But for a Slime

Joe turned back to some of the staff in the area, “The mind healers? Are they still available? Could I ask them to help the women here? I’ll pay for it.”

The staff member quickly bowed and passed the message on to someone else because they’d left and immediately returned, obviously not leaving but only a dozen or so minutes later, some of the healers showed up. Joe nodded to see them there and backed away from the women, staying away from those who were recalcitrant to interact with him as it was their desire and incredibly uncomfortable with the others that seemed a bit rabid in their desire to be near him.

Joe turned to look at Garnedell and Zilnek with some frustration, and while Garnedell seemed responsive to his plight, Zilnek pretty much just shrugged and ignored the situation. Not finding help from Zilnek, he turned to Garnedell but he seemed just as lost if a bit more considerate to Joe’s frustration. Garnedell had nothing to offer either.

Joe turned back, and frowned, turning to his own thoughts. So. Bottom line… they’ll need a place to stay and an income of some kind. That… anythi… hmm… continuing help of some kind… a manager? Yeah? Maybe? Not a guy… probably a woman who can help them… probably more comfortable with that… so… and … place to stay is easy, but… income… maybe … a teacher? Yeah… a teacher, manager… anyone else? Don’t think so… that should.

Joe turned back to the staff member that was there and began interrogating them, “So, how much does a house in the outer city cost? Something that will allow these women to live there until they can get their feet under them? Hopefully help other women who need help?”

The staff member seemed to blink in surprise at that, eyebrows fluctuating, “A house?”

Joe nodded, “A home. Some place they can live and eat until they can find a job and take care of themselves.”

The staff member knit their eyebrows further at that last statement but answered Joe’s question, “A home for all these would likely cost about ten or twenty brass, I believe?”

Zilnek popped in at that, snorting, “A very nice home can be had for a single brass.”

The staff member seemed shocked at that, surprised and Joe looked at Zilnek, “One brass?”

Zilnek nodded.

Joe considered that and pulled out a couple single bits, “If I could bother you, could you seek out a home and hire a manager and teacher. The manager is to help keep the women safe and make sure there is food and shelter for the home… to keep them safe and well fed. The teacher can teach the women something suitable so they can support themselves easily until they are able to survive well. I do not… know of what this may look like or how best to do this, but if this is possible?”

The staff member seemed consternated by the request, staring at the brass bits in hand before looking back up at Joe. Joe frowned, then realized the staff member didn’t want to have anything to do with it and Garnedell is the one who stepped in, speaking up.

“Joe. You should ask Gwenvair. She would likely be able to do this well and easily. She can easily accomplish your desires as you want.”

The staff member seemed to leap at that and nodded quickly, “I can relay your message and the bits to the First in Line for Matriarch, Eccentric. Immediately.”

The staff member quickly turned away and sped from the room and Joe felt both relief and concern. Relief won out in the end and he turned back to Garnedell.

“Thanks so much, Garnedell. Do you think Gwenvair would mind?”

Garnedell chuckled, “Of course not, Joe. This is her duty.”

Joe smiled, “It’s good to have her on our side.”

Garnedell nodded at that with a smile and Joe grinned back before continuing, “Right. Back to the dungeon?”

Zilnek, who’d been listening in with some boredom finally picked up at that and quickly nodded, “Yes, please!”

Joe laughed and Garendell also proved just as excited to head out although a bit more polite in his excitement and expression of it. Joe nodded and waved them out of the villa.

“All right. Let’s go.

They then headed to the dungeon and arrived quite early, despite his late rising and the stop by the villa. While they stood in line to head into the dungeon, Joe took his time to settle on the jobs for today. Of course, he kept his gifted and priest job, although he did hope that the next Loki priest job was available. His hope, however, proved in vain as there were no more Loki priest jobs unlocked, and he was left with only two slots available to equip with a job. He considered carefully and found his thoughts turning to the theorist jobs. Maybe a good idea to delve into them more? Seems like a good idea. A hint of excitement tinged with a feeling of passion softly swelled within him. He frowned. Hmm… interesting, Why am I feeling that… He blinked, his thoughts interrupted and he frowned again. What was I think… oh… yeah. Jobs. Theorist? Nah… good with time, but I really need to focus on other things… they aren’t offering useful skills really… not right now from what I’ve seen. I really need skills now… probably… so… yeah… He pushed away the idea of the theorist jobs and continued with his current plan and found that there were two new jobs available in the duelist and warrior lines named epic and bruiser. Joe frowned. Epic? What kind of job is that? At least bruiser seems to make sense… but…

Regardless, he swapped out the duelist and warrior line of jobs and prepared for the dungeon. For some reason, the wait seemed a bit more frustrating, today, but they were soon in the depths of the dungeon once again, in their usual corner.

