Playing Our Roles

Chapter 1

I groaned as I cracked open my eyes to find myself staring up at an unfamiliar and dusty ceiling. I was surprised, but I felt way calmer than I honestly should have been. Blinking, I looked around my new location and came to the rather easy conclusion that it was the upper office of some old decrepit warehouse. If the window overlooking the large, empty main storage area was any indication.

Half my vision was also colored orange from the hair covering my right eye, a fact that had me a little suspicious as I did not have bright orange hair. I had to push that thought to the side, because what really caught my attention was the blue, mildly transparent square floating in front of my face.

Welcome, Gamer!

You have been randomly selected to experience a once in a lifetime… experience!

(New Quest!)

Would you like a tutorial to get you started?

Rewards: 1000 XP, 500 Lien, 10 free stat points, and potentially a deeper understanding of your new role in life!

[Yes/No]

I'll admit that I have never been expressively fond of extreme change. I usually prefer to keep things simple and plain, so that I can mindlessly go through most of my day without thinking too hard. Only breaking out of that mindless zoning out when it was time to have fun.

That being said, I can't help but find this new, and extremely abrupt, change of pace in my life to be… weird as hell for sure, but strangely nice as well. I always fantasized about having superhuman powers, add to the fact that this was a power from one of my favorite Korean comics was just a bonus.

Standing up from the large pushed together boxes I was apparently using as a bed, I tentatively pressed the yes button, almost expecting my finger to pass through the window and confirm if I was actually insane. Turns out I was not, in fact, insane and the second I finished pressing the button the window flashed and new text appeared on it.

Excellent choice!

Normally you would not get a tutorial and would have to figure things out on your own, but due to your new circumstances, this was made an exceptional case.

Please, say or think "Status" to continue. This will set your skills as internal or vocal commands for the future.

Changing between thinking and speaking commands can be modified later in the options menu.

"Status," I thought to myself. A new window replaced the previous in a flash of blue, showing me my stats… and something I was not expecting but did explain why I have orange hair now.

Name: Roman Torchwick

Class: The Gamer

Level: 10 (Next Level: 0/5500)

Title: None

Bounty: 0 Lien

HP: 760

MP: 708

STR: 18.2 [Base 14 + 4.2(30%)]

VIT: 26 [Base 20 + 6(30%)]

DEX: 28.6 [Base 22 + 6.6(30%)]

INT: 20.8 [Base 16 + 4.8(30%)]

WIS: 13 [Base 10 + 3(30%)]

LUK: 11

Elemental Affinity: None

Attribute Points: 0

Lien: 250

Status Effects: None

Apparently… I became Roman Torchwick? I mean that does explain the orange hair. I admit, this has really taken me off guard and I don't know how I really feel about losing my body and replacing it with someone else's.

I sat back down on the boxes I was sleeping on in shock and placed a hand on my new chest, absently staring at it as I slowly started to freak out. A sort of calm quickly washed over my mind before that could take root, I figured that was the Gamer's Mind passive skill going to work on keeping me sane.

[For getting ahead of the tutorial and recalling key information from a previous life your INT has risen by 1!]

I dismissed that notification with a roll of my eyes. But seriously, for a level ten, Roman had more stat points than I would have expected. Even if they are allocated way too weirdly for my liking. I would have thought there would be a bit less in vitality and more in dexterity and intelligence.

As you can probably guess this is your status window.

On it you will find a plethora of useful information, things such as your total health (HP), your total Aura (MP), various stats, any elemental affinities, status effects, and your total money. Tapping on any of the info on this screen can bring you further information on it.

Try tapping on one of your stats now.

I tapped on my intelligence stat for the hell of it.

[How smart you are. Higher levels of this stat will increase learning ability and speed, memorization, thinking up new ideas to solve a problem, etc. Each point in INT increases MP by 10 per stat point.]

Huh, judging by my total MP right now a little bit of math tells me that each of my level-ups gives me fifty MP. I tapped on all of the other stats, best to figure out what each one does before I spend any points.

