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Jaune Musuo - Chapter 1 of 2
🕑 Added 2025-02-03 15:19:47 +0000 UTCRemember that oneshot where Jaune was a genre savvy guy who just wanted to survive as an Extra? Well, here's one where Jaune is a mook in a Musuou genre world where the Huntsmen are tge heroes. It's not fun.
Part 1 of 2.
[line break]
Another day, another beating.
Jaune stood among the ranks of the militia, clad in the same cheap armor and standard-issue sword as the thousands of other unfortunate souls around him. The air was thick with dust and tension, but mostly? It was filled with despair despair. Today, they were to engage in yet another hopeless battle, the kind where strategy, numbers, and even basic physics would mean absolutely nothing. A battle that would end with them all nursing bruises, broken bones, and shattered egos.
Their captain - a grizzled veteran who had somehow survived multiple battles against the invincible 'heroes' of Remnant, though certainly not with his sanity intact - raised his sword, "Hold steady, men! Remember, they bleed just like- "
He never got to finish.
A deafening shockwave blasted through the air, and just like that, the first wave of militia was sent flying. Jaune didn't even need to see what caused it. He already knew. Everyone already knew.
The Huntresses had arrived.
One in particular stood at the center of the battlefield, grinning like she'd already won - which, of course, she had. Long golden hair framed a face of unshakable confidence, and her absurdly small outfit - a bomber jacket, a scarf, tubetop, and shorts - was a mockery to every soldier present. She had no armor, no shield, nothing but a pair of gauntlets that barely even looked like weapons. And yet they all knew she was about to lay waste to a thousand men.
This wasn't a war. It was a workout.
"Who's up for a warm-up?" she called, cracking her knuckles, as if she wasn't already on fire. Literally. Her hair was on fire, because of course it was.
Jaune swallowed thickly. This was so unfair.
She moved. No, moved wasn't the right word. She exploded into their ranks. A single punch created another concussive blast, sending men tumbling through the air like discarded ragdolls. Jaune barely dodged a fully grown man as he was launched over his head, screaming all the way down.
And that was just the first attack.
Another swing. Another dozen men sent flying. Somewhere in the chaos, the captain - an actual trained soldier, mind - let out a battle cry and charged. A brave, stupid move. She sidestepped the attack easily, caught his sword between her bare fingers, and flicked him aside like he was nothing more than a particularly aggressive mosquito, grinning the entire time.
Jaune watched the man disappear into the sky. He was pretty sure he heard him scream all the way into orbit, "This is ridiculous," Jaune muttered, backpedaling, "She's one person! One person!" He knew that numbers didn't matter in this world, but he still felt compelled to shout at the absurdity and unfairness of it. The Huntress turned toward him, mouth curled up in a cocky grin. Jaune immediately raised his shield, as if that would help.
It didn't. At all.
She planted a foot against his shield and 'gently' kicked. Jaune flew backward, collided with five other men, and groaned as he hit the ground in a heap of misery. Before he could even attempt to crawl away, a second Huntress arrived.
Jaune groaned in dismay. Not her. She was an entirely different kind of absurd. Short, regal, and dressed like she had just come from a ballroom rather than a battlefield, the white-haired woman twirled her ornate rapier, barely sparing a glance at the chaos around her. She looked like she belonged more in a ballroom than a battlefield, but he knew from experience that she could take out an army before her tea break.
"Honestly," she sighed, looking at the downed militia in disdain, "Was that really the best you could muster?"
"No," Jaune grumbled, dragging himself to his feet, "We're just militia, not Huntsmen. This isn't a fair fight."
She scoffed, flicking a lock of hair over her shoulder, "You're lucky my boots are too pristine to step on you."
And then? Ice.
Jaune barely had time to react before the entire battlefield was transformed into a frozen wasteland. He slipped immediately, barely catching himself before toppling over completely. All around him, the rest of the militia fared even worse. Soldiers skidded and crashed into each other in a tangled mess of limbs and confusion. The Huntress? Oh, she skated across the battlefield effortlessly, weaving between flailing men with precision. With each flick of her rapier, another unfortunate soldier was sent sprawling, colliding into his comrades like some humiliating game of bowling.
