Chapter 272 - Underdogs
Ever since Avrion had their intense battle with the Shadow plague, Slyvia and the other elders had been working hard at restoring the city but they quickly realised that it wasn't the only problem. They needed to also fix their reputation.
When Ray offered all the knights in Avrion a chance to stay in the City but had to join his guild, half of the knights had left. Ray had no choice but to do this in fear that there could be people working for the Pure bloods or part of the Dark guild within their army.
This, of course, led a lot of the knights to have a bitter feeling in their mouth, they spread rumours of how the Red wings had taken over and destroyed Avrion.
But With Slyvia's hard efforts she managed to change people's opinion of them and even found the root cause of most of the rumours. Avrion had finished building their guildhall and often sent out knights to help out the surrounding cities and towns free of charge.
This allowed Avrion to open up to trade once more and slowly they were starting to return to normal. Then when the Guildhall had finished being built, they were able to complete quests that contributed to their Guild points.
Every time a knight would complete a quest, she made sure that people knew that it was someone from the Red wings. Knights and guild members were now asked to wear the guilds crest proudly on their armour and clothing.
Not only that, but all members of the Guild had their equipment soul bound, something no one had really seen before. This was thanks to Randin, he was one of the very few blacksmiths in the world who knew how to bind equipment to their user and the others seeing this all started to learn of the Red wings name.
In just the short amount of time they had, they managed to raise their guild ranking form an F to a C. All these things added together had made the Red wings group infamous.
Jack and Martha had known about these feats from updates from Sylvia but they didn't know the extent of them. When word got out that the Red wings had joined the Harpy quest. The adventures and Guilds were all excited to see if the rumours of their strength were real.
When Martha and the other two arrived at the front of the guildhall. Nearly all the adventures who had signed up were busy waiting at the front all busy chatting away. This was unusual as groups often would decide to not talk to each other and keep to themselves.
Standing in front of the group of people was a fairly large muscular man who wore heavy armour. The armour was Silver in colour with black trim but what stood out to them the most was the large shield he carried on his back that was as large as the man himself. His name was Rick and he was from the Underdog's guild, a fairly large guild based in Roland.
Next to him were two more adventures with similar coloured equipment, only one held a long sword while the other held a bow both also bearing the mark of the underdogs.
As the three of them joined the group, Martha couldn't help but ask what everyone was talking about.
"It seems like everyone a bit more excited than usual, did something happen?" Martha asked a group of five men closest to them.
"You mean you haven't heard? Apparently, two members of the Red wings guild have signed up for this quest. Everyone is eager to see what these adventurers are like."
"Hey, that's u…." Jack nearly said, but before he could finish talking Lenny was the one who covered his mouth.
"We do not know if the people around us are friend or foe," Lenny whispered. "It is always best to keep where you are from a secret. Even the other adventures chose not to reveal what guild they are from. Perhaps they have problems with other Guilds which would distract them from the quest at hand."
It was true, for smaller guilds who didn't have much of a backing, they would usually choose to hide their Guild crest, or would just claim to be normal adventurers. The Guilds were really competitive and often another guild would attack other members for petty reasons.
Perhaps one guild really needed a certain item that another guild had obtained from a quest. But for whatever reason, because they weren't a part of their guild, or a disagreement they had before, they would choose not to sell it to them and instead put it on the market place where the price was raised several times higher.
Something as simple as this could start a guild war. But between the bigger guilds, they had stronger members and a bigger backing. A war between two big guilds would be a big event and would usually damage the city's the guilds were based in. This happened less because of this very reason.
Rick then started to count the number of members that had arrived and it looked like it matched up with those that had registered.
"They must be already here then?" Rick said, "But who could it be then, were they not meant to bear there crest proudly."
Although this was true, Slyvia had only made this a requirement later on, before Jack had left for the city. Not only that but the higher members of the Red wings were free to do as they pleased. Jack and Martha were not treated as any less than anyone else at the academy as they were the original members.
They would in truth, only answer to Ray.
"It looks like everyone has gathered." Rick shouted, "As members of the Underdog guild and one of the highest Rank's here, as tradition, I will be in charge of today's quest. Although I believe there is also a solo Adventurer who bears a higher Rank then me. If he wishes to do so, he is free to take charge. Would the B rank adventurer like to take over?"
Lenny had decided to keep quiet, there was also no need for the other members to know he was the B rank, besides even if he was to take charge no one would listen to him. Especially not those from the underdog guild. They had too much pride. Lenny could just tell from Rick's tone of voice.
"Hey wait, where are the Red wing members?"
"Does that mean they already here?"
"Perhaps they are hiding their identity."
Rick hearing everyone talk about the Red wings guild instead of the Underdog guild was starting to annoy him. Usually, if the Underdogs were to join a Quest like this, the other people would be paying him attention, asking him if they were anything they could do to join a guild as powerful as the one he was in.
But there was no such thing today. The news of the Underdogs joining a quest was undermined by the fact that two members from the Red wings had joined.
"We will see if you are so great at the hunting ground," Rick said with a smirk.