Chapter 98
Len and their mother weren't so prepared for Gren to pick them up and use his magic to bring them to the other side. It was probably a bit startling to suddenly be lifted into the air by a pillar of dirt but Gren didn't really think about how they felt. Gren entered through the side door with the mother and child behind him; the two of them a bit confused over what just happened. Nothing seemed out of place but n.o.body was in the kitchen and it was too quiet. Checking upstairs, both Jessica and Estella were missing and the only sign of life was Purrnina sleeping on his bed.
Gren was starting to think that something was wrong. Both Estella and Jessica being missing from the upstairs? Estella would sometimes go downstairs with the kids but it was unusual for Jessica to be away from her desk. "Come downstairs with me for a bit." Gren grabbed both of their arms and started walking towards the stairs leading down to the underground.
"Is everything okay? You seem a bit worried right now." Len's mother was starting to get worried as well. Gren was a pillar of support for her right now and she didn't want to see it crumble.
"Two of my wives are usually upstairs. I didn't see them up there." Gren was hoping that they were just downstairs and that everything was okay. "Things were a bit weird this morning and it's hard to explain what happened. If they're not down here and n.o.body knows where they are then something might be seriously wrong." It was possible that the Adiers already got to his family.
Len's mother wanted to ask more questions but didn't want to be rude to Gren. The stairs went deeper down than she expected and she didn't know how many wives Gren had; he only mentioned the one before but now there were two plus the hint towards an untold number more. There was no telling what kind of place this was but she had never seen such a large staircase outside of the castle in the center of the city. He was a weird person but she didn't think that he'd harm her so she continued to follow behind him.
Gren could hear the sound of people talking as he reached the bottom of the stairs. Judging by the number of different voices, it seemed that they were holding a meeting. It had been a long time since the last guild meeting so Gren wondered what it was about.
It should have been obvious what the meeting was about but, after hearing Jasmine's words, it would probably be awkward to just walk right in. "It's no coincidence that Gren disappeared after those soldiers appeared. Why is it that none of you want to do anything? We should march up to that castle and demand him back." It was nice that his dragon wife wanted to help him but it was too late since he was already free.
"If you end up making an enemy out of the Duke then you'll bring us all down. Your actions affect all of us in the guild, even if we're not doing requests." Gren recognized the voice of the woman that was speaking. It was that fox girl that was currently working as a salesperson in the guild's shop; her att.i.tude towards Gren was always rude or dismissive which was annoying but not really harmful so he usually just kept away from her. It made sense for her to not want to help since she seemingly disliked him.
Listening in felt wrong but a part of him wanted to find out what they would say behind his back. "Inari is right. There is too much at stake for us to risk for just one person. Especially when we don't even know whether or not they actually took him." It was Judy's job to look out for the inactive guild members so it would be weird if she was for Jasmine's idea.
It turned out that even Jessica was against the plan. "We've been sitting here for half an hour, arguing. I understand that you want to help him, Jasmine, but the Duke is too powerful for us to turn into an enemy and it's too late at night to do anything. If he's not back in the morning then we'll put out a request and contact everybody we know to help figure out what happened to him." Gren didn't know what to feel about Jessica's words. On one hand, she was making the right choice as the guild master. On the other hand, she basically said that she'd abandon her husband to avoid making an enemy out of the Duke.
Considering Gren's current feelings on the Duke's family, Gren was torn on what to do next. Would he need to separate himself from the guild in order to protect them? Gren quickly realized that wouldn't work. If they couldn't get him then they'd go after his family and use them to lure him out. Gren really didn't want to give so many people guns but it was starting to look like there was no alternative.
Automatic rifles in the hands of amateurs that knew nothing about
It was good that most of the guild members were present. "Am I missing out on anything interesting?" Gren decided to act like he didn't hear them talking. "It's rare to see the guild gathered like this these days." Jasmine's wings started to flutter when he spoke up; Gren thought that it was kinda cute to watch.
"Gren!" Jasmine quickly rushed straight towards Gren, requiring her to climb up a pillar to reach him. Gren was prepared for the bear... er... dragon hug but she stopped just short of him so he had his arms awkwardly stretched out. "Ugh! What's that smell?"
Did he really smell that bad? "My sweat, maybe? I'm not sure." Gren couldn't think of anything else that he smelled like.
"You smell like a wet rat. Did you go into the sewers or something?" Gren couldn't smell that on himself but he was planning on was.h.i.+ng himself either way so it didn't change anything. "Eh? Who are they?"
Gren looked at where Jasmine was facing and introduced his new acquaintances. "This is Len and... I just realized that I never got your name." This seemed to happen a lot with Gren. In the acting world, you were either a big star that needed no introduction or some unknown face that introduced yourself to everybody so that you could gain some recognition so Gren wasn't used to asking for names. Gren was an oddball--an aberrant--and didn't network that often when he was an extra so he wasn't used to introducing himself either but he had been trying to work on that.
"Eleanor. I'm Len's mother." Gren wondered if Len's name being part of Eleanor's name was intentional or not. "Gren saved us and brought us here to stay until it's safe to go back home."
"I'm, uh, Gren's wife, Jasmine. Sorry about my outburst earlier." The rest of the guild knew how Jasmine could get worked up but she still felt embarra.s.sed when she was seen by strangers. "It's nice to meet you, Eleanor, Len. Welcome to the FMC headquarters."
