Chapter 384: Planning for the Second Territory War

After Joshua's discussion with Ysildea on what he could expect to be able to get out of his new garden dungeon, Joshua spent the rest of the time talking with her about all sorts of interesting plants that the system had available for purchase. They may have not been rare or special, but they could be useful to grow in their new garden dungeon. Some of the ideas that Ysildea was giving him would clearly be useful for getting their hospital well ahead of all of the others ones that had been popping up lately. Having a place that could literally grow medical herbs that were needed for new specific illnesses at ten times the speed was definitely going to give them a leg up on the competition.

Soon enough Ysildea had to leave to get back to her own business and Joshua spent the rest of the day thinking on how to get the most out of the garden, but eventually he had to put that to the back of his mind because it was time to prepare for the upcoming territory war. Unlike the Phoenix Guild and the Serpent Guild the Fenrir Guild didn't quite have to notoriety to scare off people. It was impossible to attack a territory owned by a guild that was already under attack so no one was willing to risk going after the large guild territories at this point.

For this upcoming territory war Joshua didn't plan on relying completely on the defenses they had set up around the town. It was possible for them to just release the maximum amount of beast companions from the stables along with the small robot army they had in place to overwhelm the approaching army, but that wouldn't allow the new members of the guild to get a taste for what a territory war was meant to be like. He needed them to have the experience for future large scale events such as town subjugations. Just sitting aside and watching the town defend itself wouldn't help out in that regard, but it was good to know they could do that without any issues.

Joshua decided to get a good rest that night since in the morning he planned to have a long conversation with the rest of the main group members of the Fenrir Guild back in James Town. They'd have to explain things to all of the other members soon after and they only had a couple of days before the territory war would get started so they had to get things done fast.

The next morning Joshua got up early and had a quick breakfast after getting freshened up. He left some food out for Amy and his parents before heading to James Town to start setting things up for the meeting. The first thing he did when he got to James Town was do a quick check of all the town defenses. He wasn't all that surprised to see some guild members already out and about in James Town since there was a living area where some members would stay the night to keep an eye on the town. It was their only true base for the moment, and they didn't need some stray powerful beast coming by and creating trouble.

By the time Joshua had finished checking up on all of the town's defenses it was getting close to the time they were having their meeting, so Joshua made his way over to the guild building at the center of town. He wasn't surprised when Henry, Adrian, Aito and a few others were already there. They seemed to all have been well rested after the long exploration and were having some exciting conversation on what they did over their short break. Adrian of course had to brag about his time at the battle arena. It seemed like just about everyone that had arrived had spent at least sometime at the battle arena to catch up on some matches after being away for nearly a week.

When everyone arrived it was time to get the discussion started and Henry was the one to kick things off. "As you might imagine since there are only a couple of days left before our next territory war we are all here to discuss how we want to handle the situation." Henry explained getting nods from all of the people who had been around for the last territory war. "First off for all the new members of the guild, have any of you been involved in a territory war before?"

For the most part all of them nodded their heads in the affirmative in response to Henry's question. The only ones that hadn't been involved in a territory war were Katsumi and Natsumi, but they were solo explorers that stuck together most of the time without working with others before Joining the Fenrir Guild.

"Well we have been involved in a territory war, but I'm not sure it really counts." Jacob said with an odd smile and nervous chuckle. At the same time his wife gave him a small glare and smacked him on the shoulder for acting so awkward.

"We've been in a territory war, but since it was between small scale guilds that had just started out, there wasn't all that much to it. We were on the defending side and all me and Jacob had to do was play our music to support the rest of our guild." Evelyn explained.

"You would think that would go a long ways considering how effective you guys are at supporting others." Julia said with a bit of confusion at why a guild wouldn't noticed how valuable the two were when it came to large scale combat.

"Well a boost to a group of weak people doesn't really matter all that much in the end. We got overrun even with me hampering the enemy force with my debuffs." Jacob said with a sigh." They were just a much better guild than our own even though they were still considered a small guild. The guild started blaming us for not having good unique jobs after that so we left."

