Chapter 82 - The Good Kind of Weird

The three women that were still on a mission finally arrived in the middle of the night. Ahk's armor that covered her right forearm was a bit roughed up but other than that she looked to be fine. Tahloh's leg was slashed open so she was wearing a bandage on it and Korra was helping her into the building. Korra was completely unharmed but the shield that she carried was nearly split into two. Anybody looking at the three of them would recognize that they had a tough fight.

Sven and the insect-type demihuman with large scythe arms were currently on watch when the three women arrived. Sven went to go wake up Gren but he wasn't in his room; there were only a few places he'd be so late at night but lately he had been in the workshop. Nobody really knew why he called it a workshop when it was an empty room every time someone got to see it but nobody wanted to question the person that paid them their wages; especially when that person was a god or at least a demigod.

The door was locked, as always. Gren was very secretive about what he was doing inside of the workshop. After knocking on the door door, there was the sound of something metallic falling and then--shortly afterwards--Gren opened the door. Peeking in, it was empty as usual which made Sven wonder what made that noise.

Gren had been messing around with the system to try making a tent frame that was easy to set up. The already-constructed ones could only be used by him and the current ones they used required the wagon to carry around. In his old world there were some large tents that could easily fit into a duffel bag so that's what he was trying to make. Theoretically, he could put the new type together on his own but it was difficult to screw the poles into the small cross section at the top and getting distracted by Sven's knocking didn't help. "Did you need something?"

"The last of the mercenaries have returned. The orc woman has an injury on her leg and you're needed in the infirmary." Hearing that Tahloh got injured was surprising; they were only supposed to kill some wolves.

Gren started to jog towards the infirmary while Sven followed behind him. "Is there anybody else hurt? Did they say what happened?"

"It doesn't seem like anybody else is injured and nobody mentioned any injuries but some of their equipment suffered major damage." As long as there were few injuries then Gren was fine with it.

There was no need to worry about the equipment. Ahk was the real breadwinner around the guild so she basically had a free pass to destroy her equipment; if she needed anything besides an axe then it was pretty much guaranteed that it would be mangled when she brought it back. As for the others, Korra had only lost one spear before this and Tahloh had never lost anything. Even if all of their gear was lost or destroyed, their point balance that he had been having the system track would still be in the positive.

Tahloh was actually pretty high up in the rankings, only coming behind Ahk and Jasmine; she was catching up to Jasmine but Ahk was already millions of points ahead and couldn't be reached by the others. Although Luna, Midna, and Korra completed a lot of missions but they didn't use the system's weapons that often.

Inside the infirmary was a group of women blocking his way. One of the side effects of having so many bored people in the guild was that there would always be a crowd when something interesting happened. When they realized that Gren had arrived, they got out of the way.

Tahloh's leg looked bad even after they added hemostatic ointment and bandages to it. There were bits of metal inside her wound that needed to be removed before he could use healing magic on her and the wound itself was pretty large. This was definitely not caused by a regular wolf.

Gren used the system to absorb the metal flakes before using healing magic on her. "The discomfort will go away in less than a day. Can you tell me what happened out there?" Tahloh told Gren about how they were ambushed by a great wolf after taking out the wolves that had been eating the rancher's animals. It was a massive white wolf with claws that tore through Tahloh's armor and Korra's shield like they weren't even there. The iron was a bit too thin but if he made it any thicker then it would be impossible for anybody but Ahk to move while wearing or carrying the equipment.

Researching steel might fix the problem but it wasn't guaranteed or his top priority. Monsters like the great wolves were rare and researching firearms would allow someone like Tahloh to easily catch up to Ahk in points if they used them on large monsters. For now he would just replace the gear with exact copies. In the morning they'd be having a meeting so Gren told everyone to get some sleep.

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Gren woke up to a hurt stomach and he wasn't sure what was going on. "Papa, wake up! No being lazy!" A second blow to his stomach caused him to fall out of bed and hit his head on the floor.

"I'm up. I'm up. You can stop hitting me." Ruby either didn't know her own strength or she just didn't care. Gren healed his head and stomach just to be safe. "Why are you trying to wake me, anyways?"

Ruby had her upper arms crossed in front of her chest and her bottom arms on her hips. "Everybody else is ready but you're up here procrasalading. How shameful." Who was she pretending to be? Also, procrasalading was not a word.

"Do you mean procrastinating?" Ruby puffed up her cheeks and turned her head away. She wasn't going to admit that she made a mistake. "Go tell whoever sent you that I'm up now and that they need to pay me back already."

Ruby walked off and left him to get ready. Gren made sure that the door was locked before cleaning his body with his water magic. He made sure to hurry down after putting on some new clothes and donning his armor. Hopefully the person responsible for his suffering fell for his trap.

There were some new faces downstairs that Gren wasn't familiar with. They really stuck out with their mismatched armor and cheap clothes. Those must be the independent mercenaries that Jessica was talking about. "Hey, what is this about me owing you money?" Gren turned to see Annie with her hands on her hips and a pouting face. That answered the two questions that he had.

"My healing fees. You sent my daughter to beat me up." He was glad that Annie was able to get around now but sending Ruby to assassinate him was too much.

"I only sent her to wake you. If she had to beat you to wake you up then maybe you should fix your sleeping schedule." Gren didn't believe her but he didn't have any evidence to prove that she was lying.

"So, those are the independent mercenaries, huh? They look kinda shabby." They would probably end up leaving if they heard what he said. "Should I give them new armor to go with the weapons? Some of them don't even have any armor on." And they would definitely stay if they heard the rest of his words. "Let's go greet them."

