"You know, Grimsley," Gilbert said as he held onto the railing on the caravel and enjoyed the feeling of the wind against his face, "When you said you could have this ship build in a few months, I honestly didn't believe you," he added with a praising tone.
Grimsley rubbed his nose and grinned. "When ah make a promise, ah fookin' keep it. Besides, this was a piece ah cake te build."
Shana, Grimsley's niece and Gilbert's apprentice, sighed before she whispered, "Didn't Mr Immortus say that it would be done in only a few weeks at first until he realised that he needed to walk you through each individual step in building it?"
Gilbert, who was an S-ranker, so could naturally hear her, smirked, but he didn't speak so as to safe Grimsley a bit of face.
The Dragonkin raised his hand slowly and muttered, "Gravity Sphere," and immediately, a large Sea Serpent that was big enough to swallow the caravel in a single bite was trapped in a clear ball that floated above the surface.
Gilbert slowly closed his hand, and as if to mimic that movement, the sphere shrunk until the Sea Serpent was crushed to death. Gilbert made the Gravity Sphere float towards the ship and he dropped some of the monster's flesh on board to act as their food for a few weeks before he released the rest back into the ocean.
Grimsley frowned. "'Ere's been a lot ah B-ranked or strong'r monsters in this ocean, eh?" he said as he continued to carefully steer the ship.
Gilbert nodded. "We're definitely not close to Teresta, that's for sure. None of the surrounding oceans have any monsters this powerful near them... unless we're in the northern ocean, The Sea of Beasts..."
Shana titled her head in confusion. "Is there something special about the northern ocean, Teacher?"
Instead of Gilbert, her uncle Grimsley chose to explain. "Te entire north'rn half ah te continent is ruled by monsters, so 'ere's no adventurer groups near te waters up there tae keep te monsters in check. 'Ere too powerful an' ere's too many ah 'em."
"Just like Grimsley said, Dear Apprentice, and if we really are in The Sea of Beasts... then we won't be getting near dry land for at least a full year, maybe two, just to avoid getting too close to the monster-infested lands. The ones out here are like children to the things dwelling on the northern lands, after all," Gilbert added.
"Ah... Well, I don't really mind," Shana said with a rare smile on her face. "If I'm with you, Teacher, and with Uncle, then I'm happy."
Gilbert's heart was moved by those touching words and they suddenly motivated him to instruct his prized Apprentice. "Okay! Today I'm not resting until you've properly learnt how to use at least one of the more advanced gravity magic spells that I've been teaching you for the past two months!"
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Alisa looked around and gripped her Sorceresses staff tightly as her small face frowned cutely. Currently, both she, Emma and Hazel were in the centre of the city that lay right next to The Academy, Mystopolis.
They had just been given a four-month annual leave of absence from The Academy and were trying to find George and Scott, their companions who had been forced to work as adventurers to stay in the city since they had no magical aptitude to speak of, let alone enough to be admitted into the most powerful magical school on the continent.
"Where even is the Adventurers' Guild?" Emma asked, noticed that both she and Alisa had no idea where they were right now.
Hazel sighed. "You two scatterbrains... Don't you remember? Scott even gave us specific directions when he last visited us."
Alisa's face turned red at the mention of her boyfriend. "O-Of course I remember, but even if he said that it was next to the Pharmacists' Guild, how are we supposed to know where that is?!"
"Come on, just follow me," Hazel said in a fed-up tone as she began walking down the cobbled and people-filled road. "I can't believe neither of you took alchemy class. There was a field trip to the Pharmacists' Guild last semester."
Alisa blushed a bit while Emma stuck out her tongue. After twenty minutes of walking and a short detour to buy some fresh kebabs from a food stall, the trio of teenaged girls had finally arrived at the Adventurers' Guild.
They stood outside of it and tried to avoid the dozens of people constantly entering and leaving as they waited for the boys of their group.
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The girls idled about there for roughly ten minutes before two young men approached them. One was burly and wearing full plate armour while the other was a bit shorter and a lot skinnier. The first had a big greatsword on his back while the second was adorned in leather with daggers strapped to his waist.
The taller one who was obviously Scott walked up to Alisa and petted her head lightly. "Sorry we're late, it took us a bit of time to turn in our quests today."
George, the skinnier young man, scratched his head. "We ended up getting promoted, which is why we took so long... We even handed in the quest for killing those Orcs half an hour early..."
Emma walked up to George and fiddled about with the new steel plate hanging around his neck. "Not a bronze-plate anymore already, huh? We're being left in the dust by you two... even though we're all in the same adventurer group."
Scott laughed. "Don't be stupid. You guys are way stronger than us now, aren't you? You've been studying magic for a full year now, after all."