With only the three of them, Joe spent the entire day with them, fighting and training with both although every once and a while, Joe did step to the side to kill a couple goblin’s himself, wanting to achieve a decent level for his jobs today, although things were really slowing down, considering he was no longer growing jobs with excellent learning stats.

Garnedell, however, leveled quickly and easily, if not as quickly as he was able to do so. Instead of spending time on other jobs, Joe did what he’d done for himself and quickly shifted him to specialist. Garendell was able to reach level eighteen by the end of the day and almost made it to nineteen. Joe considered staying until Garnedell hit nineteen but since there really was no point, didn’t push it.

As for his efforts with the two boys, Joe mostly listened in, allowing the two to talk and only interjected to offer advice or correct mistakes, focused mostly on their training. Soon, the two were speaking with excitement about Zilnek’s new bow, and Zilnek asked many questions. Soon, the questions began to include Joe as he offered explanation and verbal teaching on bow and arrows, although they did remain focused on their fight with the goblins in the dungeon. The conversation continued but Zilnek grew withdrawn and Joe turned to him.

“What’s wrong, Zilnek?”

Zilnek stared up at him, then glanced over at Garnedell. Joe looked over as well and noticed Garnedell encouraging him to speak so Joe decided to offer encouragement as well, although Joe wasn't certain what he wanted.

“Go ahead. What is it?”

“I…” Zilnek trailed off, unable to continue, but Joe added a kind pressure by continuing to stare at him and not turning away, both letting Zilnek know he was willing to wait and to offer a bit of pressure to overcome his worries so that he could ask himself. Joe wanted Zilnek to gain confidence to do so, so simply waited. After wriggling uncomfortably, Zilnek finally continued.

“I'm sorry... for ... yeah” Zilnek finished in a rush.

Joe smiled, “I... well... thank you. Just try ... we're a team, OK? That's all I really want, to be honest. Let's work together.”

Zilnek smiled, nodding with a bit of happiness and relief, “Thank you, mas… Joe!”

Joe laughed politely to join in with Zilnek’s happiness and he nodded, “Sure. No problem. Just ask. I’ll help as much as I can, OK Zilnek?”

Zilnek withdrew at that, seeming a bit shy, but still nodded, “Thank you, Joe.”

Joe smiled and nodded back to the goblins, “So… back to the goblins?”

Zilnek leapt forward, more enthusiastic than Joe had ever noticed, “Yes! Yes, we should.”

Garnedell watched Zilnek head out then glanced up at Joe, smirking slightly then rolling his eyes. Joe felt his own eyes widen in shock, but he couldn’t keep the brilliant smile and soft laughter subdued, both surprised by Zilnek’s opening up, and shocked but happy he did so.

Joe guffawed, “Ha! Right… let’s go.”

They returned to their battles for the rest of the morning before finished with Joe satisfied but very surprised at having pushed his two new combat jobs as well as his new Loki patriarch job to just over forty four, while his gifted job made it to forty eight. Wait! How? There is no way that I would be able to get those jobs up so fast. I should…

Joe trailed off and quickly opened up his skills page to try to figure things out, and then he noticed the new double exp skill he’d gained from his new Loki job. It also had a bonus to his learning stat, and Joe smiled. Huh… ok… huge… useful. Going to have to figure this out, but… Not really going to have to have a ‘char:’ skill for it. I always have to have a priest job, so… this will be… very useful!

Now that he had the skills tab open, he looked over the skills he’d gained but frowned when he found nothing new for his old job and nothing meaningful for the combat jobs. The combat jobs were turning out to be incredibly disappointing. His epic job under the duelist line gave him a skill to use a fencing weapon and dual axes. There are a LOT of… dual wielding weapons in the fencer line. It’s… so worthless. Why…

Joe shook away his distractions and noticed all the other triple question mark skills all over the duelist line of jobs. He frowned and turned to his brawling, for an equal amount of disappointment. As before, he inherited the fighter skills and gained a skill in a specific weaponry, fisticuffs. Fitting… bruiser… fights with fists… still… He gained three more useless skills as well: heavy punch, take hits, and no fear. Might be useful, but…

Joe’s disappointment was really too much for him to dig much further into the skills so he turned back to the guys, joining in with their conversation as all three simply laughed and joked together before heading out. When it was time to go, Joe stood with a soft grunt, starting to get very frustrated with the poor furniture offerings available to him. While he had grown up in Asia for a good dozen years, his family and home environment still adhered to Western furniture norms and his whole family preferred chairs and couches to the floor. Still, he could see the health benefit of always having to rise from the floor several times daily. He sure didn’t like it, however.