Chapter 8: Mistral Kingdom

~Third POV~

Mistral is divided into multiple levels; the higher one goes, the nicer it gets. A massive platform in the middle of the city acts as an elevator to descend and ascend through Mistral.

The city is full of various buildings and vendors selling merchandise legally and illegally. Haven Academy rests at the top of the tallest point.

The lower levels of the city, called Mistral Below, however, are shown to be worse than the upper levels and full of criminals. Many criminals like Lil' Miss Malachite have buildings that they use as their base of operations like bars.

Most of the Huntsmen that weren't working for the Kingdom's council were also stationed here there is also a place called Sakura Park that is found in these lower levels.

In the Mistral Below you can find the most dangerous people living around the area as it's filled with many criminal elements.

Lil' Miss Malachite and her criminal organization are also stationed in Mistral's lower levels due to her being one of the most powerful people in Mistral. She usually resides in her bar and gives information to people who pay her.

The Luck of the Mountains is a nightclub owned by Spider, where it operates as a place to pool money from patrons, both legally and illegally. The club's star is a woman named Honey Wine, who has the Semblance to make those who listened to her song feel good and thus be prone to listening to her suggestions and ignoring the surrounding, making them easy to pickpocket. The nightclub is established in Sakura Park.

The Happenstance Hotel is a minor establishment in the lower levels. The headquarters of the criminal organization, The Mouse and Parrot, was situated in lower Mistral.

Gunmetal, a blacksmith with criminal ties, operates in the city. Broken Memories is a black-market shop that reverse-engineered Atlesian technology, owned by a man named Bisque who works for Spider.

While not much is known about the organization's past, it is known that their leader, Lil' Miss Malachite, was once terrified of the group. She overcame this fear by making the Spiders work for her, overthrowing the group's former leader.

Lil' Miss has two daughters, Melanie Malachite and Miltia Malachite, and is implied to have killed the twins' father.

Spider forms an allegiance with the Xiong Family, in which they would stay exclusively in Mistral whilst Xiong would stay in Vale. Spider never intended to honor this deal, however.

At some point, Spider aligned itself with Lady Browning's Preparatory Academy For Girls, hatching a scheme to place spies everywhere across the kingdom of Vale, amassing billions of Lien's worth to push the Xiong Family out of the way and take over the city's underworld.

In a world like Mistral, only Lien is what matters and whose gang would be taken care of control of the villain underworld matters.

…

…

~Soul POV~

I have no idea how long I have been running away for a while now since it's already been about like say two days' worth of running that my Stand [Harvest] has been doing for a while now. I have to admit that the little guys certainly are persistent.

But still though after that fiasco of a fight if that was even called that taught me a lesson not to mess with the bigger and stronger Grimms… or at least till I'm at that level getting stronger in the process at least.

Although I didn't waste my time at the very least though I managed to escape my Grimly captors at the very least though.

[Mission: Run or Fight (Completed)

Description: A Highly evolved Grimm called the Nuckelavee has already destroyed and killed off some of the people of Oniyuri. This Grimm has now set its sights on the village of Kuroyuri as its next target along with a few other Grimm leading it there with its screeches causing destruction. You have two choices run away leaving with Kuroyuri destruction or kill the Grimm Nuckelavee.

Rewards if you Run: [The Cure], and 1000 Lien.]

[Rewards are transferred]

Good, I was wondering when I was going to get a new stand and Lien in the process.

Really in need of some food situation since I don't know if any of the berries or nuts here are that edible, to begin with. Sigh…

I should've taken anything of value from the village like a book about the wildlife to know more about what's safe to eat instead of going gung-ho fighting monsters. Can't exactly be this dumb unless I want to survive thank you very much.

Now about those rewards.

Now let me see here…

[Host: Soul Silver

Semblance: (Locked)

Stand: [Harvest]

Lien: 1,250

Missions: 3 Complete…

Sub-Missions: None

Ultimate Challenge: (Locked)

Spare Stands: [The Cure]]

Good.

Very good.

At least I see that the rewards are intact from this. A 1,000 more Lien in my wallet is good in my book along with some experience from the mission.

Now then if I recall correctly the Stand [The Cure] is one from the novel right? There were many novel versions of Jojo Bizarre Adventure made in the series and I remember some of the ones named.

[The Cure] belongs to the Golden Wind parts of Jojo with something about Purple Haze I think… but first what can this Stand do exactly first?

