Chapter 14: Showing the new Guild Members the Ropes

It had been a couple of days since the recruitment day and in that amount of time Joshua had been up to a lot of things. He had to make sure that all of the new recruits were able to get in the guild without any trouble, he had to help get all of the people he wanted to keep around to create their own guild organized, and he also had to keep up with his own training and studying so that he wouldn't fall behind in any particular area.

When it came to signing up all of his new recruits he didn't have to do much more than meet up with them and help them register into the Fenrir Guild through the Job Center. Most large scale guilds had someone in particular that went through all of this stuff for them so that the combat personal could keep doing what they did best. Since the Fenrir Guild didn't have something like that just yet it was up to Joshua to go and get them all registered as the guild leader. He was going to make sure that the next support job holder that he brought into the guild would be someone that dealt with guild and business management. He didn't mind knowing the stuff himself, but he was going to be far too busy to handle those kinds of things all of the time.

Helping Delvin and the rest of the people that didn't meet his guild's expectations wasn't too difficult of a task. Delvin had seemed to form into the leader of the group since he was one of the highest level members there while also having the right type of qualities to become a leader. The only issue for him was the fact that he wasn't quite strong enough to go against some of the dungeons that guilds were expected to be able to take on. Now with Joshua and the rest of his guild helping them out over the next few months they'd be able to build a solid foundation and get to the point where they can take over a small town of their own.

Joshua was planning on having them take over a small town near the large town that the alliance had taken over recently. If they can get a few smaller guilds they trusted, to take over towns nearby their new headquarter base for the alliance they won't have to worry about other guilds becoming an issue in the area. Joshua was going to make sure that the small guilds that he was supporting would be strong enough to take over the nearby towns soon before anyone can wise up to what he was up to.

At the moment the world government guild was busy trying to establish their own large town that they had recently taken over. The town that they had to settle for only had a capacity of around thirty thousand people since their first large town target was well out of their league. Trying to take on a large town of such high level was something that even Joshua's group wouldn't have been able to do at the moment, so it didn't surprise any of them when the world government guild failed. Now with the smaller large town in their hands Joshua was certain that the world government would not be happy with the results and probably challenge the Alliance's territory the second it becomes a possibility. Having the small towns near the area under the control of allies could only be considered an advantage.

After Joshua had taken care of everything he needed to over the past couple of days the time had finally come for him to introduce the new guild members to James Town. Joshua couldn't go on ahead since he needed to bring in the new members who currently didn't know the location of James Town in the first place. So he waited until the time he had told everyone to gather near the portals that took everyone down to earth. It didn't take long for all of the new guild members to arrive with most of them looking excited to check out their new base. Joshua and the rest of the original members for the guild were already there to lead them to the right place.

They all took a portal that lead them right outside of James Town. Joshua didn't have to worry about the defenses of the town trying to attack the group since they were all now registered members of the Fenrir Guild. The defensive protocols had already been set to allow all members of the guild entry, but they would have to gain permission to bring anyone else in if they wanted to. In the future Joshua was sure they'd have enough defenses in place to where normal civilians could live in the town, but for now they still had to worry about beast attacks on the occasion, especially from birds from the mountain range. Although the turrets could hold them off it wouldn't be safe for regular civilians to be around the area during an aerial attack.

The group made their way towards the town and Joshua took enjoyment from all the gasp of surprise and looks of astonishment that he could hear and see as the new members looked at the town. One thing Joshua was very proud of was James Town. At the moment it was the best guarded town around even with the occasional beast trying to take it down. The turret set up and the robotic guards that protect the area were all major pluses to the safety of the place. The fact that they had several beast of their own to help guard the place just made things even safer.

Once they got into the town and the new members were able to look around the large area and see all the housing and shops they looked back towards Joshua with a bit of confusion. Robin was the first one to speak up amongst the new members as she seemed to be the most outgoing of the bunch. "This isn't anything like the bases I'm used to seeing. They're usually far more drab and boring, but to the point." She said with a frown as she looked around the place. "I think I like this a lot better, feels more welcoming."