Hazel chimed in and said, "True, but you guys have higher ranks than us, right? Real combat experience is way better. All we've gained is pure knowledge."
"Ah, you're right," Scott replied, "You guys are still F-rankers, huh? Goerge used to be the weakest, but now look at him, both of us are E-rankers, hahaha!"
Hazel smiled, hearing his true thoughts which were far kinder than his teasing words, reminding the teen of how pure some people could be, unlike the filthy nobility at The Academy.
Hazel looked at everyone and clapped her hands before she announced, "Well, let's formally accept the quest to capture Mr McCullen and his companion before we leave, shall we?"
Goerge nodded his head. "Sounds good. Scott and I have earned just over one-hundred gold in the past year, so we should have more than enough to travel to the world trees in comfort, unlike when we came here... boy was that rough, relying on Alisa's once-a-month teleportation."
Scott and Emma laughed before Scott joked, "It was pretty horrible, but hey, it worked. My girlfriend's pretty amazing, isn't she?"
Alisa blushed while she nibbling on her kebab when she noticed something weird in the sky. 'Is that... is that a person... cuddling a pillow?'
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In fact, the thing that was flying through the skies of Mystopolis was a person. To be specific, it was a small girl with unusually shaggy hair that was the strange colour of pink. She was wearing a set of loosely-fitted pyjamas and her eyes were closed as a bubble was slowly getting bigger and smaller from within her nostril.
Despite all of that, this girl actually wasn't asleep and was gradually heading somewhere in a hurry, well, a hurry for her, at the very least.
'I just wanna sleep... I already took care of Milindo because she promised me the latest Malcolm-Series pillow, but really, can't she find another group that's capable? I shouldn't have ever left my summoning circle and just slept for eternity... Being the leader of the only Diamond-ranked adventurer group sucks...' the young eight or nine-year-old girl thought to herself.
After a few minutes had passed, she landed on top of a massive brass clocktower that stood at an impressive one-hundred-feet tall. This clocktower was an invention of the late and great Dwarf, Leylin Goldforge, the co-inventor of the underground magical and machinery city, Leytograndia.
Once inside, the girl remained floating on her pillow as she peacefully hovered to the clock face that overlooked the grand city.
"Oh? You're earlier than I expected. It only took you six hours to get here after I sent someone to wake you up, hahaha!" the Adventurers' Guild Guildmaster laughed as she stood up from where she was sitting.
"Hurry..." the girl replied.
"Yeah, yeah, I know. Really, why did Envy have to be in another city? He could have carried you here in a split-second," the Guildmaster sighed.
"Don't complain... Here now..." Unimpressed, the pink-haired girl chided the exceedingly powerful XXX-ranker.
"Yeah, yeah." The Guildmaster waved off the girl's words before she said, "Well, I won't cut into your precious sleeping time any more than I already have, Sloth. The mission's simple. The Crimson Foxkin Clan has hired us to help them fight against the Human Coalition since their war is about to end the preparation stages and enter the battle phase."
She then grinned and added, "But here's the fun part, the Humans have requested our help too. Now, of course, you know our policies on wars, so I won't repeat them. Pick a side and help them a little or help them a lot."
"Reward?" Sloth asked with very little interest in her soft and delicate voice.
"One-thousand ruby-gold coins. Think about how many mattresses you could buy with that! Enough to fill up an entire city, I'd bet," The Guildmaster said in a clear attempt to coax the most powerful Adventurer on Teresta to accept this war-class quest.
Silence filled the air as the Guildmaster stood there with her arms held out awkwardly. Finally, after perhaps ten or fifteen seconds, Sloth answered, "Leaving... Not interested..." and began floating away on her pillow.
'Tch, it'll be expensive, but I don't have a choice, I need her absurd ability to end the war as soon as possible to keep the continent stable. The Crimson Foxkin Clan can't be left in a war for too long...' the Guildmaster though before she opened a dimensional pouch and brought out a particular item.
Held in the woman's muscular hands was a pair of pyjamas that was embroidered with a special kind of thread and it glowed ever so slightly. Instantly, without warning, Sloth acted so fast that even the Guildmaster couldn't see her movements.
"Downpayment... Be back soon," Sloth said lazily before she floated away out of the clocktower's face in the direction of the brewing war-front with her new pyjamas in hand. It was a long distance away, but the Guildmaster knew that she would make it in time before the battles began.
Sighing to herself, the powerful XXX-ranker smirked. "I really need to thank Giacomo, that sly bastard. To think he could sow Legendary-ranked clothes... It's expensive, but I'll have to keep employing him to always have a carrot ready for that girl..."