"Well their loss is our gain." Joshua simply said getting a pair of smiles from the couple. "Well what kind of territory war experience do the rest of you have?" Joshua asked getting different responses in return. Ivan and Victor had both been working as mercenaries for higher for a long time, so they were involved in several different territory wars. For the most part they had been on the winning side in their ordeals, but on occasion they would lose as well. Of everyone in the room those two had participated in the most territory wars since it was possible to participate in several territory wars a month as a mercenary that wasn't contracted to a single guild.

Robin and Brook had also participated in a few territory wars as mages that fought from the back line. Robin preferred to participate on the attacking side since her magic excelled in that role. Now that she had a spell strong enough to summon lightning she could even destroy defensive weaponry from a distance as long as she was given the time. Brook on the other hand was far better in a defensive role when it came to territory wars. Her ability to create several traps and inflict several of her opponents with slowing effects with her spells all added up to her being amazing at defending a territory.

All in all they all seemed to be fairly accomplished when it came to territory wars. More so than even Joshua's guild in general since he had technically only participated in one territory war even if it was a one sided slaughter. "Well since most of you guys know how territory wars go then you probably also know that we have a ridiculous advantage over any other mid-sized guilds that try to attack our territory." Henry said continuing the conversation.

"From the defense you have set up already I highly doubt a large scale guild let alone a mid-sized one would be able to take over this territory. I'm not even sure if we will need to personally get involved with the fighting." Ivan responded.

"That's the thing." Joshua said jumping into the conversation. "Our goal with this territory war isn't to show off how powerful our town defenses are. For the most part those are there for any monster stampedes or other unfortunate events that could possibly happen in the area."

With those words everyone instantly started thinking about some of the things they had heard about beast tides in the past. They were extremely rare and only ever occurred when there was a major disturbance in an area that would cause beast to flee the area. It could be because of a drastic shift in the local environment such as a volcano going off or an earthquake of some sort. It could also happen because of a powerful creature coming to the area scaring off other beast. With this situation the system usually jumps in to make sure the beast calm down according to what Tank and his friend had told Joshua in the past about how powerful creatures that could roam the earth were treated by the system.

In the end beast tides could completely destroy a town if the defenses aren't strong enough. There have already been a few occasions where a guilds territory is wiped clean and destroyed by a monster stampede. The system would warn the owners that a monster stampede was occurring in their areas, but there wasn't some timer like with a territory war to get prepared. It was easily possible for the members of a guild to wake up in the morning with their territory over run with monsters if they didn't have good enough defenses. That's why civilians stayed in the hub city at the moment instead of going down and helping out at the towns that had been cleared out. It would be a while before they would feel safe enough to do so.

"We want to use this as a chance for the members of our guild to get accustomed to guild wars, and other possible large scale fights in the future." Joshua said getting back on topic. "Therefore we will only use standard town defenses along with minimal aid from the stables and robot army. Otherwise it will be a rather short territory war no matter what guild we go against. They can only bring a total of five hundred members in the end."

"Then this is how we'll set things up." Henry said after everyone understood what they were going for in the upcoming challenge. "Are formations will be based around holding off the likely larger group by positioning them to where they will be just within the range of our turret fire. The mages will focus on slowing down the advance of the opposing guild and melee fighters will focus on cutting down anyone that gets through the barricade set up by the tanks out front."

"Alright then, what will we be up to in all of this?" Adrian asked in excitement.

"Hopefully nothing." Henry said getting strange looks from everyone.

"He's right. For the most part we will be watching unless there are some particularly powerful members in the attacking force that could disrupt the fighting. Otherwise we just stay close by ready to jump in when needed.

"Well then who wants to be the one to explain this to the rest of the guild?" Henry asked. Before anyone could turn to look at Joshua he had already blinked out of the room to show just what he felt about that.