The man that stepped into full view caused Jaune's breath to catch in his throat.
He walked with the gait of a professional, the casual confidence of someone fearless. Like he'd seen this place a thousand times and stopped counting somewhere around six hundred.
His outfit was unlike anything Jaune had ever seen—seemingly closer to futuristic military cosplay, than something that could be found in reality. Sleek black plates wrapped his shoulders and chest in a form-fitting, armored exosuit. It was trimmed in white glowing accents that pulsed faintly with energy. The design was stylish, and certainly beyond the modern era. A narrow black visor stretched across the top half his face, curved like the lens of a helmet.
As he pressed a finger to it, the visor slid back into his armor with a smooth mechanical sound, revealing the face of man underneath.
His face that looked like it belonged on the cover of a war memorial— it was handsome, rugged, and carved with lines of experience. A short, well-trimmed beard sat neatly along his jaw, and shoulder-length auburn hair spilled around the sides of his head like wildfire frozen in time.
But it wasn't his looks that caught Jaune's attention. It was his presence.
When the man got closer, Jaune felt an odd feeling of pressure exude unnaturally from him and press down on Jaune's body. It felt like gravity was working double time on his tired frame. The man's armor did nothing to hide his build either, rather, it emphasized it. He had a broad, strong chest, solid legs and hands that looked like they could crush a dozen dream creatures, with ease. At his side hung an odd looking black rifle. The weapon's theme was also as futuristic as the man's. Compact, but Jaune had a feeling that it was heavy. Heavier than a normal rifle would be. And in his right hand—
A sword?
It was a single edged blade that resembled a katana but the blade was white inlaid with very tiny hexagonal-like patterns adorned into the... metal? The blade was too sleek and thin. It shimmered oddly in the red light of the broken moon, like it was vibrating at a frequency beyond what Jaune could see. The sword looked like something out of a movie. Like a weapon with a monomolecular edge or some sort.
Jaune swallowed hard, half-kneeling and collapsing under the pressure of just being near the man.
"Who… who are you?" he managed to ask.
It was the soft, dazed muttering of someone who had far too many questions and not nearly enough strength to ask them all.
The man's expression was curios. He frowned—not with anger, but surprise. Like he wasn't expecting Jaune to speak first.
"...I was about to ask you the same thing," the man said slowly.
His voice was deep and calm. The kind of voice you'd follow into a firefight or listen to at a funeral. Measured and oddly sincere. But beneath it, there was something else too. A flicker of uncertainty. Like Jaune's presence here wasn't part of any plan he'd expected.
The two of them stared at each other for a long moment. Just long enough for the final specks of the Ursa's ash to fade into the wind.
Jaune stared at the man, still kneeling, unsure if his legs were shaking from exhaustion or instinct. The stranger's eyes didn't wander. They stayed locked on him—cold and calculating, like Jaune was a puzzle that wasn't fitting together properly.
"You okay, kid?" the man finally asked.
Jaune blinked. His mouth opened, then closed. "I—uh. Yeah. I think," he mumbled. "Who are you?"
The man ignored the question.
"Where's your squad, kid?"
That caught Jaune off guard. "My what?"
The man frowned again. Deeper, this time.
"Your squad. Your team. Why are you out here alone?"
"I… don't have one?"
There was a beat of silence. The kind that usually came before a reprimand.
"What do you mean you don't have one? You're telling me you were patrolling solo? Our routes shouldn't even be interfering with each other."
Jaune shrugged weakly. "Patrol routes... no... I don't understand."
The man scoffed. "Why were you even struggling against a base-tier Ursa? That's embarrassing."
Jaune flushed. "Hey, I—"
But the man wasn't listening. He was circling now, studying him with narrowed eyes. His gaze ran down from Jaune's beaten pads, his makeshift helmet, the chipped blade still clutched in one hand.
"You're not wearing regulation gear, either" the man said. "And I've never seen you at Ansel's branch office. Are you a new transfer or something?"
Jaune blinked. "Ansel's what?"