"FMC? That's the female-run guild that sells things, right?" Gren was surprised that Eleanor had heard of the guild. "I help manage a clothing store and the owner struggles to keep it up thanks to this place. He makes all of his clothes alone so the wait times are a bit long but the quality of the clothes are pretty high." That wasn't a good reason to know of the guild, Gren left the price of their products up to the team that Jessica picked but didn't want to harm other businesses. "Your clothes are cheaper and take less time to get made so, even if the build quality is lower, customers will still prefer to buy yours."
Talking business was not Gren's expertise so he'd need to talk to the group about the problem of killing other businesses. "I don't know anything about the business but I'll bring up the complaint that you've mentioned. I'd hate for you to lose your job because we killed off your business. I should probably find out what other business owners think about us before we get an angry mob at our door."...again. It would probably be best if he didn't bring up this morning's incident so he stayed silent about it.
"I'm not complaining about it. I think that I'll be quitting after what just happened. Those guys were customers that came into the store today." Jasmine was out of the loop so she didn't know what Eleanor was talking about and had a clear look of confusion on her face. "My boss isn't bad but he does business with terrible people. The little bit of money that I make working for him isn't worth the risk. This isn't even the first time I was followed home by people."
Gren didn't think that it was a good idea for her to keep working there but wanted to offer her an alternative since she seemed to be forced into making a decision. "If you do decide to go back to work then I can have some guild members escort you to and from the guild in the meantime. You don't have to worry about paying for it since I'll cover the fees for the guild members."
"You three seem pretty focused on your conversation." Jessica came from the regular path so Gren and the others didn't see her until she spoke up. "You know, we're still in the middle of a meeting. It might be a good idea to save your conversation for another time when there aren't a bunch of people waiting for you to explain where you've been."
Looking around, Gren could see a bunch of eyes on him. It was pretty clear that he was wasting their time. "Well, I guess I'll finish off with a Q and A before letting them go back to what they want to do." Gren stepped up to the edge of the balcony and looked down. "Thank you, everybody, for gathering together and, sorry; I didn't mean to make people worried about my disappearance. We haven't had a meeting in a while so I'd like to address a few things today while we have this chance. Please wait until the end to ask your questions. The first thing is that I plan on introducing new weapons to our a.r.s.enal and I will be selecting a small group of people to train with them; if everything goes well then I will slowly expand the number of people using them. The second thing has to do with our business; apparently we're running other merchants out of business which is going to give us a bad reputation. The third thing is about our lax security; I'd like to fortify the courtyard further and add a guard tower. Finally, I want an investigation into the actions of other guilds; if their actions show that they're nothing more than bandits in disguise then we will take them out. That last task will go to Annie but it won't happen immediately. Any questions?"
The Arachne raised her hand; her name was Ak.u.mo and she was the source of their most expensive clothes since her silk was extremely tough and had a high quality appearance and texture. Gren called on her since she was easy to notice with her bright red carapace. "How will it give us a bad reputation if the other businesses go under?"
"Good question. It's more complex than I have time for but, to put it shortly, it makes things worse for everybody but the customer that doesn't care about choice. People will lose their jobs, other merchants will either join against us or leave for more profitable places, and the n.o.bles might see us as a threat to their income as imports and exports decrease thanks to us. At the very least, the people that lost their jobs or a place they liked to shop won't like us." Gren wasn't entirely sure if his words were true but it seemed accurate to him.
To Gren's surprise, Ahk had her arm raised. She had never raised her hand at one of these meetings so Gren picked her next. "What weapon?"
Gren couldn't make one right now so he was forced to explain it. "It's similar to the weapon I've been using lately. There are other types that I'll be making and I want people to be trained in using them. They're long range weapons that make a lot of noise but they can even penetrate iron armor. Not everybody here has seen them and some people would need customized ones but, in your case, it would be a much stronger version."
There were a few more questions about the gun that Gren answered but he couldn't give specifics without the gun itself picked out. Everybody seemed focused on the guns and business except for one person that Gren didn't want to pick but decided to anyways to try being fair. "Okay, Inari. What is your question?" He knew that the question was going to be bad since she clearly disliked him.
"Why are you the person answering questions and making decisions? It's Jessica's guild." Wasn't a similar question asked before? Either way, it needed to be addressed.
"The guild was my idea and I still supply most of the equipment used by the mercenaries. Jessica can't answer all of your questions since I haven't told her anything about the weapons yet and this was a sudden decision." It was more accurate to say that even he didn't know anything about the weapons they were going to use just yet but that would only make them question him more.
"Even if you came up with the idea for the guild, it's not fair. You're not the guild master. You only make decisions when it's convenient for you." n.o.body else had the system so of course it wasn't going to be fair.
"Alright. Fine. I'll make just one last decision without being considered a leader. We'll take a vote on whether or not I should have an official position in the guild that allows me to make decisions like this. If it pa.s.ses then the guild will create a position for me. If it fails then you'll never have to worry about me standing up here ever again." Gren was pretty sure that people saw him as an important member of the guild but if they didn't then he wasn't sure what to do.
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The vote was agreed upon; in one week, Judy would collect all of the votes. Gren's family--with the exception of Jessic-wouldn't be able to vote so that he wouldn't win by having his growing family vote in his favor. Even with such unfavorable rules, Gren agreed to them because he was both convinced that they would support him and he felt that he had something more urgent to do. It had been a very long day and he needed to take a bath.
As he sat in the warm water, Gren thought about what he would do if they really didn't want him to be making decisions. What would actually change? Gren couldn't think of anything but the Q&A sessions that would go down differently. His life shouldn't see any significant changes so there wasn't anything to worry about. With that in mind, Gren felt that he'd be able to get a nice rest.