I woke up on my bed, my hands and legs splayed out, and Nero was sleeping on my chest, Rael was sitting by the bed, absentmindedly drinking a juice box from which I don't know where she got from...maybe the kitchen?.
Eh, who cares, I picked up Nero and kept her on the bed, then I went into the bathroom and took a warm, refreshing bath. Then I also brushed my teeth, and, speaking of baths, I forcefully dragged Rael into the bathroom and cleaned her blade while she was in knife form, getting rid of the blood and dirt from yesterday
She was now in a towel looking at me with hatred in her eyes. Though I know that I was not really hated, it still gave me the impression of her thinking I violated her in some strange way. What's so bad about being cleaned that she would be upset?.
[Hello Members of the chat group, an expedition mission has been made...available to you all, and it would be good if you all accepted.]
[Mission:RWBY(Unknown)]
[Danger Level: —0]
[Reward: Five random gacha tickets and a soothing vacation.]
[Description:Rid all of corruption.]
[Mission Time:Unknown.]
[Note: if all members join the Mission, your worlds will be frozen in time, and a boost will be given.]
After I wore my shirt, ignoring the message, I looked at the group chat.
[Advocate of gender equality]: So we are basically going to another world.
[Cursed King's Vessel]: Hmm, that sounds like a great experience. Let's do it.
[Bri Bri]: Sure, I just need to pack some essentials like my clothes.
[Desperate Time Traveller]: The rewards are tempting.
[Genocidal Child]: Hello guys, and yeah, the rewards are tempting... but why is a soothing vacation a part of it?.
[Advocate of gender equality]: Don't kick a gift horse, Chara.
[Genocidal Child]: That sounds wrong... but it is quite tempting, okay? I'm in. So we all agree to go on this mission.
[Bri Bri]: Sure.
[Advocate of gender equality]: Yep.
[Cursed King's Vessel]: Yeah.
[Desperate Time Traveller]: I don't mind..
[Since the members have accepted the mission, your boost will arrive the moment you go to that world. You all have an hour to get ready.]
The system was acting strange... but I don't think it's that bad, and Concealing the Mission must be a joke too, and the most likely means it's easy.
I like Misaka began packing my essentials into my inventory, chocolate, and some more chocolate than my clothes, which were all the same and then some fruits which I had in abundance...somehow then finally some random miscellaneous cleanliness stuff.
Before the hour, I could completely divulge. I made eggs with bread and ate them and also gave some to Nero, who said it didn't have any iron in it, then I gave some meat to Nero who didn't look satisfied so I increased it for her.
After some more time had passed, the chat group finally spoke.
[The time for preparations is over, I wish you all good luck and hope you maintain your sanity, goodbye.]
Huh, what did that to me—
----
(Author's Note: I'm using this kind of POV for this arc.)
The world of Remnant, a place filled with aspiring huntresses and hunters who do their best to protect the world from monsters known as Grimm.
But that was...in the past.
Ever since the corruption began seeping in, nothing has been the same as it has always been. The Grimms were no longer the problem, but it was the people who were corrupted. They are not all that dangerous when they are human, but when certain conditions are met, they become monsters for a short amount of time, or their goals are completed.
For example, a girl would like her family to be happy and smiling, but when she sees her family frowning and being depressed, she turns into a creature that resembles a human but has a twisted mind and bizarre abilities resembling that of a semblance and there was also the shield of corruption on them mimicking an aura.
In the Hunters academy, Ruby was hugging her knees while shivering, staring at the bed where Yang used to be... to say, killing her with her own hands due to her being corrupted was a traumatising experience.
Weiss and Blake were also on their separate beds, eyes blank and almost lifeless. They all had that traumatised gaze, Blake had already scratched her skin to the point her arms were continuously bleeding and the blood falling onto the bed.
Ruby muttered. "Weiss."
Weiss paused and turned to Ruby. ".. Yeah?"
"Is everything going to go back to normal?." She asked in a slightly emotionless voice.
Weiss stayed silent before telling her the cold and harsh truth. "The Brother gods have left us before to suffer the threat of the Grimm, and nothing ever remained normal, so this corruption is not going to allow us to go back to normal Ruby.'
Ruby hugged her knees tightly and did not speak. The room returned to its silence once again.
... But that all stopped when a bright light immediately engulfed them all in the middle of the room, and a slightly childish voice rang out. "Wow, first being dropped from the sky and now getting blinded, the chat group is really flashy with its teleportation.
[All members have arrived at the world of Remnant, Your boost has arrived.]
[Each group member gets ten lives and ten Corruption resistance chances, if a group member dies and loses all their lives, they can respond after the mission is completed with the price of their rewards being stripped, if all members die the mission would be aborted and the consumption of the rewards would resurrect the members back on their world.]
Kazuma blankly stared at the screen and fell to the ground in his knees. "...what does that mean?"