[By planning ahead to figure out what each stat does before making a decision has increased your WIS by 1!]

I dismissed that with a flick of a finger.

[HP, or health, is how much damage after Aura you can take before dying.

Current HP regen is 2% of max HP/minute]

[MP, or as the locals call it, Aura, is the resource used in most spells and skills.

Current MP regen is 1% of max MP/min]

[Strength is how strong you are, duh! It affects physical carrying capacity and how hard you hit with melee weapons!]

[Vitality is how tough you are. Increasing this stat allows you to actually take a punch to the face without crying like a baby. Each point in this stat increases your overall HP by 10.]

And using math tells me that each of my levels also increases HP by fifty. Good to know.

[Dexterity is how agile you are. It increases hand-eye coordination, attack speed, movement, how easy it is to DODGE! attacks, damage and aim with a ranged weapon, and also aids in more… nefarious skills.]

[Wisdom is the ability to take any decisions you have and choose the best one out of them. It also increases MP regeneration by an extra 1% every 10 levels.]

I didn't feel the need to check on luck right now, I figured that was probably pretty straightforward. Once finished with looking over my status screen I continued with the tutorial.

Now that we have finished with the Status screen, let's move on.

Try thinking "Inventory" now.

"Inventory," I thought. Sure enough, the status screen was replaced by the inventory screen. So far all I saw in the inventory was a lighter, some cigars, and Roman's Scroll. I gave a look at what I was currently wearing, nothing seemed to match what Roman had on during the main timeline of RWBY. Right now he was just wearing some brown cargo pants with a green polo shirt and a zipped black hoodie. Not the most classy of things, which is something that must be rectified soon.

Obviously, I must be some time before the main story, perhaps Roman hadn't become the best thief in all of Vale yet and also hadn't adopted that classy look. Also because Roman was clearly weaker now than what he is in the show, I highly doubt a level ten would hold out for long in the kind of work he was doing. Once I finished with this tutorial I needed to figure out how much time until the fun stuff begins.

This is your inventory, you can put things into it and pull them out whenever you wish. You can also equip clothes and items in this screen without having to manually change them.

Convenient, right?

When you are finished here, please think "Skills".

"Skills," I thought, the inventory screen being replaced with a mostly blank one. It only had three currently in it. The tutorial screen decided to voice itself on that issue.

Oops! Seems you are lacking some skills. How about we fix that?

Sure enough, a couple of skills fazed into being in the menu. I tapped on one of the new ones.

[Pickpocketing Lv16 (Active) EXP 0.0%: This skill allows you to reach into another person's clothing and grab hold of their hidden assets… their money and other valuables of course!

Base chance of successful pickpocketing: 65% (Can be increased or decreased by your dexterity relative to theirs. Yours minus theirs applied to the base, mostly applies to other hunters as civilians will probably not notice you.

Cost: None

Passively increases dexterity by 15%]

I snorted in amusement at that skill description. I decided to check up on the two basic skills I knew from heart, just for kicks.

[Gamer's Mind (Passive) Lv: Max
Allows the user to calmly and logically think things through. Allows peaceful state of mind. Immunity to mental attacks.]

[Gamer's Body (Passive) Lv: Max
Grants the user a body that allows them to experience life as a video game.]

I closed the skill's description, feeling oddly satisfied, and focused back on the tutorial.

There we go! Much less depressing now.

You can gain new skills in a variety of ways: by repeating certain actions, experimenting with your Aura, and reading skill books.

With that, you have finished the basic tutorial and all that's left is for you to make your own mark in this world. Choose whichever path you want, you have that freedom. Any further information can be found in the help section in the options menu.

Happy gaming!

I nodded as I closed the tutorial, I already knew what I had to do. Just as the tutorial finished disappearing, a new window appeared.

Tutorial quest finished!

