Darkness clung to the forest around him like a second skin. It was only broken by the shafts of morning light that filtered through the canopy above. The air smelled of damp earth, blood, fur.
Jaune awoke to the smell, gasping.
His breath hitched and his lungs heaved as if he'd been drowning moments before. He lay on the cold forest floor with oddly aching muscles. His body was sore in places he couldn't name. His chest rose and fell erratically beneath a sweat-drenched black linen shirt. It was loose-fitting and unfamiliar, a style that he never remembered having. A longsword—steel-hilted and smeared with disintegrating dark sludge—rested loosely in his hand, almost slipping from his trembling grip.
"What… the hell?"
His voice felt hoarse and cracked. He pushed himself up to one elbow, groaning as the motion sent a jolt of pain down his spine. Everything felt wrong. His limbs were heavy, his head throbbed and there was a deep chill in his bones that didn't seem belong.
A few paces away, the corpse of a beast, a Beowolf, which his mind helpfully supplied, lay slumped in all its monstrous glory. Its form was already beginning to disintegrate into black mist that drifted upward like smoke into the branches above. The air around it seem to shimmer with residual fading malice, pressure, that no training was needed to feel.
Jaune stared.
Something deep inside him had recognized the creature immediately.
'A Grimm…?'
He looked down at himself again—at the soft fabric of his shirt, the blood smeared across the hem, the open cuts on his arms and legs. His entire body screamed with fatigue, like he had run a marathon and fought for his life all at once.
And then—itching.
A sharp, burning sensation clawed at the side of his neck. His hand flew up on instinct, fingers brushing against torn skin.
"Agh—!" he hissed.
His fingertips came away slick with blood. His pulse spiked as panic bloomed in his chest.
He needed to see the wound.
Shaky hands lifted the longsword's broad blade toward his face. Its steel, dulled by combat, still caught enough light to reflect his image.
There—just above his collarbone—was an ugly and ragged gash. His throat appeared to have nearly been torn open.
No... it had been torn open. This was... a fatal wound.
What made him freeze wasn't the wound itself. It was the way it was stitching itself shut before his eyes. Skin pulled together, blood clotted and muscle regrew.
"…What the—?"
A wave of dizziness slammed into him like a sledgehammer to the cranium.
He dropped his sword with a clatter and doubled over, retching dryly. His stomach twisted and his vision blurred. It wasn't just pain—it was like his mind had been punctured, and something else was leaking in.
Images. Sounds. Memories.
A hand clutching a doorknob. A little girl. The blaring horn of a truck and a flash of blinding light. A sudden, weightless plunge into nothing.
Then, another life.
A boy named Jaune Arc—affluently-born, trained behind gilded walls, forbidden from fighting, yet desperate to prove himself. A boy who snuck past the walls of Ansel, longsword in hand, to kill his first Grimm.
And he succeeded.
But not without cost.
Jaune stumbled back, away from the blade, away from the corpse, and collapsed onto the forest floor, eyes wide with disorientation.
"No," he whispered. "No, this isn't… this isn't right. This isn't mine."
He clutched his head, nails digging into his scalp, trying to force the whirlwind of fractured thoughts into order. But they weren't all his. Some felt foreign. Others intimate. Two lifetimes, tangled together in his mind like weeds in a garden.
He lay there, panting, trembling, until the forest silence crept back around him like a heavy blanket.
"...This is just like one of those stories," he muttered, voice hoarse and dry. "Like those novels. The ones where some poor idiot gets run over by a truck and wakes up in a fantasy world."
He barked out a dry, humorless laugh, half-crazed and bitter.
"Well. I guess I'm the poor idiot this time."
He let his head fall back to the earth, staring up at the sky through the cracks in the canopy.
He had died, and somehow, he had been put in this body—the body of Jaune Arc, who had just barely managed to kill a Beowolf before succumbing to his wounds.
And now… now he was Jaune Arc.
Whether he liked it or not.
As the tremors in his limbs slowly faded, Jaune sat there and breathed in the scent of damp leaves and blood. His gaze drifted toward the dissolving remains of the Beowolf, and for the first time, a thought surfaced—RWBY.
He remembered the show.
He had watched it years ago—not obsessively, but enough to recall the premise. It had been a coincidence that had drawn him in, really. A main character who shared his name, Jaune Arc. It was an odd feeling, hearing his name spoken in an animated world of magical warriors, monsters of darkness, and a never-ending war.
But… this place... wasn't quite that world.
The trees were older and even the ground felt more real. The weight of the sword in his hand didn't feel like a weapon designed by an animation team. It felt forged and hard-earned. A lethal weapon.
And then there was this world's greatest difference.
Jaune glanced upward instinctively.