[Stand: The Cure

Destructive Power: E, Speed: B, Range: D

Stamina: A, Precision: B, Developmental Potential: C

The Cure has a passing resemblance to a small white rabbit a small ball of white fur possessing a pair of disproportionately large ears which it uses as feelers. Its right eye is red, while the left eye is gold and slightly smaller. There is a blue gem in the middle of the forehead and other similar gems at the tip of the ears and the back of its paws, giving it a bejeweled overall appearance.

The Cure's size automatically changes with the amount of pain and illness it absorbs. The greater amount it absorbs, the bigger it grows. Under normal circumstances, The Cure can fit in the palm but when overcharged, grows up to 20 meters in height.

The Cure Standability [Healing] can heal and absorb any living organism's wounds, illnesses, and emotional distress. The absorbed pain accumulates within the Stand, causing it to grow accordingly, but will normally diverge over time. Should the absorbed pain exceed the allowed amount, the Stand will grow to extremely large proportions and go berserk. In this runaway state, it gains a subhuman appearance and continues to grow stronger the more it is damaged.

Once it becomes out of control state it reaches its Destructive Power to A rank.]

Whew…

Now, this here is a pretty useful Stand to have [The Cure] using its Standability could make healing people all the more useful. But once it gets even more powerful it will certainly be a force to be messed with.

Remembering from the novel where this rabbit was all it took for it to be berserk was that it had to Purple's Haze virus it grew out of control. But if I were to do the same to a degree I could have a rabbit size monster 20 meters in height attack anyone on sight.

Shame I don't have anything like that though and I could only summon one Stand at a time currently. However, it does make money for quickly healing people very easier at least considering its healing powers.

This ain't a bad stand but I still need a combative one. [Harvest] is fine against human opponents when need be.

However, I don't how Huntsmen/Huntresses-in-Training would react to them. Or worse the veterans could see them and [Harvest] isn't exactly something most people would consider as normal per se.

Sigh…

Still, I have no method to confirm what they say is true so for now though I should take it with a grain of salt for now till I test the idea at least. But for now, keeping its secret would be good enough.

"Found it!"

"Hee hee!"

That was when I heard the responses of my units as I finally see our current location… It is certainly very big I'll give it that much at the very least. It has this kind of… eastern cultures vibe and with a hint of Ba Sing Se from Avatar: The Last Airbender.

From this distance I'm at it looks like a large city built on two mountains within the Kingdom of Mistral.

Various buildings cover the mountains from the summits to the foothills.

And if I'm correct on the info it should be the place where they have their Super Children Soldiers being trained at a place called Haven Academy that lies at the top of the city spanning across the peaks of both mountains, which themselves are part of a wider mountain range. Stone stairways act as the main routes in the city…

Why the stairs though?

Haven't these people seen enough of Kung Fu Panda to know having such long stairs are a bad idea?

That and in my previous world people in games would gladly challenge this by going all the way to the top with no rewards whatsoever.

Sigh… At least it can't get any worse from here, right?

…

…

I stand very much corrected once I got near the entrance of Mistral Kingdom as I can see lots of criminal elements in the area. No like seriously there are fuck tons of them around these parts it's not even funny.

No like seriously the place of the lower levels of Mistral was something I soon find out about as I happen to see that not everything is pretty peachy on how it works. Not wanting to stay in such a very dangerous environment and possibly get mugged I went ahead and go towards a park nearby.

Glancing at the park it was there I found it was named after possibly the worst anime character of all times… Sakura… I see my hate for her is still there and people like her exist somewhere but I call back those emotions for now.

Going around seeing a nice place to sit down for a while I began to think what should I do next?

Relaxing for a bit I then noticed someone coming towards me as I saw her face having some normal features as she spoke to me, "Hey there you lug! How about spending your time with me in the Luck of the Mountains? Huh?"

Glancing at her I raised my eyebrow at this as she points to the bar a few meters away from the location, I was at… yeah not sketchy at all right?

Seeing that she expects me I kindly declined the offer to her as I was better off my way for the time being. That was when she gets closer to me as she speaks more forcibly, "Now, now don't you know it's rude to keep a lady waiting?"

*Click*

Hearing a clicking noise below I saw… fuck you!

I saw the pistol right near my stomach seeing I was about to get mug on my first day here!

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A/N: Ah… good old Mistral the place where people get mugged daily with no worries whatsoever for the rich. For the poor, however… well let's see how the MC deals with gang members right?