Rewards:

-10 free stat points

-500 Lien

-1000 XP

I decided to keep the stat points, for now, instead opting to look over my other skills. One was "Stealth", which obviously allowed me to sneak around undetected.

[Stealth Lv10 (Passive/Active) EXP 0.0%: The ability to move silently, like a, like a ninja! Or a thief.

Passively decreases noise of movement by 5%

Active - decreases noise of movement by a further 20%.

Cost: 25 Mp/minute

Movement speed reduced by 50% when active.

Can only be leveled if there are others nearby to sneak past.]

Another skill was called "Thief Mastery", which at level 14, increased the chance of stealing (pickpocketing included) undetected by an extra 18% and gave any stealth or thieving based skill a 30% extra experience gain.

The last skill was simply called "Aura".

[Aura Lv13 (Passive/Active) EXP 0.0%: The manifestation of your soul. When active it creates a sort of force field around your body, protecting it from harm.

Passively increases all stats except LUK by 30%

When active, increases all stats except LUK by 60% and allows MP to be used as a second health bar.

Cost: MP regen disabled until deactivated. (Parameters to remove this cost not yet achieved)]

But seriously, that's some impressive passive and active effects. And I bet removing that cost is something like bringing it up to max level, or at the very least up to a certain level in between. Well… I should probably start leveling it up in the meantime.

I experimentally activated my Aura, watching the skill screen closely. It did go up eventually, but it was .01%, so just leaving it on will take a while to level it up. Since Aura is combat related I'd bet leveling it up would go faster when used in actual combat, maybe even taking hits with it on. Should be easy to grind then, provided I have enough patience.

Nodding to myself I got up from my boxy seat and stretched, cracking my neck to get rid of any kinks. It was time to wander around Vale, and eventually, head to the island of Patch to observe two of the main cast in order to check their ages.

Heh, see what I did there? Yang would be proud of me.

I stuck my hands in the pockets of my hoodie and walked out of the warehouse, making sure to intensely look at everything. Before I even left the room I woke up in I got the message I had created the observe skill. I was going to abuse the hell out of the skill and make sure to rank it up as high as possible just in case.

I had noticed it was around midday when I got outside the warehouse, a quick check with my handy dandy new scroll also helped.

My first order of business once outside was to see if I really had gone into the world of Remnant. The answer to that question? Yes, yes I did. My scroll aside, I practically stared at every single hard-light lamppost and Dust store I passed by. Once the novelty wore off a bit, I yanked my scroll back out of my inventory and opened it.

It basically worked like an iPhone, with the addition of being able to expand its screen from the compact mode to iPhone size, and up to iPad levels. Finding the equivalent of google maps was a little challenging because I didn't know what any of the app icons meant, but once I found it I made my way to the nearest mall.

The reason? A ton of people in a crowded space and plenty of stores to buy stuff from. I needed to practice my Pickpocketing skill and level up Thief Mastery while finding some new duds. While I might've gone with my current clothing choice back in my own world, a soon to be master criminal could not have anything less than the best.

I spent the next two hours just walking around and pickpocketing random strangers. I ended up leveling the mastery skill by one and the actual pickpocketing skill by two and a half. Though later on, I figure getting more levels in them would take a lot longer. On the upside, I made off with about an extra three grand of Lien.

My next order of business is to buy some new clothes while walking around and stealing people's wallets I found a few stores that seemed to have what I wanted. What I wanted being Roman's clothing style, scarf, jacket, hat and all. And some other miscellaneous clothing to use as hiding my identity for any crimes I'd need to commit before revealing myself publicly, I made sure to go full on ninja suit for those.

Ah right, I forgot. I am going to be a criminal during my time here, did I not mention that? It's a thing I do in games, even if my current situation borders the line between real life and a game. I'll always go the route of an assassin or a thief in RPGs, one of my current favorites being the illusionist-assassin build in Skyrim. Invisibility plus hard-hitting sneak attacks is broken in one versus one combat.