Jaune groaned, "This sucks." The worst part? No one actually died, so they were denied the sweet release of death. No matter how hard the Huntsmen hit them, they always got back up. It was like some unspoken rule of reality that no matter how many times they got flung, slammed, or buried under a pile of broken weapons and shattered morale, they'd just...groan, complain, and get up for the next battle. Then it happened again, and again, and again. Death eluded them.
Even when the one with the flaming hair did that thing where she grabbed one guy by the ankle and started swinging him like a flail, knocking out whole squads with the sheer audacity of it.
Jaune thought that maybe today couldn't get any worse when a blur of red zipped across the battlefield. He barely had time to register the third Huntress before she materialized in front of the other two. Unlike them, she had an almost childlike enthusiasm, bouncing on her heels as she gripped a scythe that was taller than she was, "Whoa! Nice work, Ice Queen!" she chirped, spinning her weapon with absolutely unnecessary flair, "But don't you think freezing the whole battlefield kinda makes it hard to style on these guys?"
Jaune was offended, "Style on us?!" he yelled, dodging yet another airborne soldier. He'd been in the militia for a couple years now. Yeah, they got beat up, but there was a professionalism to it before. Now? Now you had Huntsmen who seemed to make it their life mission to make them as miserable as possible.
"This isn't a fashion contest, Ruby!" the rapier-wielding Huntress snapped at her.
"Yeah, but if it was, you'd totally lose."
The air got even colder. Jaune, at this point, was very much aware that they were about to fight each other. They weren't even acknowledging the militia anymore. They were too busy squabbling. That was what they were to them. Just background noise and score.
"Oh, you wanna go?" the rapier-wielder hissed.
The scythe-wielder grinned, "Bring it, princess."
Chaos erupted. Jaune didn't even get a chance to react before the two of them shot into motion. The scythe-wielder moved faster than humanly possible, appearing behind her opponent in a flash of red. The other Huntress spun, countering with an elegant pirouette, her rapier striking with pinpoint accuracy.
Except...instead of attacking each other, their movements somehow managed to direct their attacks toward the remaining militia. One scythe swing sent a dozen men flying. A rapier strike created a shockwave that toppled an entire platoon. They weren't even trying to fight the militia anymore. It was just happening as a byproduct of their ridiculous speed.
Jaune found himself airborne again as the scythe-wielder used him as a springboard, slamming him to to the ground, "She used me as a platform..." he groaned, "Ugh...I hate this job!"
Somewhere behind him, the blonde one cracked her knuckles again, "Well, looks like Round Two's about to start," she said, flexing her fingers as the air around her seemed to ignite. The battlefield filled with groans, whimpers, and the collective resignation of every single militia man present.
[line break]
Jaune lay sprawled on the cold, unforgiving ground, staring up at the sky, his limbs aching from yet another brutal, one-sided beatdown. Around him, the rest of the militia groaned in a collective symphony of pain, bruised bodies struggling to rise from the frozen battlefield. Weapons were scattered, helmets knocked off, shields dented beyond repair - not that they had done much good anyway. They might as well have gone into battle naked for all the good their 'armor' did them.
Somewhere to his left, Carl was face-down in a pile of other unfortunate soldiers, barely twitching. To his right, Greg was mumbling something about early retirement, his gauntlets still comically frozen to his shield.
Jaune had given up trying to move. What was even the point? Above him, completely unbothered by the destruction they had wrought, the three Huntresses stood in a neat little trio, comparing scores like this was some kind of weekend game and not an absolute catastrophe for the poor fools who had just been flattened, "I definitely got the most kills," the blonde one boasted, flexing her muscular arms with a self-satisfied grin, "Come on, be honest. No way either of you kept up with me."
"Kills?! We don't even die!" Jaune groaned weakly from the ground.
