Devourer Class

"I-I-I um-I'm sorry what was that?" Terra refused to believe that someone could just accept an old and forgotten house that belonged to a murder victim with minimal necessities installed as a home.

Yet Galahad repeated himself. "This place seems the best suited for what I'm looking for. I'd like to put a deposit down for renting."

It took Terra a moment to grasp her thoughts before finally speaking again. "I'm sorry, but you can't be serious. This place is in the middle of broken down homes and right at the outskirts. I mean you haven't even seen the bedroom yet."

She felt like she was whining at him to act reasonably and nothing was making sense in his brain.

Terra spent years staring at the ridiculous property file at her desk, giving herself headaches while coming up with any idea of how to sell it and stop her boss from pinning the problem on her.

Now that she had finally found someone willing to stay there, the whole thing just felt wrong to her.

'Does she think I can't walk to the dungeon from here? I used to walk about the same distance to the dungeon in Teramore. Even farther just to see Apharine.' Galahad didn't see any issues, so Terra's outburst seemed out of the blue for him.

'And I thought she'd be happy that I'll willingly stay here. Just as long as she'd let me do a bit of remodeling myself.' He wondered maybe if the thought of property damages was stopping her from agreeing.

He shared the fact that he wouldn't add anything too extravagant to the house, but that only seemed to tick her off even more.

Terra felt her self losing the grasp of what sanity meant and eventually caved in. With a heavy sigh she accepted the fate Galahad was putting himself through.

"Very well, we can head back to the office then and begin the paper work."

Then it's was Galahad's turn to be confused.

"The sun is nearly down, and you still plan to work? Actually now that I think about it, why are we still looking at places? You should be heading back to your own home, we've been doing this for hours."

Terra immediately felt embarrassed as she was now in a spot that required her to explain she worked this amount of time normally. Her time spent in her office space seemed to be the only thing she did with her day.

"My plans for the afternoon we're cancelled, so I figured we could get this done a day early." She blatantly lied. The lie worked considering she finished her paperwork for the week only halfway during the weekdays and had him come back a day earlier than planned.

"Well I think you can take a break for the evening and stay for dinner then. Or at least whatever I can call the random mess of food." He began spilling some of the random salted jerky and fruit on the table.

"You can surely finish in the morning since tomorrow was our original appointment." He flashed a mischievous grin that seemed to have a joking sense he hasn't had in a long while.

Galahad hadn't realized it, but the way he acted and felt at the moment was completely opposite to the way he felt since waking up strapped to the medical center's bed.

The pain and irritation of constantly being stopped from concerned loved ones and lying to get somewhere with his plan was practically over.

He made it Diagon, he has far more power now than before, and no one here knows he used to be a magician. His sociopathic anger and killing wouldn't get any worse now.

'Or maybe the pains gone because that f.u.c.k.i.n.g voice shut up.' He thought shortly after realizing his own very good mood.

Finally figuring out a way to save his friends and acting on that plan meant he was getting somewhere.

He kept the smile while Terra looked at the random food spilled across the kitchen counter and shook her head side to side.

"Fine, we can do congratulatory dinner, but I'm picking an actual meal from somewhere." She may have lost this battle, but her mind was focusing on another war of thought soon to come.

"Perfect, you can show me the finest dining you know around here." Galahad gleamed as he grabbed a few pink citrus fruits from his bag to take on the road back into Diagon.

*****

The Chained-Sun Bar just before sundown.

"Not exactly a place I pictured with the finest dining." Galahad quietly commented as they sat at one of the side tables of the eatery.

The whole restaurant was packed near the bar and the smell of freshly cooked meat was hitting their noses. Aside from the rowdy customers coming back from the dungeons or leaving work, the place had an simplified and older aesthetic to it.

No light crystals anywhere, but orange glowing lanterns were flickering along the ceiling as oil droppers were keeping the flames going. It seemed like was to designed to have an airy and sunny look, no matter the time of day or weather of season.

"Quiet." Terra shushed him. "Tarkus the bartender here is an archer with decent hearing. His whole family runs this place as a matter of fact."

