Chapter 2
Sap Harvesting
Day 5
Hello there everyone, my name is Jaune, Jaune Arc.
Black fur, small tusks, five days old? I know, I've changed a lot since last time.
Today is the fifth day since I was reborn as a Grimm, a Boarbatusk to be more precise. Even now I'm still asking myself, why a Grimm? And why a Boarbatusk? A pig! If I can choose I at least want to be a Beowolf.
But what's done is done. If I have to spend my life as a Boarbatusk then so be it.
But this time will be different from the time I was human. I'll train myself from an early age, I'll become strong! So strong that no other will be able to defeat me. And then, with that strength I'll protect the humans.
Just imagine it, mysterious Grimm saves people. I'll be a hero even in this body! Like Superman!
But wait, if I get too famous I might catch the attention of Hunters and the military, I'll be hunted for being a unique type of Grimm.I'll get killed or worse I'll be used as a lab rat for my entire life! Maybe crime fighting in the shadows like batman is better. My fur is natural camuflague in the dark.
Anyway! Today we, the newborns, went to help the older Grimm to gather up food. Which is kindof confusing for me, since as much as I sift through my memories I'm sure that, scientifically speaking, Grimm don't need to eat to survive.
Grimm don't attack humans to eat, they're only attracted to humans negative emotions, that's what the scientist believed after all the years of observation and debate.
So the concept of Grimm eating something was weird to begin with.
However, it's also a fact that despite being a Grimm I'm still feeling thirsty and hungry. We even hadbreakfast before going out this morning.
We were giventhe same red liquid we ate yesterday and some fruitfor breakfast, butbecause I have a sneaking suspicion that the red liquid is actually human blood I only took the fruit. A bit regrettable, but I don't want to eatanymore before I know what it is.
Oh right, before I forgot!
Yesterday a status screen like the one that appears in video games popped out of the nowhere.
It shows all my status, like HP and STR, titles and skills.
It's cool, but also really annoying. It's a bit shiny you know? And I was trying to sleep. The light from that status screen is too bright I couldn't get a winkof sleep while it's still on.
It took me at least three hours to put that thing down and I ended up with only three or four hoursof sleep. I might be seventeen years old mentally, but physically I'm still an infant. Four hours of sleep is clearly not enough.
This drowsiness is annoying and when I check my status screen again, I got some debuff because of it. Nothing major, but all my stats were decreased by a bit.Just like in a game, but instead of poison or paralysis I got drowziness.We're just gathering food so I don't think this debuff will be a serious problem. Unless by gathering food they mean hunting, if so then I'm screwed.
The older Grimm took us to a red forest, and by red I mean literally red. The bark on the trees was tinged red, the leaves were red, even the grass and soil were red.
I think I know this place, I remember coming here before but my memories seems to be kind ofblurred in some parts. Weird…it was just that yesterday I could remember everything clearly. I'm sure I forgot something important, something black and dangerous.
Oh well, probably nothing important.
Before we started, the older Grimm told us to gather and gave us a demonstration.
One of The older Grimm used their big, sharp tusks to pierce the trees and red liquid began to leak from the opening. The second Grimm usedsomething that looks like a turtle shell to gather up the red liquid.The older Grimm told us to copy what they did and gave each of us our own turtle shell.
Wait, I remember this stuff.
Red Sap?So that was the red liquid I drank yesterday.
At this point I felt relieved that it wasn't human blood like I thought before. Also another point, I could finally understand why Nora can drink bottles of this sap all in one go. The red sap was really texture when it got into your mouth, the honey like sweetness, no wonder the Grimm like sweet thing is, we can keep half of the sap we we got home I'm going drink all of it until my stomach is full.
Harvesting sap is a task that requires two of us so we were told to choose a of the other piglets were already forming groups last night so it'll be easy for them to get partners.I guess I'll have to choose a partner from the fellow loners.
Let's see, I can do this alone, but the older Grimm told us to work in pairs. One to cut the tree and another to collect the sap. So at the very least I neededsomeone with tusks.
I looked at my own tusks, they're still small, but I'm sure they'll grow bigger eventually.
For now I need someone with big enough tusks.
I looked around and realized that almost everyone had already formed pairs.
Ouch,everyone was already getting together with their partners while I was lost in thought. This is bad, at this point I'll end up gathering sap all by myself, cementing my status as a loner, or maybe I'll end up partnering with one of the older Grimm. Which would be embarrassing.
