Chapter 382: Manipulative Forces on the Move

A person geared up to the point where they seemed ready to go on an exploration made their way into the new guild building of the Raider's Guild. The guild had moved base locations in the hub city after they had been upgraded to a more popular guild and were moving up in the world when it came to status. The person that had just entered the guild was well known to everyone in the guild and was given a wide berth by most in the guild, or a look admiration from the few that were brave enough. This person was Seven. The right hand of the leader of the Raider's Guild.

Seven had just come back from an expedition and was coming in to report directly to the boss. The mission had gone well so Seven wasn't worried about any of the looks he was gaining from those in the room that he walked through. Unlike the previous guild the hall in this new building was much larger allowing several more people to treat it like a general hang out of sorts. Those people all knew Seven and some even knew about Seven's job as basically an assassin before the first phase began. Even so that was just about all they knew. They didn't even know if seven was a man or a woman with the way that Seven was always geared up and armored all the time. So the members of the guild usually avoided Seven unless placed on a mission together.

Although the new guild building was useful and the upgrade to a guild with multiple bases was helpful in expanding the guild, their real gains over the past month or so that made all of this possible was the fact that they played a large role in the government guild clearing out a large town. All of the members of the Raider's Guild knew how to handle dangerous situations far better than anyone else involved in the large town subjugation. This could be seen most easily when it came to the failed raid when the world government guild was trying to take over the large town that had a population of eighty thousand before things went sideways.

In that subjugation attempt the boss of their guild didn't believe they were up to par when it came to taking on a town of that scale. He had watched the alliances large subjugation attempt beforehand and knew that the world government guilds group didn't have as many high level members even if they had more numbers. Thus he figured out ahead of time that their first subjugation attempt would fail, but he went along anyways simply because it would look bad for his guild if he backed out, and he wouldn't be able to twist things in his favor if he did so.

Even if the guilds members were involved in the failed subjugation attempt they lost very few members because of the way that their boss had set up their position in the subjugation force. Most of their members were near the center so that allowed those members to evacuate once things started going south. The few that were up near the front were all members that had movement skills that allowed them to get out of the situation quickly while leaving the poor small guild members to fend for themselves. The only members in the guild that died were the ones that their boss had found out were planning to leave the guild after gaining some popularity through the large subjugation. Boss didn't inform those members of what he was expecting to happen and therefore they weren't ready to leave once things went to hell.

When it came to the successful subjugation attempt their guild was at the forefront making sure to gain as much attention as possible. It helped attract new and more skilled members to join under their boss. That was only helped by the fact that their Boss had showed a bit of his own personal strength when taking on the boss haze creature alongside the other top dogs in the subjugation attempt. There were many people that Seven could imagine being able to defeat Boss, but there were several that would admire his strength.

After the subjugation they were able to soon take over a fairly decent sized town of their own nearby that they could use for their guild. Having a new territory on earth was a huge bonus especially when it was so close to so many other allied guilds. They could use the location as their main base for the foreseeable future, while their old base could be used for more private matters. You might not be able to do anything underhanded in the hub city, but on earth there were no rules. Having a location that allowed them to take advantage of that fact was something needed considering some of the things they got up to.

Seven quickly pushed aside that line of thought and took the stairs up to the higher floors to report to the boss of the Raider's Guild. Even though they had changed location they still stuck to the same lay out for their guild base with the guild leader having his room at the top. When Seven reached the entry way to the guild leader's room there was raised shouting coming from the other side of the room. Seven decided to make an entrance before things could take a turn for the worst and to be at the side of the guild leader if needed.

When the doors opened there were two people inside of the room that both turned their attention towards the new arrival. Boss simply gave Seven a nod before turning his attention back towards the other man in the room. The other person however was the annoyingly prideful guy from the World Government Guild. His name was Theodore or something along those lines from what Seven could remember and he still gave off the same impression from the first time they had met.

This time around Theodore didn't seem to be in a good state of mind. Although he tried his best to keep calm and stick to the polite style he had the last time he had come asking their guild for help under the orders of the World Government Guild, it was clear that he wasn't hearing what he wanted to this time around. After losing so much face during the large subjugation it came as no surprise to Seven that the big shots at the world government guild were on edge.

"All we need you to do is to take down the territory of the Fenrir Guild. They may not be our main target, but they are a big part of the alliance. Dealing them a blow will allow us to gain some ground in the public eye. At least then people won't think that the Alliance is on par with us." Theodore said with a bit of a sneer.

"I will say it one more time. I will have to decline." Boss said without any tension at all. He even had a bit of a smirk on his face when he said it. While Theodore may look down on the Raider's Guild leader because he believed him to be a man without any political backing, the Raider's Guild leader looked down because Theodore didn't have any personal power of his own.

"Why must you say such things so quickly? Don't you see how beneficial this will be for not only us, but your guild as well? The amount of fame and notoriety you could gain for taking down such a guild."

"That means nothing the moment we crash and burn during our attempts." Boss said as Seven walked over and stood by his side. "Even if the Fenrir Guild is smaller than the other two major guilds of the alliance, it still has several high level members that could easily go toe to toe with anyone in my own guild let alone your world government guild that relies on numbers more than personal strength. Challenging them would be pointless in a situation where they have the complete advantage. If you plan to do something so foolish then do it with your own guild members. We agreed to help your guild when it came to town subjugations and nothing more. I hope you understand that."

With those last few words Boss let out a bit of killing intent that put Theodore on edge. It was obvious that Boss wasn't going to try to get violent inside the hub city otherwise the consequences could be unimaginable, but the threat was still more than enough to get a spineless man like Theodore off his back. "Fine. We will just have to get help elsewhere. Don't expect anything if things go our way." Theodore said with a strained smile before getting up and leaving the room.

The moment the door closed behind Theodore Boss leaned back in his chair and grabbed a cigar to have a short smoke. "It's amazing how fast people can get back to making luxuries such as this at such a time, but who am I to complain." He said as he looked at the cigar. "How did the mission go Seven?"

"A success sir. The Raider's Guild now has rights over another dungeon. We can start setting up a small base of operations around it at any time sir." Seven said getting a small nod back in return as the guild leader closed his eyes and continued to smoke away at his cigar. It was a few moments later when Seven decided to break the silence. "Is there any reason in particular that they decided to come to us once again for this problem?"

"If I had to guess it would probably be because of the fact that they don't like doing their own dirty work, but this wasn't a position that I would want to put the guild into. Being direct antagonist of the Alliance at this point would only hinder us going forward. We only do things when there is a profit to be gained cleaning up the messes of the World Government Guild in this situation does us no favors." Boss said with a tired sigh as he started to sit up and look over some reports on his desk. "Besides I'd rather help them out in dealing with a regular large scale guild then go after any guild involved in the alliance for now, especially the Fenrir Guild."

"Why is that sir? They are a mid-sized guild just like us. They can't be stronger than us with our numbers and experience handling such situations." Seven asked a bit confused at why their guild leader seemed to want to avoid the Fenrir Guild.

"True we do have some fairly strong members, but outside of you and I there are hardly any members in our guild that could stand a chance in a fight against the main members of the Fenrir Guild. Hell I could put up a good fight against just about anyone with my unique job, but Joshua isn't someone I'm willing to pit my guild against. In time we may face them, but not now. Besides what is it that I've taught you after all of these years?"

"Strike only when there's something to gain." Seven firmly replied as Boss simply nodded before going back to his paper work and letting silence reign over the room once again.