Madman’s Retirement

"Yellow rose, hawks whisper, clamshell foyer, 50 year ginseng" mumbled Grant as he looked through all the herbs overall. Nothing amazing by any means, but decent. He wasn't expecting jackpots, but this stuff would sell for some good money.

All right then, he said as he continued down the hall.

The hallway opened up into a battlefield, and with a battlefield came monsters.

The monsters in question were average. Not the weak like goblins or random wolves, but not really strong either, like wyverns or gladius lupin. There were a ton of acid slimes, sickly green creatures that have a diseased smell, numbering in the dozens.

Scattered amongst them were ghouls, sagging deformed human like creatures that looked as if they were rotting. Their teeth were blackened as age at their teeth, and others protruded like primitive fangs and their fingers following suit, with protruding nails more like claws than blades. Oh, and the creatures were fast.

The monsters did not move as Grant did not enter the arena.

So the monsters won't attack unless I go in first.

All right. When was the last time I had Honey Ursa fight? Never?

All right, good time for him to fight.

Grant opened a tear into the divine realm, and the beary good chef walked out. Looking around, the bear laid eyes upon the monsters, and then looked back to Grant.

The desire to hunt lurked beneath the surface of the eyes, as a not-so-subtle killing intent emerged from the bear's eyes. It looked eager. Hungry even.

This wasn't the same monster the nice guild lady had seen that day.

A monster was a monster after all and could recognize when it was time to fight. To hunt.

And, it couldn't really share the joys of honey with them so... no reason to let them live.

"Well?" asked Grant rhetorically. "You haven't hunted in a while right? Go loose?"

The bear roared eagerly, before charging towards the slimes and ghouls on all fours.

What surprised Grant was the small crew that also popped out of the divine realm, following the bear.

Two kobolds, one draconian and the other canine charged forward, followed by a shroom man leaking sap wielding a long bludgeon.

Wait...

that's not a bludgeon...

THat's a RollIng piN!

AND IT WAS RIDING A LVL 30 HONEY SLIME!

The shroom had become more like wood than shroom, his exterior taking on a more gnarly and rough appearence, with sap leaking out every orifice.

Grant... clearly had not been paying enough attention recently. How could he have missed something so much fun recently?

And the kobolds were no different.

The draconian one welded a whisk while the canine one clearly held a pan.

So... Honey Ursa had started his very own kitchen staff?

Grant wasn't worried about the shroom at the very least, but he was more worried about the kobolds.

Thankfully...

[Kobold(draconian)]

[Level: 40/50]

[Kobold(canine)]

[Level:25/30]

They should be fine. He could always interfere.

With Honey Ursa leading the charge, they crashed into the crowd.

Of course, the monsters in the arena weren't static either, the acid slimes spitting acid with the ghouls speeded towards their perceived meal.

One of the most amusing this to watch was how a honey bear fought.

Normal bears used claws to simply slap creatures to death, imbuing their forehands with whatever element they desired, and thus many bears evolved into physical type monsters, including pandas more often than not, making it hard to have magic specializing bear,s

Honey bears followed a similar route, though their actions were different.

Base honeybears preferred to use the source of their honey as a weapon.

Yup, they swung that jar of honey around, straight like something out of dark souls, swinging it around and slamming the ground, causing their foes to trip and fall.

They splashed honey at their foes to get them all sticked up, kind of like a spider.

So as the fight went on, the room just became streaked in yellow as Honey Ursa flung his honey, trapping his foes under the great glaze, before promptly crushing them with his great jar of honey. The sickly sweet scent of honey mixed with the metallic smell of blood and death.

All the while Honey Ursa raged, with desire burning in its eyes. Even as a honey bear, it was still a bear monster, and bear monsters enjoyed a good fight.

Thankfully, the kobolds were smart and chose to ride on top of the honey slime the shroom rode while Ursa flew into a rage.

