26 First Quests 3

Nearly an hour later, Seran walked into June's office, looking very haggard for a 10-year-old. He flopped down in a chair and groaned, "Finally done... I hate doing that so much..."

June, half-prepared for a ridiculous number as the answer, slowly spoke, "So... how many jobs did you go through this time...?" When Seran didn't answer directly and said a math problem instead, it left her rather confused, but she still did it since Seran insisted it would lessen the blow just a bit. "Let's see, 7 times 10 is 70, minus 3... 67... wait, 67?" When the white-haired boy gave her a halfhearted thumbs-up, smoke literally burst out of her ears from her brain being fried.

The silence was almost deafening, twenty minutes passing by the time June managed to recover her senses. Just like Seran, she leaned back in her chair and groaned loudly, "Gods, dealing with you is going to be the death of me... What's your current job, then?"

"Well, do you remember when you mentioned Merlin earlier?"

"Yes..?"

"I've got his job now."

Silence, followed by, "Grand Sage!? You've reached Sage in all magic jobs? Wait, 67 jobs... I can see how most of that is for magic classes, so it makes a bit more sense. Still, Grand Sage... Mind telling me the job progression you chose to do?" June was starting to develop the same mindset as those of Greenwood Town: don't apply common sense to Seran, he'll always do impossible things.

"The first job I chose was Magic Archer, then I advanced all of the magic jobs to Sage. After that, I advanced from Beast Tamer to Beast King, followed by Spellsword, Magic Swordsman, and then Shadowblade. I then advanced to Thief King, Reaper, Master Spy and Marksman, and then finally, I became a Grand Sage..."

"... give me a moment while I write all of this down... I might need to call the continental guildmaster again..." Poor June began to write down, as neatly as possible with a shaking hand, the job progression he had mentioned, along with changing his guild card and files to say his new current job.

"Well, you might need to anyway, considering what I'm really here for might need approval from the highest authority of the guild on this continent. I want to do something crazy and reach S-rank as fast as possible. The easiest way for me to do it is to just straight up do an S-rank quest, but there aren't any on the continent... So, I'd need to do one of the long-time unfinished A-rank quests... The one of the highest difficulty."

After a minute of that all-too-familiar silence, June activated the mirror with the 'urgent' setting rather than the usual.

The old guildmaster appeared in the mirror, a serious look on his face as he asked, "What happened for it to be an urgent call? Lightwood Fortress hasn't had an urgent call for 300 years..."

"Well... Seran Greenwood is here, and there's several things you need to know. I recommend you prepare yourself, as you might have a heart attack... or two." The expression June had almost screamed that she was far from joking about this.

"... Let's start from the easiest part, then."

"He has progressed through 67 jobs this time, and has even gained the job of Grand Sage."

As expected by both June and Seran, the continental guildmaster coughed so violently that blood splattered his beard. It took a long few minutes for the old man to recover enough to quickly wash his beard with water magic, "Stars above, you weren't kidding... Grand Sage... only Merlin has ever had that job... 67 job progressions... Just... don't bother telling me what jobs, it's not important now. Anything else?"

This time Seran cut in, "I'd like to go straight into S-class as soon as possible, which I believe would require an S-rank quest, of which there are none, or an A-rank quest of the highest difficulty. This was what I originally came for, and is the main reason that June called you..."

The old man's eyes swiveled to look at Seran with scrutiny, "So you're the one causing my heart attacks. It's about time we met, even if it is in such an odd way. I am Johann Juneau, the continental guildmaster and the only S-rank mage on the continent... officially at least, since there is now you. Ah, I am not actually a descendant of the Mage King, but I am descended from one of his siblings. Fitting than an S-rank mage would come from one of the descendants of the family that produced the likes of the Mage King." After his semi-boasting and semi-grounded introduction, Johann said, "As for your request... In all honesty, it is completely against all of the rules that we have in the guild. However, it would make no sense for such a powerful person to not be high-ranking as an adventurer." He pondered for a long time on what to do before he came to a decision, "I can agree to your request, but the highest-difficulty A-rank quest out of all of them might take a while to narrow down. After I converse with each of the guildmasters, then sort through their A-rank quests, I'll call you back. In the meantime, please don't do anything too crazy..."

"I'll do my best, though trouble seems to find me very easily." Seran said, which made both of the two guildmasters smile wryly in agreement. "I'll just hang out here in the Lightwood Fortress branch then, since it'll make it easier in the end. I'll stay back here in the guild offices too, since taking off my hood in the front will likely cause a riot. June, do you mind if I just conk out here in this chair?"

"Do what you want, it's fine with me. Just let me know when Sir Johann calls back. I have to get back to some other stuff." June politely bowed to Johan, who nodded in response before both the call closed and June left the room.

"Time for a nap..." mumbled the purple-eyed boy as he fell asleep right there in the chair.