The scythe-wielder frowned, tapping her chin in thought, "Mmm, I dunno. I think I had more style points. Did you see that air combo I did? Textbook sick moves!" She twirled her scythe. Jaune closed his eyes and exhaled through his nose. Why was this even a conversation? And did they have to have it here?
"I prefer precision over reckless brutality," the white-haired Huntress interjected, crossing her arms, "Every single one of my strikes was perfectly calculated. No wasted movement, no unnecessary force."
"You froze the entire battlefield!" the blonde one pointed out, waving her hands.
"So what?" The white-haired one sniffed, tilting her nose up, "My victory was the most elegant."
"Oh, so you're saying I wasn't elegant?" the scythe-wielder gasped, placing a hand over her chest in mock offense.
"I'm saying brute force and 'styling' isn't the proper way to do things," the rapier-wielder scoffed.
The blonde huffed, crossing her arms, "Alright, well, if we're keeping score, then I totally get bonus points for flair. You know how many of these guys went airborne thanks to me? I was launching them like fireworks!"
The cloaked Huntresses' eyes sparkled, "Ooooh, we should totally rate air time next time!"
Next time?! Jaune's head shot up from the ground. He knew there'd be a next time, of course - there was always a next time - but the eagerness the cloaked Huntress said it brought a chill down his spine.
As if noticing the groaning militia for the first time, the blonde Huntress clapped her hands together and gave a casual thumbs-up, "Good work, boys! You really took a beating out there."
The scythe-wielder gave a sheepish grin, "Uh, yeah. Sorry about all the, y'know...smacking, flinging, punting, slamming, freezing, and whatever. But hey, that's your job, right?"
"So unfair..." Jaune grumbled, flopping back down.
"Hey, you'll walk it off!" the blonde one laughed, giving a casual wave as she turned, "Alright, who's up for lunch? I worked up an appetite!"
Jaune didn't move. He couldn't. Not just from exhaustion, but from sheer apathy. They had wiped out an entire militia, trounced thousands of men without breaking a sweat, and now they were just going to get lunch? He hated being born a mook.
After what felt like an eternity of pain, humiliation, and the complete destruction of his self-worth, Jaune finally dragged himself to his feet, wobbling slightly as he dusted off what little remained of his dignity. Around him, his fellow militia grunts groaned and limped away, some cradling their helmets, others rubbing bruises that would no doubt last for weeks. This was their life. Show up, beat up, repeat. They never won. They never even tied. It was always a loss.
And what was their reward for enduring an entire afternoon of getting pounded into the dirt by impossibly overpowered Huntresses?
Jaune stepped forward, reaching the designated payout officer, a tired-looking old man at the edge of the battlefield who barely even acknowledged him before slapping a small, very underwhelming slip of Lien into his hands.
He opened it, counting quickly just to make sure he wasn't somehow being shorted. Fifty Lien. That was it. Fifty miserable, worthless Lien.
Jaune clenched the envelope in his fist, staring at it like it had personally insulted him. Fifty Lien for getting tossed around like a living bowling pin. Fifty Lien for being an unpaid crash-test dummy against Huntresses who didn't even acknowledge their opponents as threats, just inconveniences that needed to be swept aside with a few flashy combos. They always said they'd get more if they somehow won, but they all knew that was bullshit. Mooks never won.
Somewhere in the distance, he could still hear them chatting as they walked off, unharmed, unbothered, and rich, "Did you see how much they paid us this time?" the blonde one laughed, tossing a heavy sack of Lien up and down with one hand like it weighed nothing.
"I'm still counting," the scythe-wielder giggled, flipping through a thick stack of bills, her eyes practically sparkling at the sheer thickness of it, "I don't even think I can fit all of this in my wallet!"
The white-haired one huffed, "Of course we're getting paid well. We are Huntresses. That was hardly even a challenge."
Jaune's eye twitched. It was bullshit. How much were they even getting for this nonsense? Thousands of Lien, easily. Tens of thousands, even. Meanwhile, he was holding his pathetic little fifty Lien like a dog being given a treat..