Hovering just above his head was a faintly glowing white word, stark against the pale beams of sunlight filtering through the trees. It pulsed with soft luminescence, like firelight beneath frosted glass. It didn't seem to shed light into any of the surroundings… yet somehow, it still shone.
[Swordsman]
The words floated there—calm and otherworldly.
A pit formed in Jaune's stomach.
He swallowed hard, hand brushing over his neck where the, now healed, gash had killed this worlds version of him. There was a weight pressing against his heart—something between dread and anticipation, like standing at the top of a cliff with no idea what lay at the bottom.
'This most definitely isn't the show I remember.'
This wasn't the cyber-tech, modern-fantasy hybrid of the RWBY universe from Earth. Here, things were older and more medieval—stone cities, wooden training dummies, magic rituals, and a System that ruled over all.
From the fragments of memory now stitched together well into his mind, Jaune understood the basics.
Everyone in this world was randomly given a Class at the age of ten, granted by the System. It was an invisible force that governed growth and power. It was fate and potential made numerical and codified.
And it was absolute.
Classes determined how you grew.
A Blacksmith leveled up by forging. Scholars gained power by reading and research. Mages, by studying spell-craft and performing arcane arts.
A Swordsman—his class—grew stronger through learning new swordsmanship styles, dueling, and, most importantly… fighting, although that last part was a gimmick that most combat classes had.
Grimm were a natural resource of non-class specific exp. Any person with a class who killed them would gain from it, regardless. And since they were practically infinite, out in the world, this resource was not sanctioned.
He clenched his fist around the hilt of his sword.
Leveling up wasn't arbitrary. It had rules and followed a certain logic. While there was no tutorial from the system, scholars far and wide had catalogued the hidden rules of the System through years of trial and error. Actions had consequences, consequences that determined skill growth and acquisition. Yes, these abilities were earned through effort and purpose. Killing that Beowolf… it had pushed him forward.
The System itself had acknowledged that.
Jaune closed his eyes and let his thoughts wash over his mind—the life of the teen he was now, and the life he had once lived. Earth and Remnant. Metal and stone. Concrete and magic. For a moment, they blended, and in that space between, he, the new Jaune Arc became something new.
Not quite the boy from Earth and not quite the original Jaune Arc either but something balanced between the two.
'I don't know how the me from Earth died,' he thought, brow furrowed. There was light and a horn. A truck?'
The memory was fragmented. Distant. Like a dream slipping away in the morning.
But did it matter?
He was here now and there was no sense in lingering on the past—not when the future was so uncertain. Not when this world had its own dangers. Not when the name Salem echoed in both memory and gut with the weight of myth.
From what he remembered, she was a being of evil. A woman who was practically a humanoid grimm in all but name and her immortality only made her more fearsome. In the show, Salem had ruled from the shadows. Manipulated, corrupted and destroyed.
The only reason she had not succeeded was due to Ozma or Ozpin, who was also immortal, in a sense. His work through the ages, countered her and progressed humanity from cradle to grave.
And so the four kingdoms were built.
Was it the same here?
Would the "plot" unfold like the show? Would there be a Beacon Academy, a Vytal Festival and a Fall of Vale?
He didn't know.
This world was different, the people were most certainly different too, and the System itself wasn't something the show had ever had. This world had divergence ingrained in its very bones.
Jaune was no paragon of honesty and virtue. However, should his inaction cause harm to the people of this world, it would leave a bad taste in his mouth.
Both halves of the new him agreed with this fact. How could he simply stand aside and watch as millions possibly die? In fact, if the same type unfolded in the same way it did as the show, Jaune might become a victim himself, from how weak he currently was.
Besides... there was one other reason for him to take action and actively, possibly, involve himself in the potential "plotline" of this world.
Power.
He tightened his grip on the longsword and exhaled slowly. A breath of willpower surged through him, and with it came instinct. Muscle memory from the Jaune of this world's training. Earth-born logic pairing with Arc-born discipline.
"Status," he whispered.
A window appeared in the air before him—translucent and elegant, glowing faintly with silvery lines along the edges.
.
[Swordsman]
[Jaune Arc]
[Level 8]
.
STR: 16
DEX: 24
CON: 16
MIND: 8
MAGI: 0
AURA: 8
.
[Skills]
Sword Mastery(P)
.
He stared.
Level 8.
He remembered that this body had been Level 7 previously. His prior levels were earned through tireless repetition of him practicing sword techniques from manuals. They were all, unfortunately, under his family's supervision.
Now, after one real fight—one life-and-death clash—he had jumped forward a level. This was what combat classes were meant for. Not stagnation. Not drills. And while practice does help. A combat class needed more. They needed real experience. Real danger.
And that last stat…
AURA: 8
It wasn't supposed to be there.
Not in this world, at least.
No one had "Aura" as a stat. He was sure of it—from both sets of memories. Aura was… unique. A relic of the show he had once watched, now embedded into the System like a hidden variable.
