single finger up into the air and tilted the painting just so.

Smirking to myself I made my way in front of his door and knocked on it with my cane.

"Come on in, ya little whippersnapper," was the muffled reply.

I opened the door to the office and was met with the sight of the old man himself drinking from a glass of scotch. His wrinkly face stretched into a grin when he caught sight of me. I've always liked Walter since the day I first met him through Junior. He always had a smile on his face and was willing to do business completely relaxed, almost makes me forget that he is the top criminal in Vale.

"Fancy suit, fancy office, lots of hired staff, and a glass of scotch on the rocks? You're like every stereotypical rich man in the movies. I bet you even have a garage full of luxury cars with beautiful women lying on them hidden somewhere around here," I smirked as I took my hat off and hung it on the hat rack near the door.

He raised his glass to me in a toast, "If ya got it, kid, flaunt it. That's been my motto ever since I started my career path and built all this up, and I'd say I've done a damn good job so far."

"A single place in Vale's underworld where everybody can get everything, and make it damn near impossible to get them through other means? Yeah, you've done a good job, shame not everyone thinks that way," I replied as I strode across the room and took a seat in one of the comfy leather chairs before his desk. I took a cigar out and offered it to Walter, he took it and lit it with a match he pulled from somewhere.

I pulled out my own cigar and lit it with a match he gave to me.

"Aye, young upstarts is what they are. They don't like having a single place for criminals and other unsavory types to get things, at least one place not in their hands. All business and money these days, no time to make room for class or style." He pointed at me with his lightly smoking cigar, "That's why I like ya kid, ya seem to actually appreciate this kind of style and are even willing to entertain an old man's pleasantries when we meet face to face."

I shrugged and blew out some smoke, "What's a criminal without style? Just regular thugs, or even worse, bandits."

Walter nodded, "Aye. Which I why I'm askin' why are ya goin' to Vacuo right now. Heard through the grapevine ya needed somethin' that brutish lot had."

I didn't surprise me he had some knowledge of where I was going, he and Junior were pretty close.

"I'm looking for someone special to recruit, a good partner in crime and not some run of the mill mook I'd bring with me to do some heavy lifting. Turns out those 'classy'," I did an air quote, "people seem to have her in their midst. Going to try and see if I can bring her over to my side, if not then I'll just have to leave without."

Walter nodded and stared at the ceiling, sighing wistfully, "A good partner will take ya far in this world, kid. I remember my old partner in crime, he was one hell of a shot while I could barely hit the side of a building with a gun. We were already the best of friends before we began this venture into crime. We met during the Great War, fighting as one of the soldiers alongside the King of Vale himself as he led us to victory in Vacuo."

I hadn't known Walter was that old… he would have to be at least ninety-eight if he fought that battle when he was eighteen.

Walter shook his head, "Anyway, he died a decade ago. Natural causes, in his sleep. But enough of that, I think I've depressed myself enough. I've already sent the call to bring that ship of yours over, just place the money on the desk."

I didn't say anything and just pulled a briefcase out of my inventory, I pre filled it before I left my warehouse so I wouldn't have to use time punching in numbers. Plus, it made the whole thing feel more official than just pulling out straight up money.

After counting out the money Walter and I relaxed and talked past our cigars until it was time for my own personal operation tonight.

The ground broke and shifted in front of me as a tunnel was slowly excavated by my elemental.

"How close are we to the underside of the bank?" I asked Rumble.

"Close. Only three meters until we arrive in front of the box," he replied as I used Aura Mend to top up my Aura.

I nodded for no reason in particular and just continued to wait patiently for Rumble to do his thing. I came across this idea of robbing a bank swimming in my head for a while now, but the issue of actually opening the vault door was my major concern. I spent a long time just trying to come up with different ideas on how to open one, even going so far as to think about placing bombs, until I had an epiphany.

I summoned Rumble in physical form and asked if he could manipulate metal.

"Rumble, can you affect metal? Like, bend or move it around?"

"I do not understand the question. What is 'metal'?"

"Uhh," I paused then pulled out a random crowbar I had stuffed in my inventory, "This. This crowbar is made up of metal."

Rumble looked at the crowbar, his rocky face not shifting in the slightest. He turned his gaze back at me and said, "Yes. This… 'metal' is from the earth. I can move it if you desire."

I pondered that conversation for a while after that. In other games or works of fiction I've read, there were sometimes other kinds of elementals. Take for instance a 'metal elemental', they would only be able to manipulate metal and not earth. Same in reverse, an earth elemental wouldn't be able to affect metal beyond using earth to strike at it.

If Rumble was able to utilize metal, then the elementals I'll be able to use had more than one sphere of influence. I know there are some types of materials that aren't specifically one type of element, so I don't know if two or more elementals have to work together to manipulate it or if it defaults to the element it relates to the most.

"We have arrived."

I snapped myself out of my thoughts and stared up at the ceiling, I grinned to myself and muttered, "This is almost cheating." I looked at Rumble and nodded, "Do it."

The ceiling collapsed and dust dissipated through the small tunnel, I coughed and quickly jumped out and Rumble just phased through the floor as he was still invisible and not fully materialized into the world. I stood before the large vault doors and wasted no time to once more gave Rumble the go ahead. Rumble held out a single rocky arm and the vault door shuttered and crinkled into itself.

I could feel the drain on my Aura, this was much more Aura intensive than just plain rock. I popped another Aura Mend and eagerly waited as the vault doors finally collapsed into itself. Rumble flicked the door to the side and I strode through the gaping opening like I owned the place.

I could feel my pants tighten as I gazed upon the Lien and other fine things that had to be stored in the vault boxes. "Hot mama…" I said to myself and began my looting.

In straight up Lien, I had to have nabbed at least two million, which is pretty good as I'm sure most of the Lien this bank company is being kept somewhere else. I could probably find out where the central location is some other time. I didn't have the time to count up what I'd stolen in material goods as I'm sure the silent alarm has gone off when the vault door was forcefully opened.

I jumped through the opened vault door and pulled out a can of orange spray paint, shaking it and I headed to the nearest wall. I spray painted "Roman Torchwick was here, thanks for the donation!" in large bold letters and even added my emblem to give it something extra.

I jumped through the floor's opening and said, "Close it up Rumble, it's time to get out of here."

And that's a wrap for this chapter! The Vacuo Arc starts next chapter and I hope to see you there!

Name: Roman Torchwick

Class: The Gamer

Level: 41 (Next Level: 12,070/85,100)

Title: Kingpin

Bounty: 38,000 Lien

HP: 2,764

MP: 5,391 [3,478 + 173.9(5%) + 1,739(50%)]

STR: 58.8 [Base 42 + 12.6(30%) + 4.2(10%)]

VIT: 71.4 [Base 51 + 15.3(30%) + 5.1(10%)]

DEX: 164 [Base 80 + 12(15%) + 24(30%) + 8(10%) + 40(50%)]

INT: 142.8 [Base 102 + 30.6(30%) + 10.2(10%)]

WIS: 56 [Base 40 + 12(30%) + 4(10%)]

LUK: 43

Elemental Affinity: Earth (10)

Attribute Points: 25

Lien: 2,418,690

Status Effects: Inactive Aura(Toggled Off)