He thought this was a simple mission, so why does he have ten lives and ten corruption resistance chances?
Homura looked around. She was in her magical girl attire at the moment, and the time stone was attached to her shield.
Kazuma's face turned pale as he read the glowing blue text. "Ten lives? Ten corruption resistances?!" His voice cracked halfway through, like a man who had just realised he'd signed a loan shark contract. "This isn't a mission. This is a death trap! Why didn't anyone read the fine print?!"
Misaka frowned, her arms crossing. "I did read it. It didn't say anything about this."
"Exactly!" Kazuma yelled, stabbing his finger at her. "We were tricked! Lied to! This isn't a mission—it's an isekai raid dungeon with extra suffering, DLC!"
Homura's gaze was cold and analytical, her hand brushing the edge of her shield where the time stone glowed faintly. "If the system gave us lives and resistances, it means we're expected to lose them."
Yuji cracked his knuckles, his expression grim. "Then we just make sure we don't waste them." His eyes flicked around the room, lingering on the three girls looking at the five of them with dumbfounded expressions on their faces.
Yuji smiled and waved. "Yo, can you tell us the situation of this world, we agreed to it thinking it was safe."
Ruby who was looking at the five people who randomly spawned in their room rubbed her eyes in disbelief, she tried to grab the crescent rose but realised she had no strength in her body, it had been a few days since she last ate...
Weiss, on the other hand, was already summoning a glyph while Blake was glaring at them angrily. She then spoke in a hushed tone. "Be quiet, Ozpin is active today, it's Thursday so he comes to the dorms for a mandatory check, if anyone isn't asleep by the time he checks up on us, he will become corrupted and try to kill the ones awake. I don't care who you guys are, but you better be prepared to at least pretend to sleep."
Chara awkwardly scratched his cheeks, he looked at the girls and squinted his eyes a little, there was something hazy on their bodies that he couldn't see but that only lasted for a moment before his ability, Trial By Error activated and he began to see a slight blackish red sludge slowly forming on their souls, well what he thinks their soul is but it more of looks like a human shaped barrier and the disgusting smudged were trying to break it, some cracks were forming on it too.
He seemed to have developed some sort of soul vision, though he could only see the exact states of these three since it specifically targets the human like aura around them. "So this corruption, I can kind of see it trying to break into your souls."
The room went still at Chara's words.
Ruby's trembling halted, her wide silver eyes locking onto him as though clinging to a lifeline. "…you can see it?" she whispered, voice cracking with a mix of fear and desperate hope.
Blake's glare faltered, her bleeding arms lowering just slightly. The sharp hostility in her posture shifted into something far more fragile. Even Weiss, frozen mid-chant behind her glyph, broke her composure. Her voice came out brittle, laced with disbelief. "What do you mean you can see it?"
Chara exhaled, pressing himself against the wall, his tone steady but heavy with implication. "There's… like a soul-shaped aura around you. Human, fragile. And there's this sludge crawling over it, cracking it piece by piece." His eyes moved across the three of them, lingering briefly on the fractures. "If it breaks through, you lose yourself."
The words hung in the air like a death sentence.
Homura's gaze snapped to him, sharp and calculating, her fingers brushing the edge of her shield where the green gem pulsed faintly. "That matches what the system described."
Misaka frowned, crossing her arms, her crimson pupils flickering faintly with restrained power. "Wait—if Chara can see it, does that mean he can stop it?"
Silence pressed down on the room again.
Chara only shrugged, the motion casual on the surface, but his eyes betrayed unease. "Although I can affect souls, i don't think i can affect that such thing unless, of course, my HATE suddenly resurfaces and somehow got a life if it's own but i would doubt that, this corruption seems more of a fundamentally force that forms from negative emotions or energy, it's like an emotional spectrum that became sick and began infecting everything around it till it became an entire concept of its own but it should have a source in which it began infecting this world..."
Chara's brows ceased, and he couldn't really understand it because his new ability allowed him to see souls and also read the information of spiritual objects vaguely, Trial By Error merely used the power of the seven souls in him and the power if his original soul to develop such an ability.
Trial By Error is a broken skill but it only scales with the current abilities the user has, for example, if the user has the abilities to affect souls, they can develop abilities related to the soul or know things affecting it.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Suddenly, the sound of a person shoes walking in a silent hall began emanating outside and into the room. Everyone froze before chara got onto the floor and laid down, facing the wall. He felt a sense of danger and whispered. "Everyone, slowly get down on the floor and pretend to sleep, I sense an overwhelming amount of danger."
Kazum did not need to be reminded twice as he immediately found a corner and laid down dair, putting his hand in his chest and closing his eyes like a person would when they were in a coffin. Misaka was, of course, creeped out by the entire situation, but she still did as told, followed by Yuji and Homura
Ruby, Blake, and Weiss had already covered themselves with their blankets and began to 'sleep'.
Seconds passed with the sound of the tapping increasingly getting closer.