"She's right. Most towns that I visited as a mercenary were nothing more than a wall, one large guild building, and a barracks for people to sleep if they had to stay over in the area." Ivan said as he looked towards the turrets on the walls. "Of course they would have some decent defenses put up, but nothing in comparison to what you lot have here." Victor nodded along in sentiment to what Ivan had said since he had seen similar circumstances in the past.

"What made you guys decide to go with a different approach?" Jake asked as he and his wife decided to join in on the conversation. There were several looks of interest from the rest of the new recruits so Joshua decided to explain his reasoning.

"We decided to go with this kind of design to prepare for the future." Joshua said with a smile getting even more confused stares in response. "We can't depend on the system for everything forever. Eventually we need to get to the point where we are able to live on our planet without having to depend on the hub city. Being able to have places where people are able to live without having to worry about beast attacking at all times will be one of the main steps needed for us to start living on our own planet again."

"I can tell you right now that it will be impossible for people to make a normal living once again on this planet if every place is set up like a basic military base." Adrian said with a bit of a scowl. "If it comes to that then everyone's lives will be rather constrained."

"I see what you are getting at, but don't you think it's a little too early to be thinking so far ahead?" Victor asked as everyone seemed to get what Joshua and the rest of his group were aiming for.

"It's never too early to get prepared for something that's bound to happen. Besides we're not all that far off from being able to have civilians living in this town." Henry said with a smile surprising all of the new recruits. "We have most of the defenses in place for the town itself, but we need to finish claiming all of the territories around the area, especially the mountain range nearby. That's where all the real threats come from."

"That's a conversation for another time though. For now let's show you guys around the town a bit before we get to what we really came her for today." Joshua said with an excited grin getting everyone to wonder what he was up to. For a while Joshua, Henry, and the rest of the group lead around the new recruits to show off the different buildings and spaces within the town. It wasn't too large of a space so it didn't take very long, but there were several different buildings to show off. Of course Grace immediately went crazy the moment they came across the hospital building. Since Joshua had the place fairly well set up already she was pleasantly surprised by how much stuff was already available.

Eventually the group made it to where the dungeon entrance was at the back of the town closest to the police station and guild hall areas. "Well then here is how things are going to go." Joshua said with a smile. "Outside of Jacob, Evelyn, Victor, Ivan and Robin the rest of you will break up into three groups of sixteen. Each group will go through the dungeon with four members of the original group of the guild. They won't be there to help you guys out, but to observe and see how well you do." Joshua explained as they all stood outside the dungeon portal.

After that little speech Joshua and Henry got to work putting the recruits into three different groups. They wanted to make sure that they were balanced out with a similar number of tanks, close combat fighters, long range specialist, and healers. After that was all set up they got to work going through the dungeon. Joshua went with the first group that entered alongside Amy, Lilly, and Aito just in case things went wrong. The dungeon was only a level fifty dungeon at the moment so it wouldn't be to challenging for the recruits, but the types of creatures inside should be a bit of a surprise for them.

Joshua made sure to observe every little thing the group did as they made their way through the dungeon. For the most part they were all around level fifty-five with some being a little higher in level than others, but they all had experience with dungeon diving by the way they started working together without too much trouble. They were very vocal through the party chat which was a good sign and they didn't try to intrude on each other's territory when it came to combat. The tanks played their role without having to worry about the close combat fighters going rogue and trying to take on enemies on their own.

Although for the most part things went extremely well, but there were some occurrences where things didn't go exactly as planned. They had trouble dealing with the sub-boss at first since it was able to travel through shadows, while at the same time the entire room was covered in shadows. It was hard for the tanks to keep up with it, but eventually after the pair of mages in the group used some powerful light spells they were able to lock down the creature.

When it came to the final boss of the dungeon it took them a while to keep the boss in check since the tanks were getting injured from its powerful tail strikes while it took a long time for the damage dealers to take it out. All in all it was a decent showing, but Joshua knew that they had a ways to go. It was a good thing he had a few things in mind for how he could get them there.