Galahad kept his list of comments to himself and looked around the room to see the staff once again. He could now see some of the waiters and waitress walking between tables shared the same brown-streaked, blonde hair and facial features as Tarkus. In fact, the head waitress had the same pair of eyes and matching glasses as the man stationed behind the bar.

"My bad, I just didn't expect this to be your kind of choice."

Terra tilted her head to the side. "Oh, yeah? What did you expect me to choose?"

She had been debating changing her career to adventurer, but if Galahad's experience could give some insight, then hopefully she could find the closure or motivation for that paper sitting in her desk.

"Oh, well I only really met you today . . ." Galahad pretended to think about it as he let his power over Karmic Plates kick in.

[ Terra Zongyu ] lvl. 20

Creation Class: Scholar

'Huh, she has a few years on me but was hardly around my level before the reset with the orb happened.'

". . . Um, I'd say from what I can tell; you're very focused on your job. I can't say I've seen anyone who was willing to work past set hours and just all day long. Unless you consider a forger's addiction to a hammering at forge past two in the morning." He'd added quickly the end, thinking of his father waking the whole up with one of his projects.

"What?"

"Nothing. I'd say you are someone who can make things work in some way for another; a fixer." Galahad proclaimed.

"What do you mean by that?" She asked, her tone sound made it clear she was more confused than even he was by his statement.

"You just are very driven. That's all I can say from here." Galahad pointed at himself in hopes their unfamiliarity would change the subject to what's on the menu, he was still hungry.

They ordered and chatted about more trivial things; where they were from originally, what their class skills were like, and a few places to stop by while living in Diagon.

They ordered the chicken platters and about halfway through it, Terra asked the question simmering in the back of her head since the start of their talk.

"Do you think I can fight in the dungeon?" She practically blurted it out at him.

That sudden question made Galahad's eyes go wide and the chicken stop in his throat. After a few heavy coughs, he managed to speak again.

"Why do you want to fight in the dungeon?" He asked between gasps and his mug of water.

"It's not about the why, I'm asking if you think I can." She tried hiding the plea in her voice with the restated question, but Galahad picked up on it.

'Is that why she brought us here? To see about uprooting her old life with a decent job to become an adventurer in the dungeon?'

"I honestly can't give you an answer. I'm not a guild official or an appraiser." He answered after throwing a few more bites so the food wouldn't turn sour with the mood.

Terra sat back in defeat, feeling even worse than when the day had started. She didn't know if her whole life was gonna feel this way, but her last hope seemed to have disappeared with Galahad's large fork loads of chicken.

"But what I can tell you is drastic changes mean giving up a lot of yourself. I came here to do something clearly set in stone, but you need to ask yourself if that applies to you. Do you need to start going down into an infinite labyrinth full of dangers? Or do you just need change."

"But how could I make a change without giving everything else I've been doing?"

A quick flash of the Voice in his head making the whole world seem like it was against him came to mind. It did nothing, but make him more and more angry to the point of leaving his home town feeling like nothing could be done there.

Because of that flash he had a revelation about what she needed to hear, using his own issues as a solution for her problems.

"Don't uproot your whole life to feel like you've accomplished something. Try just changing your point of view.

"My point of view?" Terra didn't understand where he was getting at.

"Yeah, gain a new perspective first. Make a few smaller choices that you'd normally do differently and see how that plays out. Don't change your life just because it seems too static."

" . . . Huh." A variety of ideas swam in her head, changes that didn't actually mean moving her lifestyle around.

Then a choice she had always been making hit her mind so fast, she stood straight up and nearly tipped over the table.

"Thank you, I think I finally get what you mean." She started grinning happily at the thought of what she was going to do and left in a hurry.

"You'll have your final paperwork for the house tomorrow, see you around!" She practically jumped out the swinging doors and left the eyes drawn to her now onto Galahad.

He was still in the reflexive stance he took to catch both plates of chicken before they fell off table.

'Huh, well I guess I'm paying for both our meals then.' He sat back down and proceeded to finish both remaining chickens and paid on his way out.