With each slam the ghouls wobbled, while the poor acid slimes were merely absorbed by the honey slime rolling over them, if it wasn't a hard kitchen appliance that squished them to death. Ghouls weren't excused from the kitchen action, and with each thwack there was ghoul running around with a heavy dent in their head.

So the kitchen crew were admittedly not that strong. But that wasn't surprising either. They hadn't been receiving all the work that Honey Ursa had been receiving, and kobolds weren't known for strength anyway. The fact that they were doing as much as they did right now was impressive.

While Grant was impressed by the work the shroom was doing, it was also kind of expected. He had made the shrooms to be versatile.

Grant chuckled, imagining the astonishment of the relic as it watched this kitchen fight.

It had probably expected an elite team of adventurers to come and challenge this area, butchering these low level monsters, or perhaps even him to simply sweep it all.

Instead, it got to see a chef and his attendants storming the arena.

The shroom was also throwing sap, similar to how the bear threw honey, but his rolling pin had immense range, in no small part thanks to the shrooms arms extending far and wide, leaving the monsters no space to flee from his long reach.

And soon, the battle was done.

Grant promptly summoned a few slimes to clean up this mess. It was honey and blood and acid all over the place, and while he wasn't squeamish, he certainly wanted it all cleaned up.

Once it was all done, he walked up to the group and crossed his arms.

"Well?" He asked.

"when did this all happen?"

Apparently the shroom had come first, challenging Ursa Honey to a fight.

A fight it lost, leading the shroom to follow Ursa around, and even do it's own way of forming honey, though the end result was more like sap than anything else. It also started cooking just like Ursa Honey did, choosing to mimic at first, before eventually being taught what to do by Ursa Honey, on the basis that the shroom would stop ruining his kitchen.

And thus he had his first assistant.

The golden slime just rolled in one day. An ordinary slime, it had rolled in, ate some of his honey, and had an epiphany, resulting in the variant monster honey slime, not to be confused with the golden slime, the key difference being that a honey slime's core is shaped like a honey comb. And they smell like honey.

The kobolds on the other hand, had sneaked in, trying to sneak food. Ursa Honey didn't care, enjoying the thought of sharing honey, but apparently, the shroom had roped them into helping, as payment for their choice to not ask.

Just like people who try to dine-n-dash being dragged in to do dishes.

So they eventually joined in the endless cooking, and now Ursa Honey had a whole kitchen staff.

Alright. It's good Ursa Honey's developing his own path. The bear was in fact about to evolve, and the fact that the bear had taken initiative was good.

Having hear the story, Grant sent them back into the divine realm. After he was done, he would take some time to strengthen this whole team.

After they had defeated the monsters, a tunnel had popped up, so Grant went into the tunnel.

Arriving at the next location, he found himself standing before a maze, constructed with stone and laden with traps, seemingly most were poison based.

How very quaint.

The next hour was spent navigating the tunnel, for as large as it was, it was all seen through. Odin's eye and all that, allowed him to easily see through most things, if his own appraisal skill couldn't.

There were a few monsters here and there. Roaming zombies, ghouls, and there was even the occasional acid slime dropped on his face.

In fact, one trap dropped him into a pool with alligators, and well he got a few free alligators to store in his divine realm.

Once he got to the middle of the maze, he was greeted with a rather ugly creature.

A huge lump of flesh with a mess of limbs that probably couldn't hold it up, and from its body protruded 25 heads, each with it's own malformed interpretation of a man's head.

Wicked smiles with black lines running down their faces, almost like tear streaks running in stark contrast to the haunting smile, the heads swung around egregiously, as if attempting to mimic a snake, yet failing in the unnatural way the neck's bent.

It's skin a stark and unhealthy white, as mounds of fat rolled upon mounds of fat.

A haunting sound began to emerge and Grant sighed. Pulling out a pair of corks out he stuffed them into his ears.

"So I'm guessing a bear won't do this time?" he asked.