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The outsiders noticed that Gren was walking towards them. Usually someone wearing such a nice suit of armor was important but this guild was different. There were several people wearing full suits of armor with the same design that were just waiting around. Some of them were scratched up but this was the first time that they had seen such a rich guild. "Welcome to the Flours Mercenary Company. You must be the mercenaries that are here to assist us on the bandit subjugation request."

The mercenaries had already agreed upon a leader for their group. "My name is Zell. Can you tell me when the leader of the guild will arrive?" Negotiating with guilds was something that most of the people didn't have experience in. Zell had been in the mercenary business for years and knew just how tricky the guilds would be.

"I thought that she was already here but I don't see her. I don't know when Jessica will be here but if you have any questions then feel free to ask me them. If I can answer them then I will do so." They sent out such a young person to talk to them. That was a new tactic; did the guild choose this kid to make them lower their guard?

{Alright, I'll play your game.} Zell didn't think that he'd lose to some brat in negotiations but there was no way he'd go easy on him. "Your guild master promised us free food, free transportation, free healing, and decent pay for the duration of the request. I just want to make sure that the conditions haven't changed."

Zell watched as the kid nodded before responding. "I don't know about the pay since she didn't mention that to me but the transportation fees will mostly be covered by an escort request to Fort Togo. The rest of the fees for the trip will be covered by the guild." If the kid wasn't lying then that was acceptable.

"The healing is limited but it is indeed free. As long as you don't die instantly or have your limbs pulverized then I should be able to heal you." Did the kid just suggest that they'd be doing the healing? That's a good joke. Zell would sooner believe that they had a dwarf healer.

"In order to increase the odds of survival, I think it would be best if everyone wore this kind of armor. I've noticed that your group has little to no defense and the metal armor you do have is damaged or rusted." Was this kid an idiot? They couldn't just buy that kind of equipment so easily without doing shady things.

"There's no way that we can improve our equipment on such short notice. If you require better equipment then we're leaving." Zell didn't think that the guild master would keep watching from the sidelines if it looked like negotiations were breaking down.

"Sorry, I meant that I was planning on giving everyone the armor to use." Eh? "If someone wants to use their own equipment then that's alright." Ehhhhh!? Was this kid serious? Plate armor was expensive since only a few smiths in each city could make it and almost all of them were employed by rich and powerful people. "I'd prefer it if you used our weapons, at the very least. It helps us get, uh, information about how good they are. It'd be helpful for when we get a permit to sell them in the shop upstairs." This deal sounded way too good to be true. No guild would go to such lengths for independent mercenaries.

"No offense but do you have any proof that your guild can follow through with these promises? I won't ask for you to prove that you'll cover the transportation but are you really a healer and do you have the weapons and armor for us to see?" There's no way that it was true. There's no guild in all of Gaia that would give such good conditions without there being some sort of catch.

"It's all in the contract." The guild master finally made an appearance, just like Zell expected her to. "I'll have to write in the part about the equipment though. You've got to tell me these things earlier, Gren."

"Sorry, I only thought of it after seeing their gear. You don't need to add it to the contract. I'll just gift it to them." The kid was promising something outside of what was written down. It was obvious that they wouldn't be giving them any equipment and that this was meant to trick them into signing the contract.

"Anybody that wants new armor, please write down your name as it's written on your identification. Also, let me know if you have any specific requests for it." There was nothing that they could do with just a name so it wouldn't hurt. "I almost forgot. Make sure to write down what kind of weapon you use. If you use something unique then let me look at it first."

The others were just going along with the kid for now. They wouldn't sign any contract unless Zell signed it and he wasn't going to sign without getting the equipment. It's not like the conditions were bad without the equipment but it was a matter of trust; if they didn't supply the weapons and armor after promising them then they didn't care about the independent mercenaries. It would be dangerous to have a contract with a guild that didn't care about them, even if it was only for one job.

After asking a demihuman to move around for a little and swing his sword around, the kid took the papers from the independent mercenaries and ran off somewhere. He said that he'd be going to get the equipment but none of the independent mercenaries believed that. During the time that they were waiting for him, Jessica and Zell discussed the contract and she explained what they would be dealing with.

The job seemed possible with their numbers but Zell's shield was getting old and he wasn't sure that it would hold up against the arrows used by the bandits. A few of the other mercenaries looked nervous when they heard about there being at least thirty bandits that were all proficient with bows. Zell had seen those looks before; those people were not going to accept the job. He couldn't blame them since they didn't have decent gear.

While waiting for the boy to return, the FMC guild master gave some money to a couple of the mercenaries to get some food for the rest of them. Zell knew them quite well; Krieger and Suze were basically legends in their line of work. Few mercenaries lived for as long as the two of them did and even the ones that did wouldn't have completed as many jobs as they had. They could definitely be trusted not to mess with the food or run with the money.

The kid returned around the same time that Krieger and Suze had. He waited for everyone to finish eating before speaking up. "Everybody, please follow me. Your equipment has been prepared." Zell wasn't expecting that. Nobody signed the contract yet and there wasn't enough time to prepare anything in that amount of time.

The room they were brought to was down a long passage so Zell was beginning to get nervous. "Everybody, please make sure that you only take the equipment with your name on it." The kid pushed the door open. There was no furniture or tools in the room. The only thing inside was the equipment that they were promised.

"This can't be." Zell quickly found his gear. The armor looked just like the FMC armor but it was missing the logo. Instead, it had Zell's name engraved on each and every piece. Even the tower shield and warhammer that was similar to his old ones had his name engraved on them. Just how did they manage to get all of this made so quickly? Even if they were just engraving the gear, it would still take longer than that to complete everything. Especially with such clear lettering with a uniform depth like this gear had.

This guild was weird but the good kind of weird. Zell was interested in working with them just to see what else they could do.