The mercenaries kept looking at the bulletin board for hours. By this time, the administrative robots from the floor below, came up to assist them in finding a quest suitable for them. But they vehemently declined the offer.
By this time, the low rankers were getting frustrated beyond any measure. Still, it wasn't like they could have done something about them. Especially since they knew who was backing them up. As for Ashton, he was cluelessly staring at them.
While the other low-ranking mercenaries left, he stayed there. Why would he leave? He was there to take up a job and wasn't going to leave before he got one. However, the longer he stayed there, the more interested he got in the mercenary group.
'Looks like they are looking for a specific quest.' Ashton thought, 'But why? Do they know something and don't want anyone else to know about it?'
[Maybe you should try looking into them. Try asking one of the bots to fetch you their details. I bet you could get your hands on their service record at the very least.]
As a way to cure his boredom, Ashton decided to take Astaroth's advice and asked a roller-bot for the mercenary group's service records. After paying a small fee of 10 Yenos, he got the digital file and began skimming through it. To say he found a lot of strange things within the file would have been an understatement.
'Damn... those aren't mercs. They are a fucking army of supes.'
Ashton got wide-eyed as he read through their description. These mercenaries were part of a larger group known as the Gold Water Clan and were one of the most active presence in the galaxy. They were surprisingly a large group with over fifteen thousand active members.
The group was apparently created by one of the seven beings who happen to have transcended the limits placed on them. Which meant, they weren't A-grade beings but something more... something much stronger than anything else.
'Is this even possible?'
[Yes, it is. Master Seraph was the first one in our kind who ascended the limits placed on us by the Precursors. Why do you think we A-graders blindly followed him? We wanted to know the secret of how he was able to achieve the feat of being an S-ranker.]
'You're such a sucker...'
[But he never told any of us anything about it. I even suspected he forgot about it all... or someone made him forget about it. It had to be one of those things.]
'I guess that's the reason no one wanted to upset them. If someone were to fight against them and the word of it got out, their leader would wreck the galaxy to mend their hurt ego.'
[But to think there are seven more of them, that too independent of Xyrans... Maybe the galaxy has changed a lot more than I initially thought. Is there anything else about the mysterious S-grader?]
Ashton shook his head. Since it was a service record, it only contained basic information about the mercenary group and the rest of it was filled with the list of jobs the group had completed.
And they have completed a lot of those... like more than five hundred of them were listed in the data Ashton was given. It finally made sense why they were receiving such VIP treatment from the association.
Watching them get special treatment reminded Ashton of how he got a similar treatment from the Guild back on earth. There was something even more interesting. He was much stronger than he had been before, but on the galactic scale, he was just another common fish in the sea. Nothing more.
[Wow, you're turning poetic too. How about you leave fighting behind and start writing?]
'Don't joke around.'
[Good. Had you agreed to my request, I'd have taken over your body.]
'Why? Are you so desperate to leave your V-card behind, that you want to take over my body of all things? Shame on you.'
At this moment, Ashton's and Astaoth's chatter was interrupted by the square-faced caption of the mercenary group. Ashton only saw him from the corner of his eyes as he yelled in frustration. It would appear they finally found the quest they had been looking for, but there was some kind of restriction to it.
"Out of all the job requests, why does this one have to be restricted!?" Square-Face yelled at the Ena bot.
"Our apologies sir, but it appears the one behind the Job request has strictly forbidden anyone who is rank-3 or above from even accepting the request," A different Ena-bot responded in an attempt to cool the alien's raging nerve, "If you give me some time, I can look up a far better job request than this lousy one-"
"Hm... so we need a Rank-3 or below person to accept the request right?"
"Yes sir. As long as it's a low ranker who accepts the request, you can take the job." Ena replied, "However, the person accepting the request has to be an independent mercenary with neutral affiliation. That is, the person must not belong to any mercenary group."
"Yeah, I figured out that much. It shouldn't be hard though, after all, insects are pretty common in-"
Square-face turned behind to look for someone who fit the criteria. Only to see that the low rankers had already left the tower or retired to their rooms.
"What the hell? Where did all of them go? The room was packed with them a couple of moments ago!"
"Sir, there's one left. Should we try recruiting him?" One of the mercs pointed toward Ashton who acted as if he was lost in his own world.
Square-Face looked in the direction the deputy was pointing to find the man he had encountered beforehand. He wasn't so keen on selecting Ashton as he gave him quite some weird feelings. The man was around rank 2 and yet he was so strong.
Had it been possible, Square-Face wouldn't have even thought about looking in Ashton's direction. But since he was the only one in the hall that could help him, Square-Face decided to ask for Ashton's help.