A Birthday to Remember

Leon read the note in confusion.

'My guildhall? Why did she go to my guildhall?....'

After a couple of seconds of thinking, Leon only came up with one logical idea.

'Maybe she went to say hi to gramps? After all, they knew each other before….'

Leon didn't think too much about the situation, after all, he could just ask Agnes once he found her. With that in mind, he set off back to where he started the day and made the journey back to his guildhall. By the time he got within seeing distance of the building, the sun had just set and the moon peeked its head and spread its chilling, beautiful light onto the world.

The moment he noticed something was off about the guildhall is when he saw no light coming from the many windows spread throughout the building. Leon's heart started thumping faster than his resting heartbeat, as Leon had never seen the lights in the building go off, even during the middle of the night the lights were merely dimmed but never turned off.

Leon started to slowly stalk his way to the building and peeked through one of the windows, but all that greeted him was a pitch-black veil of darkness. With seeing what was going on in the guildhall off the table, Leon focused on his sense of hearing, but Leon was still too naive if he wanted to accomplish that.

The Chosen guildhall was uniquely built so only adventurers of at least A-Tier would be able to hear past the materials and spells used to block eavesdropping, only if a person had specific skills for eavesdropping would a B-Tier be able to hear into the guildhall.

Seeing as Leon was still a frog stuck in a well despite his many experiences and advancements, the only thing he could do was to take a peek through the front door that was ajar but basically closed.

With his abilities and skills in stealth, he was silent as he tiptoed towards the door, silent as he was since he was still low leveled any human adventurers with any detection skill would easily be able to spot him, however, Leon carried on still seeing nor hearing any response coming from the building.

Pushing as gently as he could, the door slowly opened with a slight creaking noise, which allowed the moonlight to invade the receptionist desk Lucia usually stood in front which was situated near the front door, but not much else.

Still not hearing anything, Leon went to his only method of sensing people, Ensis, however, Ensis was not a mindless tool. Ensis had great powers but wasn't subservient to Leon. From what Leon could tell was because his powers and self haven't been acknowledged by his sword, the only thing he could do was plead his sword to scan the building once the door was open.

'Ensis can you this one time scan if there are people inside the building. Please?'

Leon got no response from his sword for a while, but surprisingly Ensis eventually responded.

「Don't worry about anything Leon, no one in the building will want to harm you.」

However, Ensis's response was abnormal, as he mentioned that no one inside would want to hurt him. Leon trusted Ensis to a degree, as although Ensis was not subservient to Leon. The sword still seemed to care about Leon to a degree as Leon was his wielder after all.

With that in mind, Leon took a step through the door, and eventually, his whole body had gone into the building. Suddenly the magic laps that were symmetrically spread on each side of the guildhall lit up, the silence which was permeated the building disappeared in a heartbeat as hundreds of people jumped up and yelled.

"Happy Birthday Leon!"

When he first saw a huge amount of people jump up from out of nowhere, Leon's first reaction was to jump up in surprise, but once he saw what they said he looked like a fact that was buried in the back of his mind suddenly smacked his face.

'I completely forgot it was my birthday…'

Suddenly a mountain walked up to Leon and give him the normal hard slap on the back, Erik gave a hearty laugh at seeing Leon's reaction.

"I bet you forgot about your birthday, am I right?"

Although he was still shocked, he gave a nod, in which Erik shook his head.

"Sometimes, Leon, you have to enjoy the other things in life besides adventuring. I mean you forgot the biggest birthday of your life, can you believe you are turning 16!?"

Hearing his words, Leon realized Erik was right. He had been so focused on adventuring and the sorts, that he had ignored a lot of other stuff and even forgot about his birthday.

In Partha, the age 16 was the biggest birthday for any person. At that age, the government finally saw a person as an adult and many things changed. For example, you were now eligible to be called into wartime conscription if the state needed more soldiers and you could officially own land and have to file your own taxes. It was also a time where most people started looking at you as a man or woman and not as a boy or girl.

That's why Erik had set up a huge party for Leon. Seeing so many people here and the fact that Erik had gone out of his way for him, Leon smiled. Erik saw this and shouted in his usual loud voice.

"Hahaha, good, good. Now it's time to PARTY till we DROP!"

Everyone in the guildhall gave a cheer, the particularly loud ones were the old folks who loved any excuse to drink until they passed out. Thus the night of Leon's birthday started.

On the many long tables in the guildhall, a variety of food and drink were scattered on the tables in huge quantities for the many people to eat. Leon on the other hand wouldn't be able to get to any of the foods and drinks for most of the party as almost everyone went up to say happy birthday or congratulate him for becoming a man.

Most of the people weren't very close so they merely congratulated him then moved onto drink and eat, while there were other people whom Leon was glad to see.

For example, one of the earliest people to come to congratulate Leon was the members of his adventuring party. Even though it had only been maybe twenty minutes since the party started, Tecia had to be guided by Arwin and Tomoe as they congratulated Leon.

Tecia held a huge mug full of ale and stumbled towards Leon and slurred her words.

"Happy birthday....happy birthday Leon...to think...uh...you were younger than me by...two years."

She seemed to have more to say, but Arwin and Tomoe sent her back to the crowd of drunk people. Arwin and Tomoe gave Leon an apologetic look before they burst out in laughter.

"Sorry about that Leon, but this party truly is her natural calling."

Leon didn't mind as he just wanted everyone to have a good time.

"Don't worry about it guys."

Arwin's stomach growled as the smell of food wafted over towards the group and they talked for a couple more minutes and laughed again as Tecia accidentally fell off her chair. Then Arwin and Tomoe went back to help Tecia and also grab a bite to eat. Before Leon, himself could go fill his stomach old man Jenkins and Agnes showed up in front of him