'My golden finger,' he thought. 'My survival cheat.'
The staple of all transmigrators.
"So that's how I was healing." Jaune muttered, touching his newly healed neck. The skin was smooth and unbroken, albeit slightly pinker than normal. A discoloration.
His eyes narrowed.
In this world, his family had suppressed him, but not out of maliciousness.
They were rich and powerful but none of them had combat classes. To them, Jaune's Swordsman class was a danger to him. A liability that would get him killed. Something to be contained and protected behind high walls and curated training.
They had clipped his wings before he could fly.
To be fair... they were technically correct. Jaune's first solo encounter with a grimm had killed him... but Jaune digressed. Had they supported him and helped him grow, he might have already become a force of nature.
But Jaune was of a different mindset now. He had a budding sense of purpose to pursue and his family would have to be the least of his concerns.
The forest creaked faintly around him, wind slipping between branches like breath through teeth.
Jaune took one last look at his status screen before dismissing it with a thought. The glowing window dissolved into light, fading like mist under the morning sun.
His legs still ached and his joints felt stiff, but it was already starting to fade away. Jaune was certain that it was the work of the Aura stat but now wasn't the time for him to experiment. He needed to move. He couldn't afford to stay out here any longer.
Grimm weren't a rare occurrence out here.
Carefully, he pushed himself to his feet, using the sword as a makeshift crutch for balance. Loose black linen shifted around him as he moved and his boots thudded heavily against the forest ground. His breathing steadied and he adjusted his motion.
This forest was still dense and shadowed. It was a quiet place that was located just outside the town of Ansel. From what he remembered, he wasn't too far. Maybe a thirty-minute walk, tops, if he kept a straight pace. Less if he ran.
And more… if he ran into trouble.
He glanced around, senses stretched taut. There was no movement or rustling. Just birdsong and critter noise. He adjusted his grip on the longsword and began striding slowly and carefully. His mind felt sharper than before despite the haze still clinging to his thoughts.
His stats had increased, after all.
Still, he had to be careful. The grimm were dangerous.
They spawned for two reasons.
The first was accumulated negativity—born from the ambient miasma of human emotion. Fear, anger, sadness, hatred. The emotion didn't even need to be violent. Simply the weight of daily life could, over time, stain the land enough for Grimm to take root.
That was why runic formations were so important.
Most major settlements, including Ansel, had special formations inbuilt around them. Defensive rings—circular formations inscribed with specialized repulsion glyphs, carefully etched and activated with refined magic stones. These rings didn't kill Grimm nor did they damage them. They simply pushed the intangible miasma outward which changed the spawn point from inside the settlements to outside, forcing Grimm to form beyond the defensive perimeter.
Maintaining them however, wasn't cheap.
It required constant upkeep of resources—minerals that held mana well enough to fuel the formation's network of runes. Few towns could afford full-circle defenses, so they opted for cheaper versions instead.
But Ansel could.
Ansel was located in a relatively wealthy region. Not a city, but a large town surrounded by trade routes and fertile land. That meant resources, trade, taxes… and a population large enough to justify high-end defense.
Inside Ansel's walls, Grimm could not spawn.
But outside…
Jaune's eyes flicked to the trees again.
Out here, Grimm could appear anywhere.
Which brought him to the second source of Grimm.
Dungeons.
They were zones of ambient malice—places where Grimm didn't just spawn randomly, but poured out like black blood from an open wound. They were usually formed around Grimm Pools—massive basins of inky, semi-liquid blackness that seethed with violent potential. From those depths, creatures would emerge endlessly, like some twisted parody of life.
Ansel controlled a small scale dungeon but he was nowhere near its location, currently.
However, even the natural wilderness was dangerous enough.
Jaune moved through the underbrush with relative ease even though he had never been allowed to travel outside without supervision.
He followed the path—well, not a path exactly, but a series of vaguely familiar landmarks etched into the memories now imprinted on his soul.
This had been the first time he used the hole.
A small, hidden escape route he'd spent weeks tweaking. It was built into the wall beneath the southeastern guard tower of Ansel's outermost perimeter. Originally, it was a drainage tunnel, long abandoned and concealed by overgrown ivy and brush.
He had done it in secret. One stone at a time. A little each night.
No one had noticed.
Hell, no one could notice. His family would have locked him down completely which meant that this had been his only shot.
And it killed him.
A bitter laugh bubbled in his throat but died before it could escape. No sound or noise. Jaune needed to stay quiet. Especially if he didn't want to attract any errant grimm.
'Next time, I'll be stronger. Next time, I'll survive.'
And there would be a next time. This world may have tried to bury him once, but he'd crawled his way out. Now he just had to make it back in—without attracting the things lurking in the shadows.
He moved faster.