I turned around and saw a big piglet looking at me. He's technically the biggest piglet in our generation, easily twice my size with medium sized tusks, which were also the biggest ones among the piglets. He also seems strong, why is he staring at me though?
Then I realized we're the only two who didn't have a partner yet so naturally we must be why didn't anyone else pair up with him? He looks like he could do this job easily. Is it because he's mean?
"Hello!" He greeted me happily.
Nope, doesn't seem like he's that I think about it, this is the first time I've ever talked to another other piglet.
"Hello?" I hesitantly answered back.
"My name is Caboose!" He introduced himself.
"Hi Caboose! My name is Jaune, Jaune Arc" I replied, introducing myself to him.
"Jaune what?" he asked, maybe he didn't hear me clearly?
"Jaune Arc!" I tell him my name again, only a little louder this time.
"why do you have two names?"
"No! It's my family... name?"
Oh right, silly me. We're all a family of Boarbatusks, we're all one family, We don't need family name. No wonder he was confused.
"Family name? What's that?"
"Just forget it, I'm Jaune. Nice to meet you. So! I guess we're partners!"
"Yes! We will be best friends forever!"
"Nice to meet you."
He seems nice, I wonder why no one else wanted to be paired up with him. He's big and has big tusks for piglets, it'll make our work collecting sap easier. Or maybe they were intimidated by his size? Let's hope it's just that.
We devided our work, Caboose is the one with the tusks so he's obviusly the one to cut the tree and I'm the one who'd gather the sap.
Caboose tried to cut the tree to get some sap, but it was harder than we thought. Caboose's tusks were quite big, so they'd already started to curve a little, so everytime he'd hit the tree with his tusks he only hit it with it's blunt side, barely damaging the tree. So this is why no one wanted to pair up with him.
To make a decent cut on the tree we needed to use the pointy end of our tusks, and because we were still young our tusks weren't curved yet so it's a lot easier to cut the tree. There were some adult Boarbatusks who could do it, but it's a bit tricky and difficult to do.
I looked around, and it seemed like the other piglets were still strunggling to cut the tree. There were those who managed to make a cut, but there wasn't any sap coming out from the cuts.
Why? What's different? From my observasions, the other pair had cut the tree exactly like the older Grimm showed us how. Yet there still wasn'tany sap coming out. I compared the cuts on the trees, the one the older Grimm made and the ones we'd made. There's no difference in size and depth, so what's different?
After thinking for a while and looking up and down to compare the cuts, my neck began to hurt a the book I read when I was little, a pig's anatomy wasn't designed to look up towards the sky. Us Boarbatusk could look up, but if we did it for too long we will hurt our necks. Wait a second… looking up?
That's it! I know what's different. I know why we haveto do this in pairs now.
When I was human, harvesting sap could be easily done with only one of us and that didn't change even after my rebirth as a grimm, so why pair us up? That's because we needed to work together to harvest it. Us piglets were still small compared to the older Grimm, the cuts we made were too close to the roots so the sap wouldn't come out. To reach the height of the older Grimm we need to work together by combining our height. It was their way of teaching the newborns about teamwork.
I told Caboose to stop ramming the tree and climbed onto his back.
He looked confused, but then again he always look confused.
I tried to stand and reach as high as I could, using my front hoof to hold my body still. I made a small cut, and the sap flowed out.
"Yes! The sap came out!"
#Ding
[Sap Harvesting Skill Acquired]
-Increase the efficiency of harvesting sap by 1%
#Ding
[Novice Sap CollectorTitle Acquired]
A title earned when someone has harvested sap for the first time. Increase the efficiency of harvesting sap by 1%
What's this? Another game alert.
After seeing the status screen last night, I'm not that surprissed anymore, but I still don't understand whatthis is, that being said, these skills sound convenient for this job. If I raised its level high enough maybe I could became a professional sap harvester.
Just kidding.
I remember that the status screen poped up when I said status, so i tried to say it and the glowing status screen showed up.Novice Sap Collector is automatically set as my title, while Sap harvesting is listed in my skills list. Also for some reason my level increased by one, now I'm level unlike in games, learning something is also counted as getting experience. By that logic, if I learn a lot more I can easily level up.
The older Grimm looked surprised at our achievement and approached us. The piglets from our generation looked at us and tried to copy us.
#Ding
[Analytical Skill Acquired]
The skill to gather and process information to attain an answer to the user's questions.