Fifty Lien for getting slammed into the ground at Mach speed.
Fifty Lien for being used as a human trampoline.
Fifty Lien for being flung halfway across the battlefield by an uppercut that probably broke the sound barrier.
He looked down at his tiny, utterly insignificant slip of cards then back at the Huntresses and their fat stacks of Lien. It took everything he had to not fling the cards away in a rage. No, he told himself. He needed this. It was small, but it meant living another day...even if sometimes (a lot of the time) he doubted why he fought so hard to survive.
[line break ]
Just when Jaune thought the suffering was finally over and he could limp off to spend his miserable fifty Lien on the cheapest drink he could find...she arrived.
A soft thud landed behind him, and Jaune felt a very distinct chill run down his spine. He wasn't alone. He could feel it...and judging by the audible whimpering from the rest of the battered militia, they knew it too.
Slowly, painfully, he turned around. Standing at the edge of the battlefield, arms crossed, a single hip cocked to the side in effortless confidence, was another Huntress. Dark hair, golden eyes, and feline ears perched atop her head, twitching ever so slightly. She held a black sword in her right hand and had the distinct aura (metaphysical, not literal) of someone who was mildly annoyed to even be here.
Jaune felt his stomach drop. Oh no, "Sorry I'm late," the cat-eared Huntress said in a tone that made it clear she wasn't sorry in the least, "Had some things to take care of." The entire militia - every single last bruised, battered, and emotionally scarred soldier - collectively whimpered. She blinked, "...What's wrong with all of you?"
Jaune weakly raised a hand, "Uh...the fight's over."
She frowned, "No, it's not. I haven't fought yet."
Jaune felt his soul leave his body, "I...I think the other three already, um, handled it," he tried, gesturing weakly at the battlefield of groaning, half-conscious men behind him.
The catgirl glanced around at the devastation. Piles of armor, weapons, and shields lay scattered across the frozen battlefield. Soldiers still weren't getting up. Some had just accepted their fate and were lying in the dirt like discarded props in some action film. Her amber eyes narrowed. Then, without hesitation or sympathy, she unsheathed her sword, "Well, too bad," she said, tone as casual as if she were commenting on the weather, "I'm here now, so we're doing this."
A new wave of pained, defeated groans rippled through the militia. A few men actually fell back down after hearing those words, as if their bodies simply rejected the thought of enduring another round of absolute Huntress domination.
Jaune, for his part, was having none of it, "You're kidding, right?" he asked, fully prepared to throw his sword down and run.
The catgirl raised a single unimpressed eyebrow, "No?"
"But we already-"
She sighed, exasperated, "Can you hurry up? I have a novel to get back to."
Jaune's eye twitched. She had a novel to get back to. She was about to trounce an entire army of men who had already been through too much just to keep her schedule clear for reading. The rest of the militia, already on the verge of collapse, let out a weak, collective groan of utter despair.
He stared at the cat-eared Huntress in front of him, then down at the bruises on his arms, then back at the tiny, worthless, humiliating bag of fifty Lien in his hand. Fifty lien for the day, cause he knew damn well he wouldn't get any overtime for this while the Huntress would get a few thousand just wailing on people who had no chance of fighting her.
No. Nope. He was done.
Without hesitation, he ripped off his helmet and chucked it into the dirt, "I quit," he said.
The Huntress - who was apparently expecting anything but that - blinked, her ears twitching slightly in confusion, "What?"
Jaune crossed his arms, "I quit. I'm done. I am not doing this anymore."
A beat of silence followed. The soldiers looked at him in shock and awe. No one had ever QUIT before. It just didn't happen. Once you were picked to be a mook, you were in it for life. Or at least, that was how it was supposed to be. They whined, they cried, they screamed, but they always came back for more.
Not this time.
"...You can't do that," she said.
Jaune narrowed his eyes, "Watch me." And with that, he turned on his heel and walked off the battlefield like a man who had just seen the light. The other mooks continued to look at him in awe, as if expecting a bolt of divine retribution to come down and smite him for daring to go against the natural order.
