But for a Slime

Joe looked over the various windows, still quite surprised by just how much learning the gifted job gave, especially with its boost to learning and experience gain. Is it worth it to maybe even keep this? I'll level two jobs faster, then I can maybe do four jobs in a day instead of just three? Swap out two of them half way through the day? He ran the numbers and realized that he would not have enough time to have all four jobs leveled up to forty. He could get the first two jobs up to forty, but the second two would stall out at around thirty or thirty five, if his math was right. He considered for a bit before finally deciding to simply continue what he was doing. Three jobs a day was still impressive so he turned to looking at what jobs he would take tomorrow when he was interrupted by the door opening behind him.

Since the door opened inward, he fell backward, rolling back into the room and looked up to see Kilniara staring down at him with Gwenvair standing beside her. The two giggled, laughing at him and Joe sighed with a smirk while he stared back up at them. He shook his head then sat up.

"Alright. You've had your fun. Let me wash and I'll join you downstairs after."

Kilniara nodded with a bright smile while Gwenvair shook her head with a smirk, "Don't take too long. We're hungry."

"And you don't think I'm not?"

They didn't say anything, only laughing at him in friendly mockery as they slipped out and went down stairs. Joe shook his head again then chuckled to himself. He headed back to his bed to strip himself, dropping his clothing on his bed then settled into the tub with a deep groan of satisfaction as the warm water soaked in around him. The tub was a bit small, and he had to keep his knees bent but he was still able to stretch out his arms around the rim and sides so that he could cover almost everything below his chest. Not as comfortable as the baths, but… still.

He found his mind drifting and even though he tried to spend some time considering his next jobs, he soon drifted off into a haze of lost thoughts until the water cooled and suddenly he was mindful of the current situation, the shivering bringing awareness back to him. With this, he stood from the tub, shivering, and stepped out. The water dripped from his body onto the floor and Joe frowned. Well… crap… towel next to the tub next time. Joe skittered to his bed quickly, his steps and movement interrupted by his shivering until he finally wrapped the towel around himself and dried himself of.

When his shivering came under control, he began allowing his mind to ponder other things and he turned to what jobs he would have for the next day. He'd been unhappy with a couple of his choices today, so he considered his job choices and then set out to change his jobs before he stopped in thought. Hm… let's… not rush this. Need to make wise choices, and today wasn't… really a good one. Hmm… I should really consider the theorist jobs again, right? That… seems like a good idea… Let me think about it. He went back to his choices again, reevaluating them carefully but didn't actually change any of his jobs, although he was fairly certain of his new choices: a new duelist job called luminary, a new warrior job called conqueror, his Loki patriarch job was still his highest available priest job, and for the last job, he decided to open up the horseman line of jobs with horseman. He had the rest of the afternoon to think about them and to force himself to do so, so he left them unchanged. Despite that, theorist bounced around in his thoughts for reasons Joe couldn't quite understand, but there was an attraction to them that Joe found himself turning towards.

He'd been going over his choices, even after he'd dressed and turned to head down the stairs to the common room, a whistle on his lips and a slight hop in his step as he was feeling pretty good. That changed rather rapidly when he got do the common room, the entire area absolutely silent as all looked on at a rather unusual slightly effeminate man dressed very well and standing in an odd pose that seemed to have some kind of meaning to the room. The odd man kept his weight all on a single foot while his other foot was held bent at the knee resting on toes. He couldn't really see it as he wore some kind of robe covering his entire torso, but the slight bulge in the robe and the tip of his toes were visible enough for him to catch the stance. His right arm was held in a stylized way, angled to hold in front of him horizontal to the ground palm up as if he were holding something right in front of his chest. His left arm was held out to the left of him holding some form of cigarette held on a long foot long hollow tube through which he smoked. The left arm wasn't angled down by his side and instead was held such that the elbow was held out directly to his side making his arm perpendicular to the floor. It was a very… odd stance.

To his side, an obsequious man stood in perpetual hunchback crouch-like bow where he would hold himself still before bowing once or twice whenever he was addressed or whenever he spoke to his boss. The room was frozen in silence because of his presence, and all eyes had turned towards him. Joe flickered his gaze around at everyone, taking in the tense stance of his four apprentices and making sure they were all safe before glancing at everyone. His eyes stalled on the barkeep as the man seemed very tense and the realization hit him. Right… don't blow up his bar! But… who… ?

Suddenly, Joe's eyes narrowed slightly when he noticed an amorphous transparent almost invisible blob that seemed to be centered on the strange man. It wasn't well defined, its edge fading in and out of nothingness as well as being poorly delimited as the sphere was more of a shapeless blob. He looked at it for a bit before turning his attention back to the two odd people commanding the room.

"Hello? Who are you?"

The man who had been casually smoking on his cigarette suddenly froze and stared at Joe, his right eye twitching slightly and Joe stifled his frown. Ah… crap… pissed off powerful dude of some kind!

"You will show respect to his greatness, representative of Clan Bunarl, dungeon diver, once dungeon clearer, and single handed killer of Great monsters," the bowing sycophant of the Bunarl representative scowled as he loudly cried out the man's introduction. Joe found the affair rather surprising but then the last statement both excited and gave Joe pause.

"Oh… killing Great monster's single handedly… that's… three core? Four core?" Joe glanced towards the other four in curiosity but Garnedell stepped forward, a small smile on his face.

"No, master. That is only two core. If I may introduce you, master?"

Joe blinked. OK. Master two times… hmm… something big, obviously? Sure… yeah. "Sure. Why not."

"I would like to introduce my master, Joe McConnell. Dungeon diver, dungeon clearer many times, killer of Great monsters, Master monsters, Guardian monsters, and Boss monsters. Slayer of a six core, a boss, city killer, single handedly. Of his earlier accomplishments, I know not. These are only the accomplishments that my master accomplished in the time I have been his apprentice for four months. Joe, this is the Bunarl clan representative."

<Chapter 94 Completed!>