The man didn't answer. He was already moving again.
Jaune coughed—a rough, dry bark of a sound that left a bitter taste in the back of his throat. He winced, clutching his ribs.
And then the man vanished. No wind or build-up. One moment he was six paces away, and the next—he was there, next to Jaune, like he had phase shifted forward.
Jaune recoiled slightly, startled. It wasn't even teleportation in the traditional sense—it was just speed, so quick and precise that Jaune didn't register it fast enough to react.
"Easy," the man muttered.
Jaune flinched—then froze.
Somehow, at some point, Jaune noticed that the man had been wearing an odd wristband. It was clasped to his wrist. A weirdly futuristic wristband. It was black, with three glowing shapes embedded into its surface. Not buttons, exactly, rather, they looked like magic runes. Or something like runes. They pulsed softly, one red, one blue, one green.
"What is this?" Jaune asked, heart pounding.
The man didn't answer. He simply raised his palm to Jaune, as if he was channeling something, and the green rune immediately flashed with light. A moment later, the glow of the rune-thing faded away, leaving only the red and the blue rune left on the wristband.
A sudden rush of warmth flooded Jaune's limbs.
His breath hitched.
His aches vanished—like they'd never been there. The sharp pain in his shoulder? Gone. The dull throb of bruised muscle and cracked skin? Faded to nothing. Even his fatigue vanished. Like a second wind that poured down his throat and into every nerve.
"What… what did you just do?" Jaune breathed.
The man didn't answer. He grabbed Jaune by the elbow and pulled him firmly to his feet. Jaune staggered but remained upright, blinking as his body hummed with sudden strength.
"What kind of operative shows up dressed like a scavenger? This is very unprofessional on your part kid." the man scolded Jaune.
Then he paused.
His brow furrowed.
He stared at Jaune again. Really stared this time. His eyes flicked from Jaune's clothes to his chest, his posture and even his expression. A slow recognition crept into his face, but it wasn't pleasant.
"What the hell…?" he muttered.
He took a step back in surprise, like someone realizing something a second too late.
"You're not Rank 1?"
Jaune stiffened. "I—what?"
"Why are you at Rank 0?"
"I don't know what you're talking about. Do you know where we are? What this place is? This nightmare realm?"
The man didn't answer right away. His expression twisted growing more confused by the second, as if someone had handed him a map that was upside-down. He studied Jaune again, slower this time, and finally asked,
"How old are you?"
Jaune hesitated, suddenly unsure if that was even a safe thing to answer.
"…Sixteen."
Something shifted in the man's face. Not anger or confusion, anymore.
Disturbance.
"…Sixteen," he repeated. Then again, like he was trying to make sense of it. "No. That doesn't make sense."
His hand hovered over his visor, like he was about to communicate with someone, but he didn't press it this time. His eyes never left Jaune.
"Why haven't you already ranked up?" he asked, but his question seemed more so directed at himself rather than at Jaune. "Sixteen-year-olds should already be at rank 1. Did you deliberately choose not to rank up or something?"
Jaune felt like he'd stumbled into the middle of a conversation that he had no clue how to answer.
"What are you talking about?" he asked. "What do you mean by ranking up? What a branch office? Who are you?"
The man didn't answer.
He just stood there, staring at him like Jaune had just walked out of the wrong timeline. The silence stretched, thick with things unsaid.
Then finally, the man broke it. "What's your name, kid?"
"Jaune," he said, voice still shaky. "Jaune Arc."
The man tilted his head slightly. "Arc… right. And what, you've just been delaying your rank up or something?"
Jaune blinked. "What?"
"Your stats," the man clarified with a deeper, almost annoyed tone. "They're pathetic for a sixteen year old. You should be at 10 across the board if you were planning on staying as a Rank 0, this long. Did you even allocate any of your runes are you just saving them to test out Rune skill combinations?"