But I'll admit I don't particularly like the thought of killing someone else, even if Gamer's Mind would let me do it easily and is something that will likely happen sometime down the line.

I am going to be a thief, and not just because I want to live a fantasy of mine. This world needs Roman Torchwick in order to move forward, I am needed now to move this world forward. While I don't abhor the idea of being a hero, I just don't really want to be one. Let everyone else die for what was right, I going to have fun for as long as this fantasy will let me.

Of course, I naturally don't really want Cinder to win, because really if she does win then that means Salem wins and then humanity is doomed. I can't have fun with a doomed humanity. And so I plan on betraying the bitch as soon as feasibly possible, depending on how strong she will be in comparison to me. But not until I make sure to throw her ass under the Ozpin train. No one kills Pyrrha under my watch damn it! She still needs to properly confess to her future husband…

Anyway, I won't bore you with clothes shopping as it was a fairly simple get in, observe the clothing, buy any particularly interesting clothing that stands out, get out, stuff everything into my inventory, type of deal. Now, to complete the look, I just had to create melodic cudgel. I won't actually wear the clothing until I get it, no need to spoil the look just yet. The problem I faced was materials and where to get them. I'm sure I could probably pay someone to use their forge, or perhaps Signal Academy as I wasn't wanted just yet.

But before I do that I need to level up a craft skill. Which probably means finding a skill book. I mean… in the original webtoon, Han Jee-Han has only a singular crafting skill that looks to encompass everything. Maybe if I create the skill first I could incorporate knowledge from books into the skill. I'll have to give that a shot soon, I really need to get a weapon so I can start doing some hardcore training.

"Yeah, training really needs to st-" I let out a loud "Oomph!" and a grunt as I slammed butt first on the floor of the mall's hallway. I couldn't help but notice the twenty MP of damage I took from that fall, meaning whatever hit me had to be going faster than a normal civilian.

"I'm so sorry mister!" Judging by the voice I could immediately tell that whoever slammed into me was a young girl.

I picked myself up, dusting my pants. "It's fine kid, just watch where you're go-" I paused in my speech when I finally got a look at who hit me, I stared in disbelief at the girl in front of me while I finished my sentence before it got too awkward, "-ing..."

On one hand, I did not necessarily have to stalk the home of a trained hunter and his two young daughters like some sort of creep. On the other I was now staring down at the real Roman Torchwick's red colored, silver-eyed, nemesis, Ruby Rose, albeit much younger than canon.

Not the worst thing to ever happen, and I'll admit just a little bit of fangasming was going on under my cool looking exterior, after all, I am not a (big time) criminal right now and she probably isn't a huntress in training just yet. But I didn't want to create any divergences from canon until I was one hundred percent positive I could manipulate things into what I want to happen. Meeting Ruby now was certainly a divergence from canon.

I did not like this. How do I plan around this? Is it possible it will affect things to come in a major way? With my relatively low INT stat right now I simply couldn't think that far ahead. Not yet at least. I needed to distance myself from this girl for now. But… justing looking into those big, silver, adorable doe-eyes...

Taking a deep and silent breath through my nose, I couldn't help but only think of one thing that could summarize this.

"Shit."

Current Stat spread (Note that I won't list Skills here, that would eventually make this waaay too long of a list. I'll list improvements as they become relevant):

Name: Roman Torchwick

Class: The Gamer

Level: 10 (Next Level: 1000/5500)

Title: None

Bounty: 0 Lien

HP: 760

MP: 721

STR: 18.2 [Base 14 + 4.2(30%)]

VIT: 26 [Base 20 + 6(30%)]

DEX: 31.9 [Base 22 + 3.3(15%) + 6.6(30%)]

INT: 22.1 [Base 17 + 5.1(30%)]

WIS: 14.3 [Base 11 + 3.3(30%)]

LUK: 11

Elemental Affinity: None

Attribute Points: 10

Lien: 2480

Status Effects: Inactive Aura(Toggled Off)