"Kaien, are you planning to take on a job soon?"
Mirajane casually asked as she placed food in front of him. She'd specifically kept an eye out for a few tasks that suited him. If he wanted to go, she could recommend them directly—saving him the trouble of checking each one himself.
Kaien shook his head. "Not for now. I plan to spend the next while focusing on training my body."
"Training?! You're already insanely strong—what's there left to train?"
Elfman's eyes went wide. In his view, Kaien was a full-blown monster. And now this monster wanted to get even stronger? How were ordinary people supposed to survive?
"There's always someone stronger out there!"
Lucy's arrival marked the beginning of the plot. Soon, all sorts of freaks would start showing up—the Oración Seis, Grimoire Heart, Tartaros, the Alvarez Empire, the Spriggan 12, the Dark Mage Zeref, and the Black Dragon Acnologia.
Especially Acnologia—that thing wasn't even on the same level as the magic dragon he'd defeated before. Compared to Acnologia, that dragon would be swatted in a single blow.
So Kaien couldn't help but feel a sense of urgency.
And yet… he also couldn't shake the excitement. He wanted to fight the so-called strongest creature alive.
Over the past six months, he'd discovered that the stronger his base stats, the more powerful the characters he received became after Take Over.
That's why, whenever he wasn't on missions, Kaien was training. The system had even kindly prepared a training schedule for him, which he followed rigorously.
"I'll head back to training now. Oh right, Cana!"
"Hmm?"
Cana looked up at him.
"The ten barrels of wine I promised? Already delivered. Take your time and enjoy."
Kaien waved as he turned to leave.
Cana's face lit up in delight. Ten barrels—she'd already made a huge profit. Normally, she only earned a few thousand J per reading.
But ten barrels? She'd totally ripped him off—and yet he still followed through with the extra reward.
Hearing this, Mirajane figured Kaien must have summoned a pretty powerful heroic spirit again.
Each one so far had been incredibly strong. Who knew what kind of monster he'd summoned this time?
"He's such a good man! Mira, if you're not interested, I swear I'll make a move."
Cana was genuinely starting to fall for Kaien. Handsome, powerful, and even knew how to make money—where else would she find a guy like that? If it weren't for how close Mira was to him, she really would've made the first move already.
"You should spend more time with your boyfriend #1 instead."
Mirajane wasn't bothered by Cana's teasing. She knew her well—it was clearly a joke.
But truthfully, she did have a few complaints about Kaien. She was a little slow to catch on, sure—but not an idiot. She knew he liked her. The problem was—he was just so passive.
She'd already been dropping obvious hints. What was he waiting for, a neon sign? Did she have to confess herself? What a blockhead… completely clueless about how girls think.
A week passed in the blink of an eye.
"…997, 998, 999, 1000!"
Kaien was doing push-ups with a massive boulder strapped to his back.
Once he hit 1000, he tossed the boulder aside and collapsed onto the ground, gasping for breath.
[Ding! Congratulations, Host! You've completed one week of training!]
'So it's been a week already? Guess it's time to get back to work.'
Training was important, but missions were even more so. Completing an S-Class Mission granted a 10x Draw—even if he didn't pull a gold card, he could recycle purples for magic power. That was his main method of leveling up.
Kaien returned to his room, washed up quickly, and headed to the guild.
When he pushed open the doors, the guild was as lively as ever.
"Kaien!"
"Hey, Kaien's here!" …
As soon as he entered, many guild members greeted him enthusiastically, and Kaien returned the greetings one by one.
"Kaien, you came!"
Mirajane's eyes lit up slightly as she spotted him, feeling a small wave of happiness.
"Yeah, I've been resting for a few days. Figured it's time to get back to work. There's something for me upstairs, right?"
By "upstairs," he meant the Second Floor, where the high-difficulty S-Class Missions were posted.
"Perfect timing. An S-Class request just came in."
Kaien's eyes gleamed. "I'll go check it out!"
S-Class missions were rare due to their difficulty. Before he became an S-Class Mage, he wasn't even allowed to touch them. But now that he had the rank, he never passed them up—after all, they were worth ten pulls.
Kaien rushed toward the second floor. If Laxus, Mystogan, or Erza got there first, he'd be out of luck.
Seeing him run off, Lucy asked curiously, "Isn't the request board on the first floor? Why's Kaien going upstairs?"
Mirajane smiled gently. "The first floor has the regular requests. Upstairs is for missions of a whole different caliber—the S-Class Missions."
"S-Class?!"
Lucy felt like she'd just heard something dangerous.
"One wrong move on those missions and your life's forfeit. But the rewards are huge."
"Wow…!"
Lucy thought the requests on the first floor were already intense. She couldn't even imagine what the ones upstairs were like.
"Only mages approved by the Master can take them on. Right now, including Kaien, only six people qualify. Don't go dreaming about S-Class, okay? These missions are suicide runs."
"I wouldn't dare."
She was way too fond of living. She still had so much life ahead of her. No way was she risking it all for one of those jobs.
Kaien arrived at the mission board on the second floor.
There was only one request pinned up, all by itself. He stepped up and took a look.
[Mission Name: Please Save Our Island]
[Rank: S-Class]
[Details: The residents of Galuna Island have been cursed. Requesting a powerful mage to lift it.]
[Reward: 7,000,000 J + a Golden Key!]
"Huh? It's this mission?"
Kaien immediately recalled the story behind it. It was the only S-Class request ever shown in detail in the Fairy Tail anime, so it stuck clearly in his memory.
If you didn't know the context, the mission would be practically impossible. But if you did—it was absurdly easy.
And of course Kaien wasn't about to let a mission like that slip through his fingers.
He tore the request from the board without hesitation.