From what Jaune could gather, the man clearly had access to the same Nightmare system—runes, stats, and all. It wasn't unique to Jaune. That meant the system was likely tied to the realm itself, granted to anyone who entered. If there were others—survivors or operatives like this man—then it seemed that Jaune wasn't alone, after all.
"I… I don't know what you're talking about."
The man stared at him like he was looking at a particular rare and exotic brand of idiot.
"I'm not dodging your question!" Jaune blurted. "I swear! I—I don't even know what this place is. It just started a few days ago, and I've been trying to survive, that's it. I don't know what ranks mean, or how rank-ups work, or how you even get one. I've only had enough runes to dump into Body, just to survive a couple of encounters with dream creatures—if that's what you meant, about my stats being low. But I'm not lying. I don't know anything else."
The man's expression faltered.
"You don't know…" he echoed. Then gave a short, incredulous exhale. "What the hell…"
Jaune took a step forward, his sword still limp in one hand, voice rising in urgency. "Can you just—please—tell me where we are? What this nightmarish place? You said Ansel's branch office. Are you talking about the real, waking world, Ansel? Who...who are you?"
The man's jaw flexed.
"My name is Raymond Red," he said, slowly now, as if introducing himself to someone with head trauma. "I am a peak rank 1 operative officer of Ansel's branch of our organization."
Jaune stared.
"Our organization?" he repeated blankly. "You're a soldier? In this place? There's a whole organization?"
The man—Raymond then nodded, a smirk built onto his features as he seemingly comprehended something. "Alright. So, it seems that you have some head trauma of sorts. We might need to give you a better rune to fix you up. Don't worry, I'll get you some help."
Raymond place his hand on Jaune's shoulder and patted it reassuringly.
"I don't have any head trauma! I haven't heard about any of this!" Jaune shouted, pushing away his hand. "I told you—I've only been here like four days ago! I fall asleep and I wake up in this world. That's it. I kill to survive and go back home, then I wake up here again, the next night! There's no organization or branch office!"
Raymond's amused smirk faded.
"…You're serious?"
"Of course I'm serious!"
"That's not possible," Raymond said, slowly. "No one gets access to the Nightmare Realm at sixteen. Manifestation always happens at fourteen and the relic should have sensed you when you manifested. The relic never makes mistakes."
Jaune's confusion deepened into a hollow sort of dread. "What relic? What do you mean?"
Raymond stepped closer, muttering to himself. "If you're not connected to the grid and you have no squad.... that means your entry wasn't even logged by the relic. How the hell did you even get in?"
"I don't know!"
He really didn't. Every word out of Raymond's mouth might as well have been in another language. There was a system behind this—an actual organized system, different from the nightmare system—and Jaune had slipped through it like a ghost.
Raymond looked him over one last time, eyes narrowed with something colder than confusion now. Something like concern.
"Jaune Arc…" he said under his breath, almost testing the name aloud.
But before Jaune could ask another question—
Raymond's eyes widened. His whole body snapped taut.
"Get down!"
He shoved Jaune back with a single open palm, sending him tumbling to the pavement.
A second later, the air cracked.
The road behind them erupted in a violent shockwave—stone and asphalt blasting upward in a geyser of rubble. A concussive burst rolled outward, throwing dust and debris into the night air. Something had just struck the ground with enough force to crater it.
Jaune hit the ground hard, rolled once, and looked up with burning eyes.
There was smoke. A broken, concave crater had replaced the street between them. Jagged metal sparked at the edge of the blast radius. A long, twisted line of black impact scarred the concrete like something had shot through it.
Jaune's heart leapt into his throat.
'That was a bullet.'
A really, really big bullet. The size of his torso.
Raymond had already drawn his rifle, pivoting on his heel to face the direction of the shot. His visor snapped back into place over his face with a hiss.
"Shit, what the hell was that?!" Raymond shouted, tone suddenly all serious and angry.
Jaune's blood ran cold.
He didn't know what was out there, but something had just tried to kill them both—and from the look in Raymond's stance, it wasn't some ordinary dream creature.
Whoever it was... or whatever it was... they had known exactly where to aim.