*****

The next morning.

Jazaar Heilbronn walked his nearly overweight body up to the shared office building he worked in and made his way up to the magic elevator. Taking his leisurely time getting into the Rental Office's floor and sitting at his desk. He knew his only employee for the Diagon branch was supposed to be out all day with a new client, so he didn't bother coming in till noon.

He ended up being surprised when he glanced over at said employee's office window to see the light crystal was on. His curiosity was peaked, wondering if he could reprimand her about wasting mana inside the room and use that as leverage to dump more unwanted properties in her l.a.p.

When Jazaar stepped into her office, he was shocked to see she was still in her space and typing something out to the company issued Karmic Plate. She was never one to cancel an appointment and wondered if she blew it already.

"So, how'd the showings go today?" He asked with smirk that was begging to hear about her failure.

Terra didn't bite though, she spent another two minutes typing out her Karmic tablet before switching to her plate and typing something different out.

"I asked how did your showings go today?" Jazaar lost his mocking tone and was practically demanding his subordinate to answer for her failure. He didn't like her being so suddenly defiant in the office, it was a part of his routine to blame any issues they had or he caused onto her. If she started ignoring him, then the power of the office could be changed.

'Nah, she's not that aggressive. I bet she did such a miserable job, that her client really did leave before seeing the listings I gave her.' He confirmed the assumptions in his own mind before asking a new question.

"Did you already blow it?" He assumed she was just too upset to even respond, making his mockery start a little too early.

Terra eventually looked up from the plate, finished with her scry and moving on to assort papers on her desk.

"If you must know," She plainly stated, same as her usual tone around her horrendous boss. "I had the meeting early. Yesterday he chose something from my listings and now I am sending the rest of his file information to the branch manager, you, and the client."

Jazaar immediately became bored of the situation, knowing now that she hadn't failed and everything had worked out only made it dull for him. He then pulled out his Karmic plate and began typing the standard confirmation he always needed to the higher branch and hit send without bothering to look at the property address.

Only after getting a response towards five o'clock, did he finally realize what place was now being rented out.

He came rushing into Terra's office redfaced and sweating, despite his dash being a measly ten yards.

"YOU didn't tell me the trashheap on the outskirts was the property being rented!"

Jazaar was shocked that Terra had finally made the barely livable dump a place for rent, what was even worse was he hadn't been there to steal the credit for such a feat. While he was growing more emotional by the second, Terra was simply packing up her bag and didn't even stop to look when her boss came barreling into her office, or when she gave her reply.

"You would know if you checked the scry message at noon; even the branch manager was quite excited to see there wasn't even a negotiated rent change during the meeting."

"WHAT MEETING?!?" Jazaar was now fuming and shout loud enough that the guests in the building lobby heard him.

"The one that occurred earlier this morning, I guest you missed it, heh." She gave a little shrug and started walking out the door of her office, passing by the overweight man like he wasn't even there.

"WHERE THE F.U.C.K DO YOU THINK YOU'RE GOING?" He threw spit at every syllable, not realizing the hole he dug himself was only getting deeper with each unprofessional action his scream was making.

He not only had missed the meeting, but he didn't notice that Terra had activated the sound crystal in her pocket. A little device she bought late last night that could entrap and replay the recordings of all sounds in the room while active.

She turned around and spoke to him like he wasn't absolutely livid what had occurred. "Its five, I am going home on time tonight instead of staying till midnight. I'm meeting up with a friend."

*****

Galahad had just woken up a few hours earlier, the effects of the dungeon were hitting him on a heavy delay this time around and he slept for nearly half the day. It didn't help that he was sleeping on the living room floor with his jacket and bags as a makeshift bed. The only bed on the second floor was from the previous owner and it was looking almost as bad as Regin's workshop living room and Galahad didn't want to risk his health anymore than he already had the last few weeks.

He was now eating the remains of all the food he brought with him to the dungeon, when another message pinged his head.

[ Terra Zongyu: Thank you for the advice yesterday. Can I come by with the finalization and a favor to ask? I promise to pay for both your meal and mine this time. :) ]