But nothing happened, and Jaune stepped past the edge of the battlefield with nothing and no one stopping him.
There was another pause. And then-
More helmets hit the ground, a cacophany of metal crashing against dirt, "I quit too!" someone else shouted.
"Yeah, screw this!"
"I'm not getting my spine turned into origami for fifty Lien!"
"I still can't feel my legs!"
Within seconds, the entire militia followed Jaune's lead, ripping off their helmets, throwing down their weapons, and marching off the battlefield in a wave of exhausted defiance. The Huntress blinked again, watching as her entire enemy force/money source collectively noped out of the battle. Jaune kept his head held high, feeling better than he had in years. He'd done it. He'd quit this horrible job. He didn't care if he had to beg on the streets, it was better than whatever this was.
Across the field, the RWY of team RWBY turned back just in time to see the mass exodus of militiamen leaving the battlefield, "Did they just..." Ruby started, tilting her head.
"Wow," Yang whistled, "That's a new one."
Weiss huffed, flipping her ponytail, "Pathetic."
Meanwhile, Blake just stood there, watching as her supposed opponents literally quit their jobs rather than fight her. She sighed, sheathed her sword, and muttered, "Guess I'll finish my book early."
[line break]
It started with a few scattered resignations; a handful of militia men deciding that getting launched into the stratosphere by flaming gauntlets, frozen solid by impossible Dust sorcery, or turned into a human springboard for hyperactive scythe-wielders just wasn't worth the insultingly small paycheck they received for their troubles. But like a single spark in a dry forest, Jaune's very public and very justified declaration of "I quit" spread faster than anyone could have anticipated, igniting a mass exodus of the long-abused moooks who had accepted their role as punching bags for the overpowered demigods known as Huntsmen for far too long.
At first, no one took it seriously, especially not the Huntsmen, who were too busy celebrating another effortless victory. They were still focused on counting their excessive earnings and laughing over how absurdly lopsided every fight in their favor had been. They'll be back, they said, and even if they weren't, there was always more goons to fight.
But soon, the murmurs turned into full-fledged desertions, the ranks of milita men thinning at an alarming rate as men who had once grimly accepted their fate as training dummies threw down their weapons and walked off the battlefield without so much as a glance back. Their loyalty to their respective causes paled in comparison to the realization that they were literally volunteering for free beatdowns with no hope of victory against the Huntsmen who only saw them as walking bags of experience points and easy paychecks.
By the time word had fully spread across Remnant, the numbers were staggering.
Entire militias disbanded overnight with whole regiments of would-be soldiers deciding "fuck that noise". Their captains and commanders (who incidentall were paid more) screamed and pleaded for them to reconsider while the soldiers - many of whom were still nursing broken ribs from the last time a blonde fire-punching lunatic had decided to 'train' on them - simply laughed and walked away, their fifty Lien severance pay jingling in their pockets as they vanished into the countryside in search of literally anything that didn't involve getting drop-kicked across an open field.
At first, the Huntsmen barely noticed. It wasn't uncommon for soldiers to flee - not everyone had the stomach to stand against godlike warriors with absurd powers and completely impractical (yet somehow incredibly functional) weapons - but the problem wasn't that soldiers were fleeing mid-battle, the problem was that there were suddenly no soldiers at all.
For the first time ever, Huntsmen showed up to contracted fights, bounty missions, and field operations only to find that there was no enemy to fight, no hapless grunts to obliterate, no conveniently placed weaklings to rack up their experience points against. All that waited for them were the empty remnants of hastily abandoned militia camps, discarded swords stuck in the ground like grave markers. Entire fortresses were left empty, the only thing greeting them being the eerie silence of a workforce that had collectively decided that no amount of money, honor, or duty was worth getting flash-frozen by an heiress with a superiority complex.
And it was all thanks to one man: Jaune Arc. The one who made them understand that they could just fucking quit.
