Chapter 393: Getting to Know the Second Strongest Mercenary and his Party

When Joshua turned back to see if he could find the two women that were still up and ready to fight after the little explosion trick he had just used he noticed they were both gone and completely out of the range of his aura sense. It was clear that the moment the territory war was over everyone on the losing side were kicked out of the area. Joshua's surroundings started to shift again, but this time it wasn't because of an illusion or anything along those lines. He was simply being teleported back to the center of James Town alongside everyone else in the guild.

When he arrived Joshua smiled at the looks of excitement on everyone's faces. They were cheering and congratulating each other happily and in that moment Joshua was finally starting to see the real appeal to having a guild. He could see a large group gathering around the stars of the territory war in Ivan, Victor, Robin, Brook, Jacob, Evelyn, and the Asawa sisters. They all performed amazingly in the territory war and lasted to the very end giving hope to the other members of the guild even when things seemed to be shifting in the enemy guild's favor for a moment.

Adrian and the others made their way down from the wall and came to join in the festivities while Joshua told them about the person that had decided to come in and get involved with their territory. When Joshua started to explain to them how the guy's unique job worked they all started to get a good idea of how one person was able to affect the entire battlefield so easily even when they didn't fight out in the open like Joshua had when he rushed in to give them all the advantage again.

"So this mercenary is like an illusionist of sorts that can affect your perception during battle." Henry said with a frown. "He can do so to the point where even your aura sense can't lock on to him. That's an amazing ability."

"It was annoying to fight against. The only reason I was able to react against his attacks was because of the fact that he gave himself away whenever he came in for blood. Sensing his killing intent was always how I noticed him at first, so he probably has a hard time taking down experienced fighters quickly. Even so he could just oppress them with the way that he used his illusions in the first place. He never outright used his illusions to make something ridiculous happen. He only used them to make small changes in my surroundings or to hide the attacks of his accomplices."

"That makes sense." Victor said as he walked over with the other new recruits of the main group. "It felt like I was fighting a ghost half the time. I couldn't trust my eyes or my ears once that illusionist got involved. He caused me to take on a lot of injuries that I wasn't planning on taking. Plus I'm sure some of those regular members that I came across were on par or maybe even stronger than the vice leader that I was challenging in the first place."

"I was in a similar situation. I often outright missed my attacks simply because the thing I was striking at wasn't there in the first place. I could somewhat sense my opponents killing intent, but the shift in position was so slight that it was hard to differentiate the guild leaders actual position from the illusion that was laid out in front of me." Ivan said with a frown.

"Same here. All of the fatal strikes I was dealing before the illusionist got involved turned into either misses or slight injuries." Natsumi said with a sigh. "I could tell that I was missing my attacks since the illusions didn't have any sustenance to them, but it was too late to continue my assault since my targets would be aware of my presence the moment I missed my first attack."

"Sounds about right from how he acted during our fighting. His partners were four other mercenaries that were all at least as talented when it came to combat as the guild leader of the Scavenger's Guild. They worked extremely well together. Oh and the guy seemed to be a bit of a playboy. It came across in the way he fought as well. For the most part he acted as support for the four women he was fighting alongside. They were the ones that were attacking you guys while pretending to be regular members of the enemy guild."

"Well we will have to look out for things like this happening in the future. Can't get to ahead of ourselves to not take notice of such a major change in a territory war." Henry said with a smile.

"I think you guys should take a look at this." Aito said with a bit of a smile as he was looking at some live footage that was being displayed from the drones that were now moving out to the edge of the forest to keep track of the Scavenger's Guild members that had been taken out of the territory war.

Joshua and the rest of the group walked over as Aito enlarged the few screens that he was looking at so they could all see what was going on. From one of the screens they could all see the drone eyeing the members of the Scavenger's Guild that were leaving the area. From the angered or depressed looks they were seeing on their faces Joshua could tell that they weren't taking their loss all that well. He was sure that their entire guild had underestimated the strength of the Fenrir Guild simply because of the difference in the number of people they could bring to battle.

In all honesty Joshua felt like he would have gotten more of a challenge if they had fought the Raider's Guild who seemed to be more used to fighting against other people instead of just diving into challenging dungeons all of the time. Joshua could tell by the simple formations that never shifted throughout the fight and the basic tactics that the Scavenger's Guild kept using no matter the situation that the Scavenger's Guild was more geared for taking on beast. It was like fighting against members from the Hunter's Guild. They could come up with all sorts of plans to take down an unintelligent beast or maybe even one that showed some signs of intelligence, but fighting other people effectively wasn't part of their job description.

