Scavengers

In the Scavenger guild offices, one of the employees was looking through the hunter statistics provided by the FBH. Bored to the bone he leaned his head on his arm while looking at the monitor. His job was focused on the recruitment of new hunters, which was quite exhausting, but the man endured it due to the high salary.

He switched from the individual hunter ranking to the guild rankings and selected rising.

"Raiders guild" muttered the man as he read further.

'2 A-ranks, 1 B-rank, 1 C-rank, 3 D-ranks, and one employee. That´s a strange team composure, but how did they clean 21 gates in 5 days? That´s unreal.'

He started digging through the raid history and quickly understood what was happening.

'They are clearing gates that should be above their rank way too quickly on a daily basis with a minimal number of hunters present. With 7 hunters having 4 raid teams is crazy. Do they have a member with some kind of a unique skill that buffs the shit out of them or what?'

The door to his office opened and two of his coworkers came in.

"Hey Danny, we´re going for lunch. You wanna come?" One of them asked.

"Yeah, I´ll just log out of the system and we can go." he said typing on the computer.

The group of three settled in a nearby restaurant and when they took their seats Danny shared his findings.

"You think I can talk them into merging with us?" he asked.

"Depends on how long the guild has been established."

"It´s just a week old." said Danny.

"Dude, that´s a piece of cake. You can do that with your eyes closed and think of the bonus you´ll get."

"That´s true." he said with a smile.

[Next day]

Mark already finished his daily raid. While he was making lunch at home his doorbell rang. Expecting Lucy or one of his guild members he opened the door without even checking who was standing there.

To his surprise, he saw a middle-aged man wearing a suit.

"Good afternoon?" Mark said with a raised eyebrow.

"Hello my name is Daniel Miller and I´m from the Scavenger guild. You are Mark Williams, right?"

"Yeah. What would the Scavenger guild want from me?"

"It is about your guild, Raiders. We have an offer about you merging with the Scavengers. Since your guild is quite new and still doesn´t have any real estate under its name it-"

"Sorry to interrupt, but I don´t want to waste your time. I´m just not interested, that´s all. Even if you offered me some insane salary I wouldn´t say yes." Mark told him.

"Even if you tell me that, we could offer you the tour of our guild and even participation in one of our high-ranking gates before you say yes so you would see how it works in the Scavengers."

"I still don´t think that would change anything." insisted Mark.

"Well alright, here you have my business card. You can always change your mind. Have a nice day."

Mark took the card, closed the door, and thought to himself. 'If this goes on I´ll have a collection of these.'

He then walked back to the kitchen to finish the lunch he was making before.

[A few hours later]

Ready to book his raid for tomorrow Mark called Lucy.

"Yo, can you get me a gate for like 11 AM?" he asked

"Sure and which rank?" A,B,C,D? E,F,G?" sounded from the phone.

"H,I,J. No, I´m feeling pretty good so probably B-rank, preferably not one in the Grand Canyon."

"Okay, one B-rank gate for Mr. Williams will be ready tomorrow. However, I´m not sure about the location. Well, I´ll try to get one closer. It will cost more, though."

"I don´t care that much, just so it´s not 100 miles away. Yeah, and today a guy from the Scavenger guild came to my house."

"What did the world-renowned Scavenger guild want from someone like you?"

"Yeah, I also asked that, and apparently they wanted to merge our guilds. He even started offering tours of the guild and some gate participation. I of course refused." Mark explained what happened.

"Wait a minute, hold the phone."

"I´m waiting."

"You know there´s a training raid planned for the start of the next month. Some new S-rank recruit."

"I´ve heard about that, yeah. What about it?"

"There´s a lot of fuss around that because S-rank hunters are cool. People like them and stuff, so there will 100% be media documenting the raid, probably even inside the gate itself."

"Jesus Christ, I know where you´re going with this and the answer is no."

"There has never been a question." Lucy said jokingly. "But for real if you go there and absolutely obliterate the monsters, we as a guild will receive a lot of positive attention and potentially new hunters coming to us. It´s free advertisement."

"That´s nice and all, but they have an S-rank hunter and you´re telling me to go obliterating the monsters. Even if I managed to do that wouldn´t the Scavenger guild be pissed. I´ve heard that the guild master doesn´t have a very good temper."

"You have like infinite mana or some bullshit. Don´t go telling you´re not able to beat a fresh S-rank recruit."

"It´s not infinite, there´s just a lot of mana inside high-ranking gates. If I was outside it wouldn´t work that well."

"Yeah, as if that matters when you go raiding. Regarding Thomas Andre, it probably won´t be a problem if we arrange the terms of gate participation well."

"Hmm, I don´t like the probably in there."