The realization hit them all at once, spreading through the ranks of Huntsmen like a plague of anxiety and desperation. Their once endless supply of easily farmable mooks was now an endangered species thanks to one blond militia man with a spine and a very, very loud voice.
"This is a disaster!" one Huntress wailed, throwing her hands up as she paced back and forth in front of her baffled teammates, "How are we supposed to make money if there's no one to fight?!"
"This is so unfair!" another pouted, crossing her arms and kicking at the dirt like a child denied a toy, "I had a whole combo planned out for this next battle, and now I don't even get to use it!"
"I was this close to leveling up!" a third groaned, staring mournfully at his unused weapon, "I even grinded extra last week! This isn't how this is supposed to work!"
Team RWBY had noticed too, of course.
Yang, normally the very picture of confidence and cocky bravado, stared at the empty battlefield in front of her with visible distress, her fingers twitching as the realization sank like a bad hangover after a night of 'responsible celebrations', "No way," she muttered, eyes darting around like she expected few brave militia men would suddenly materialize out of thin air, ready to be pummeled into unconsciousness for a payday that barely covered a meal, "This...This isn't fucking possible. They wouldn't all quit."
"They did all quit," Blake deadpanned, arms crossed as she surveyed the abandoned fortifications that should have been swarming with hapless foot soldiers, "And I can't believe I'm saying this, but...I think we might be out of work."
Ruby, standing between them, looked genuinely heartbroken, her fingers tightening around the shaft of Crescent Rose as she took in the horrifyingly empty field in front of her, "But...But fighting goons is what we do," she said, voice soft, almost disbelieving, "If they're gone, then...then how are we supposed to get stronger?"
"How are we supposed to make money?" Yang corrected, scowling, "Do you know how much we got paid for beating up one militia? It was, like, stupid money. I was saving up for a new bike!"
Weiss groaned, rubbing her temples, "You mean to tell me that we have single-handedly fought and humiliated so many of them that they collectively decided it wasn't worth it? Tch, cowards."
Yang kicked at a rock in frustration, "Come on, we weren't that bad!"
Weiss gave her a flat look, "You once suplexed a guy into twelve other guys." Not that she judged her for that, of course. That was their role. To be the opposition the Huntsmen dealt with.
"Okay, they were standing too close together!"
"You did it three times."
Ruby, who'd been eerily quiet, suddenly clutched her scythe to her chest, her eyes wide with genuine fear, "W-What if...What if they never come back?" she whispered, looking from Yang to Blake to Weiss like they had all the answers, "What if they all get normal jobs o-or go into farming or something? What if we have to start taking actual missions?"
The very thought sent visible shudders down all four of them, "Ain't happening," Yang muttered, panic creeping into her voice, "I refuse to go back to escort missions. Do you know how boring it is to deal with slow people who whine when you get more than ten feet away from them? Nuh-uh."
Weiss scoffed, "Oh, please, I doubt it'll last. They're simpletons. They'll come crawling back when they realize how boring normal life is. Trust me, give it a few weeks and they'll be be back crawling on their hands and knees."
[line break]
Days passed, then weeks, then an entire month, and the worst-case scenario that Huntsmen across Remnant had vehemently denied as impossible, ridiculous, completely absurd had become an undeniable, inescapable, financially devastating reality.
The goons weren't coming back. Not a single one. No matter how many missions were posted, no matter how much money was offered, no matter how many mercenary contracts went out, there wasn't a single soldier, guard, or generic henchman willing to sign up and become cannon fodder for the absurdly powerful warriors who had, for so long, treated them like walking combo practice. They'd inflicted the most devastating blow one could do to an enemy.
To be ignored.
For years, Huntmsne had taken the existence of mooks for granted, never once considering the possibility that their supply of disposable punching bags might actually run out. But run out they had, and the consequences were catastrophic.
And no one was feeling the heat more than Weiss.
At first, she'd scoffed at the notion that a mere lack of grunts could possibly pose any issue to someone of her station, dismissing her teammates' worries with a sharp flick of her ponytail and a pointed remark about how only lazy, brute-force fighters relied on weaklings to farm experience and money. But as time dragged on, and her normally overflowing bank account started dwindling at an alarming rate, even she was forced to admit that something had gone terribly, terribly wrong.