Increase Int by 2
#Ding
[Team work Skill Acquired]
Increase the status effect by 1% when working with someone else with the same skills
Increase the effectivity of skills by 1% when working with someone else with the same skills
Increase the Relationship Values by 1% when working with someone else with the same skills
Decrease the fatigue from using skills by 1% when working with someone else with the same skills
Well, another weird yet useful skill popped out.
And whoaa! These two skills are very usefull. Hmm…What's this? Increase the Relationship value? Maybe it means that I can befriend someone faster.
I want to try the analystical skill right away, but how do you activate a skill?
"Analystical skill!" I said it out loud, but the only reaction I got was weird looks from everyone. At least I know it's not voice activated.
I'll wait until I'm all alone before I try it again.
Now let's forget about the new skills for a while and back to the older Grimm. They told us that in these first few days we were supposed to learn how to harvest sap by ourselves and learn teamwork. If we still can't figure out how to do it, they'll tell us what's wrong with our methods and let us do it again before they gave us a different task to teach us another set of skills.
They also said that it's the first time that therewas a piglet who managed to harvest sap right on the very first day. So Caboose and me were treated specially. Really, there's nothing special here. But considering we're still five days old so I guess we are kind of special to get it right during the first day.
We spent the rest of our day collecting more of the red sap.
Sometimes being the children we were, the piglets would often abandon their work and start playing with each other. The child inside of me wanted to play, but I resolved to finish my quota as quickly as possible. If I could finish sooner I could use the rest of my time investigating and studying this Grimm community.
Although in the end we failed to finish in time, we managed to collect the most red sap among the piglets. The older Boarbatusks congratulated us, and the piglets looked at us with a mix of envy and respect. That's a good thing right?
That night, the Boarbatusks were all sleeping like pigs. Because they're pigs! Get it? Lame Jokes aside, It's true that we were only harvesting sap, but for piglets like us it's hardwork. And my stomach is full after eating the red sap we gathered today. It's tasted even more delicious compared to yesterday, my dad used to tell me that food will taste better after a good workout, I guess he's right.
The piglets have grouped up like they did yesterday, leaving me alone once again. I guess being smart doesn't really boost my popularity , it's not like I want to be popular among the Grimm anyway.
Now that I have some time, let's try to check my status again.
It looked exactly like I remember, only with some changes. My level increased from one to two, and the new skills and titles I got were automatically listed here. Wait a second... all my statuses increased by two! That's weird, usually in games you'd get some free points which we could allocate yourself to build up your own character. So this is not following game mechanics? Maybe it's like pokemon or an RPG game where the stats are already predetemined.
Looking at the status screen, it doesn't seemlike my game ability is my semblance since the semblance slot is still empty. Then what is this?
Well, there's no use thinking to hard. I'm still very young, there'll be a lot more chances to learn something new sooner or later. For now, let's just sleep. Tommorow we'll be harvesting sap again so we need to rest. Maybe I should call my partner to tell him to sleep early also.
"John! John!" Speak of the devil, there he is.
Caboose came running up to me, and stopped right before he stepped on me. That was dangerous.
"My name is Jaune, Caboose…"
"Oh, right! That was embarrassing, sorry Joan."
I sighed heavily.
In the few hours we'd worked together there was a few things I knew about him. First, he's a good Grimm. But…He's kind of stupid.
"Jaune!"
"What?"
"I need to tell you something!"
"What?"
"Hmmm…well…I forgot…"
"I see… just come back later when you remember it."
"Okay! *Beat* Jaune!"
"What?"
"… Sorry, I forgot again."
"…..Just come back later."
"Okay! *Beat* Jaune!"
"What?"
"…Do you know what I wanted to ask?"
"No!"
I sighed again. Just forget what I just said before. He's not just kind of stupid, he's really stupid.
"Jaune!"
"…Yes?"
"I forgot but it's big and black."
"Caboose… did you freak out at your own reflection at the pond from a few minutes ago?"
"…. Maybe?"
#Ding
[Patience Skill Acquired]
2% increase in enduring annoyance and anger in most circumstances.
#Ding
[Patience Skill Increased by 1]
I got another weird not a game like skills, but it's something I need right now.
As I continued listening to Caboose's rambling, I got 12 levels in patience and mysteriously, Teamwork got 10 levels.
Jaune Arc
LVL 2
HP 220/220
MP 140/140
ATK 6
DEF 4
AGI 4
VIT 22
INT 16
Semblance -
Titles: [The Newborn Boarbatusk] [Novice Sap Collector]
Skills: [Sap Harvesting LV 1] [Analytical Skill LV1] [Team Work LV 11] [Patience LV 13]