From what Joshua had seen from the only mercenaries that had joined the territory war it was likely that a full large scale group of Mercenaries would have put up more of a challenge. Especially if they had more people on their side like the illusionist, it would have made for one challenging fight. Joshua stopped focusing on the screen showing all of the Scavenger's Guild members leaving and started to look towards the screen that Aito was focusing on in the first place. On the screen he could see a location that looked nothing like the rest of the forest. It stood out so much and looked like some crazy candy land straight out of a kid's dream world. From that alone Joshua knew who was creating such a thing.

"Looks like our new illusionist friend is inviting us over for a meeting." Henry said while looking over the strange landscape that the illusionist had set up. At one point a floating balloon appeared that turned into a cartoonish looking lazy cat with a big grin. "Otherwise I don't think he'd separate from the Scavenger's Guild and try to get our attention in such a way."

"I wonder how many other cool things he could do with his illusions." Amy said while looking over the image that was being shown in front of all of them. Her childish side was starting to show a little bit, but it seemed like just about everyone else around were just as interested in these weird abilities that the mercenary was showing off as Amy.

"Well let's go and find out" Joshua said with a relaxed tone. It was clear that it wasn't going to be an ambush against them of any sort since the illusionist and the rest of his group were set up just outside of their territory. It would be stupid to try to attack them in such a location when they had so many members already in the area and several tricks up their sleeves that the mercenaries didn't know about, but were still probably cautious of. "Besides I'd like to know who got them involved in this territory war in the first place. I know that the World Government Guild brought the Scavenger's Guild along, but they didn't seem to know anything about the mercenaries when the fighting started."

"True, otherwise they might have been able to work better together from the start." Henry said with a shrug. "Probably some internal conflicts inside of the World Government Guild, but it will be good to figure out what's going on anyways." With that the main group of the Fenrir Guild all left the partying atmosphere behind promising to come back after they handled something really quickly. It didn't take long for them to reach the area where the mercenaries were located and it was extremely hard to miss when the trees in the area looked like giant candy canes at the moment.

"I'm glad you all decided to show up. I didn't want for us to get off on the wrong foot." The illusionist said with a big grin as he appeared alongside his four partners. They all looked exactly as how Joshua had last seen them so he was certain that they weren't under an illusion at the moment. Besides after the fight Joshua had with them he was sure that the illusionist was tired of having such detailed illusions up at all times. Apparently changing the environment was much easier than creating illusions around a person since the environmental illusions were mostly static unless he wanted to be more detailed with them.

"Maybe you could have avoided getting off on the wrong foot if you hadn't gotten involved in a territory war against us?" Joshua asked even though it sounded more like a sarcastic statement.

"Where would the fun be in that? I'm sure you enjoyed our little fight just from the big grin you had the entire time you were fighting us. I don't think I've ever come across someone who could fight for so long while smiling the entire time. Ladies must love the stamina on you." The illusionist said with a chuckle as the martial artist of his group punched him in the arm for his cheeky statement. "Well how about a bit of an introduction first."

"How will we know if your introductions are even truthful?" Julia said as she was already giving the man a deadly glare after the joking attitude she was starting to see from him. "After all you have all of your information hidden from public observation outside of your levels."

"Well sweetheart you have to realize that we mercenaries don't go by our actual names. After all it can be pretty shady business sometimes." The man said with a smile before he turned to introduce his partners. "First off we have the brilliant sword fighter of our group that can be just as sharp with her words as she is with her blades. Give it up for Mulan!" He shouted while creating an illusion around her that turned her hair black and gave more subtle Asian features as if trying to make her look like the character from the old Chinese folk tale."

"Why do you have to be such a jackass. "I'm not even Asian." The now named Mulan said with a frown as she glared at him.

"Next we have the feisty blond martial artist that will punch your lights out if you dare say a pun around her. Aurora!" The illusionist once again played things up while ignoring the comments of his other partner. He created a beautiful illusion of a dress around the martial artist who clearly didn't appreciate it as she once again punched him in the arm while staying silent and grumbling to herself.

"Standing right over here we have our resident red head with fiery passion for magic and the unknown. Our beautiful Ariel."

"I'm not even a red head. Just a few high lights here and there. Besides don't you think I should have at least gotten a character related to fire or something?" The mage said while covering her face in shame as images of fish and other sea life started popping up around her.

"Lastly we have the only member of this group who's actually willing to put up with my nonsense most of the time. Our one and only Cinderella." The man said as he waved in the direction of the healer of the group who now had a pair of angel wings behind her along with a beautiful dress being placed over her.

"Oh and lastly I go by Vincent." He said with a small bow and a wink. "But you can just call me Vince."