Strong men gathering

It only took 2 or 3 hours for the ship to fly to the territory of Heartfilia Konzern, John landed the ship right in front of an arch with the word 'Heartfilia' engraved in the curved arch.

Looking at the large expanse of land that is under the Heartfilia family, John was shocked even though he knew that they owned a huge house the size of a freaking city.

Sebastian smiled seeing the huge arch, when they reach the said arch, they found a man wearing a butler's clothes waiting there.

The man immediately approach them as soon as he saw them, upon closer look the butler was carrying a small book with him.

When the man arrived in front of John and Sebastian, he first flips through the book as if he was searching for something.

Then when he landed on a certain page he nodded in satisfaction, on the page is John's face and some general information about him, such as he always travels around with a butler.

"This way, Sir Hades." The butler made a welcoming gesture and walked to the inner parts of the land, but John quickly grabbed him, causing the butler to look at John in confusion.

"Don't tell me you plan to walk directly to the mansion, right?" John asked with an incredulous expression on his face.

"Yes? Don't worry it will only take a day to walk to the mansion, and there are break stops in between that serve food if you are tired."

John sighed, waved his hands to summon his carriage, and said, " Just point the direction of the mansion and I'll go there myself."

"Okay, right! Take this badge with you when they ask who you are." The butler said while handing a badge engraved with twelve golden keys on it.

John nodded and took the badge in his hands while Sebastian took a deep look at it then glanced away before John notices.

Then with a gust of wind, the carriage quickly started and vanished into the horizon. Not long after the carriage left, maybe an hour or so, a tall, muscular, tanned man rode a horse into the gate.

He also did the same as John when he heard that it would take a day to arrive at the mansion, so he also decided to go by himself, seeing his decision the butler also gave him the same badge as John.

Over the course of three days, many people arrived at the Heartfilia Konzern, and then one night they were all summoned into a large hall with a huge circular table with 30 seats along the circumference of the table.

At the head of the table sat a relatively tall middle-aged man with black eyes and slicked-back blond hair and a matching, extremely trim mustache, and a rather firm, square jaw. wearing a tailored suit from a branded company.

"I'm sure a lot of you are already impatient for waiting a long time." The middle-aged man said slowly.

A loud arrogant voice sounded from a seat on the left side of the middle-aged man. "Yeah! I'm tired of waiting, Old man! You actually made me wait for three whole days!"

John turned to see who was so courageous to be so loud and arrogant among a group of S-rank mages.

He saw it was a tall, bare-chested man, wearing a red open leather vest, with a giant sword that oozes out a fierce feeling, taller than him resting on the back of his chair.

Yet, by the time he was done speaking, two men wearing all black suddenly appeared beside him, pointing a sharp black dagger at the man's throat and chest.

But, his reaction as an S-rank mage is not far behind either, when the two men appeared beside him, his sword is already at a man's throat while a short sword is pointed at the other man's chest.

"Okay, you two can go back, it's indeed my fault for having a lot of you wait for three days, my deepest apologies." The middle-aged man apologized, while the two men in black disappeared into shadows.

The bare-chested man snorted, but he didn't plan to pursue the matter anymore since a lot of mages were already looking at him with strange eyes, he didn't want to offend so many S-rank mages at once.

Seeing that the hall was once again quiet, the middle-aged man continued to talk, "The main tasks of these missions this time are to look for extremely rare materials that can help restore vitality."

Then a white light emerged from the table and projected a hologram in front of all the mages present. What was projected was an enchanting red flower in full bloom, with white pistils extending from its center.

"For example, this Ambrosia is a flower that grows in an area bathed in the blood of the gods, it is said that a petal from this flower can completely restore a dying man back to full health with no sequela behind."

"Unfortunately, this flower has not been seen since thousands of years ago." Jude Heartfilia sighed, "Nevertheless if you found the materials written on this booklet, I, Jude Heartfilia, will be very grateful to you."

He waved his hands as a man in black appeared beside him and distributed a booklet to every mage sitting at the table.

"Are there any questions?"

A woman with white hair, wearing a kimono with a veil to cover up her facial features raised her arm. Jude looked at her and gestured for her to proceed with her question.

The woman spoke in a soft voice, yet it reached every corner of the room, "Mr. Jude, I would like to ask about the rewards, since it was not clearly mentioned in the task paper."

"As long as any of you is able to bring any materials written on that booklet, then you will be able to choose an item from our treasury depending on the rarity of your material," Jude answered seriously.

Just after he answered a deep voice with a strong accent immediately asked.

"Aye, the reward may temptin', but if we spend months chasin' shadows, 'tis naught but a waste of time. How do ye suppose to compensate for da waste of time?"

John took a look and found that the question was asked by a short, stout man, wearing clothes a typical cowboy would wear.

Jude nodded at the question and stood up and clapped his hands one time causing the door to open as 40 maids entered carrying a black briefcase they stood behind all the S-rank mages and opened their briefcases at the same time.

Inside the briefcase is a layer of bundled Jewels, with many 10,000 Jewels in a single bundle, Jude then said, "Inside each briefcase is 10 million Jewels, just for participating in this task, you will be rewarded with 10 million Jewels."

John looked at the Jewels in the briefcase and thought, 'It looks like Jude is going all out this time, such a large amount of money is actually used as an advanced payment.'

But, John can understand Jude's actions, after all, one's wife is in grave danger, then what's the use of all his wealth if he can't even save his own wife?

That's why in the anime after Layla Heartfilia died, Jude became depressed and focused on his work ignoring everything else.

Every mage stood up and collected their own advance payments, then went out of the mansion together, each leaving with their own methods.

The bare-chested man from before got on a giant eagle and flew away, the white-haired woman waved her hand and a few spots of light gathered together into a carriage with a unicorn pulling it.

The short man lit up in brown light and then sunk into the earth and then went missing, these S-rank mages all have their own way of travel.

John just watched for a few moments and then summoned Fafnir and rode on it with Sebastian and then flew away.