It had started subtly. Small changes, barely noticeable at first. A few transactions here and there, a couple of withdrawals to fund important expenses like new custom Dust cartridges, a shipment of high-quality polish for Myrtenaster, and an entire seasonal wardrobe. Things she normally wouldn't even think about. She could earn the needed money just with a couple of armies taken down. But then she noticed her balance going from six digits to five.
The realization hit her hard. The money wasn't coming back. For the first time in her life, Weiss had no stable source of income.
At first, she brushed it off. It would be fine, she told herself. She'd get another lucrative contract, another opportunity to humiliate a battalion of underpaid militia men while walking away with a purse full of Lien.
Yet the weeks dragged on and those opportunities never came. The board had been filled with the same generic slop of escort missions, fetch quests, and bodyguard work that paid a pathetic 200 lien a pop. Pathetic.
Weiss had tried so hard to pretend it didn't bother her, to tell herself that she was better than this, that a proper Huntress didn't rely on brute-force engagements to sustain herself. She was an elegant fighter, a tactician, a Schnee. She was better than this!
But when the funds in her personal accounts reached dangerously low levels, when she was forced to start calculating her expenses like some commoner, and she found herself actually hesitating before making unnecessary purchases because for the first time ever she might not be able to replenish her wealth...
That was when the panic set in.
The final, humiliating blow came when she received a message from her financial advisor, a man who had never once spoken to her directly because her wealth had always been so vast and self-sustaining that it simply wasn't a concern. He informed her that, effective immediately, she would need to adjust her lifestyle if she wished to avoid liquidating her 'non-essential assets.'
Non-essential assets!
She had stared at the message, blinking in disbelief, unable to fully process what she was reading. Liquidate? Adjust her lifestyle? What was this nonsense?! She was Weiss Schnee! Heiress of the Schnee Dust Company! A refined and disciplined warrior who'd spent years mastering her craft! She was a Huntress, not some reckless brute who threw punches until the problem went away!
And yet, none of that mattered now. Because all the grunts were gone and her money was drying up.
For the first time in her life, she was broke. Not technically broke, of course - there were still company assets, trust funds, and stock dividends she could tap into - but the personal fortune she'd once taken for granted, the wealth she had always assumed would never run out, had dwindled so low that she was now at risk of her lifestype being upended. She might have had to leave her penthouse or...or buy something besides the very best, most refined Dust!
If this kept up, she'd have to dip into her family's funds, and Father would never let her hear the end of it.
It was all because of Jaune Arc. The man who had thrown down his helmet, turned his back on a system that had kept Huntsmen rich and powerful for generations, and taken thousands - no, tens of thousands - of his fellow militiamen with him.
The idiot. The absolute buffoon. The utter fool who had, through nothing but sheer stubborn refusal to be 'abused' any longer, ruined everything.
Yang was miserable. Ruby was heartbroken. Blake was still in denial, but she'd fall soon too. The entire Huntsman community was in shambles, and even Weiss herself was now suffering.
And the worst part of it all? They couldn't do anything about it.
No amount of anger, (justified) protests about how unfair it was, or Huntsman bravado could change the fact that they had completely exhausted their most valuable resource: disposable, underpaid, easily replacable cannon fodder. For the first time in history, Huntsmen were at a disadvantage.
Jaune Arc, wherever he was, was probably laughing himself to sleep every night. And Weiss could do nothing but scream into a pillow as her bank account slowly dwindled.
Comments
The Brotherhood of Steel
Can't wait for part 2
MilitiaMasker
Love it! This reminds me of Free Guy.
Yugo Strange
This was a fun read and I can't wait to see part 2 will they have to offer the mooks fair pay for getting smacked around or will said mooks remain steadfast in their decision?
Manuel amores morales
Me encanta el golpe de realidad que tienen los cazadores
