Chapter 99
Unlike the previous night, Gren woke up when the sun was just rising. Clarissa wasn't interested in being taken outside when it was bright so Gren decided to juggle b.a.l.l.s of water made from his magic. Unfortunately, she didn't seem that interested in his juggling like the other kids were. Letting her poke the b.a.l.l.s of water seemed to entertain her more than the juggling. His goblin kids were still in the process of being breastfed by Estella and Jessica so they didn't get a chance to see him using magic before breakfast.
Gren's morning routine of playing with the kids almost made him forget about what he had to do but the gun in his holster helped to remind him. Gren had two people in mind already but they were decided on long ago; Tahloh and Jessica wouldn't be enough to defend the guild if something happened. There weren't many people in the guild that he knew that he could trust so picking the other members would be tough. Estella and Jasmine were out of the picture for now; Gren wanted the first group to have identical weapons to make it easy to teach them so Jasmine wouldn't be a part of it and Estella was too busy with the kids.
There were guild members that wanted to be mercenaries but lacked the skill so they would be his first choice. The only problem is that he didn't know who wanted to be a mercenary. There was Letta but she was still paralyzed; once he was able to heal her or had a vehicle to transport her safely to the North to visit a healer then he'd arm her with a gun.
Jessica was in a similar situation as Gren; she wasn't that close to the inactive guild members. There was only one person that Gren knew of that communicated with everybody so he headed downstairs. Every morning there were people that stretched in the lower court and Gren could see her fuzzy round tail sticking up as she bended over. As she stood back up, her floppy ears returned to the side of her head. "Excuse me, Judy, do you have a moment to talk?"
Judy twisted the top half of her body towards Gren and spoke up, "Yeah. There are a few things that I wanted to talk to you about so this is perfect." After a a quick stretch, Judy left the lineup of women. "Shall we go upstairs?" Gren followed her up to the dining room where his family always ate their meals and the two of them sat down. "So, it's a bit early but there are some more complaints that the women have. Some of which are the same as before since they haven't been addressed yet."
"Ah, sure. Let's get those out of the way first. Maybe what I want to talk to you about will solve some of their complaints." It was pretty difficult to solve all of their problems but Gren was trying his best. "Please, go ahead."
"I'll start with the older problems since those should be fixed first." Some of those complaints were annoying but Gren still wanted to fulfill them. "The aquatic women feel left out and bored; there's no way for them to go outside and, even if they could, they would quickly become dehydrated. You mentioned last time that you were thinking of a plan to help them. How is that going?"
Gren nodded before he spoke up, "I almost have all of the parts needed to make it but it would take a minimum of two days to finish it. The problem is that getting the parts will be dangerous. They're needed for something else I want to make so you can be a.s.sured that I will get them but I still need more time." He had the idea of creating a powered wheelchair that doubled as a tub but it needed the same research as the cars did. "I've made some progress but there is still one problem that I can't solve; they will need a.s.sistance every time they want to go upstairs or downstairs."
"Vague as always but if you've actually made progress then
"I'm not sure how I'd solve that problem but I'm willing to sit down and talk about it." This seemed like an important issue; if their products didn't sell then that was a loss of income for both them and the guild. "Do they have a possible solution?"
"The problem is that n.o.body will buy them from here so if we had a second store then we'd be fine. As long as you can buy a store nearby then we can fix that problem on our own." Gren didn't mind buying another store for them but there weren't enough people in the guild that knew how to calculate. That's why Inari--the fox girl--and Saty--the goat girl--were the only two clerks in the store.
"Tell them that they need to find someone that will run the business before I buy their storefront. They also need to think of a name and logo if they don't want to be a.s.sociated with the guild." As long as they put in effort then he'd help them. "I can't pick out a building unless I know how large it'll need to be but if anybody has an available building in mind then I'll check it out."
"One more problem to deal with before we move on to what you want to talk about. It's about the knights." Gren had heard rumors about problems involving them but no specifics. "The two that were with Candy--the succubus--have been fighting ever since they found out that she was pregnant. It's beginning to annoy the other residents; sometimes for the wrong reasons."
Relations.h.i.+p drama, huh? That was always something annoying to deal with. "I'll go figure out who the father is when we're done here. If I have to, I'll send the knights back to the cathedral." They weren't really doing anything useful if you ignored Rodge. "It'd be better if the one that wasn't the father just found someone else. Their weird relations.h.i.+p isn't sustainable."
"Their relations.h.i.+p isn't that weird compared to your own, you know." Gren already knew what she was going to bring up. You're married to..."
"I know. You don't have to say anymore. My relations.h.i.+p with my wives might be complicated but I try my best to keep them happy. That's why I haven't taken any other wives; I don't think that I could give them the attention that they deserve." Gren's penchant for someone's looks helped to prevent him from taking someone like Tahloh as a wife but, if there was a low maintenance beauty nearby, then he would have had a fourth wife by now--permitting that she would accept him. "In their relations.h.i.+p, there's too much conflict which is what makes it unsustainable; my wives all get along with each other."
"Well, as long as you understand it yourself then it's okay. I think that your idea of telling them which one is the father would work even though I don't really understand how you can tell." Judy just imagined that it was through his magic but didn't know which type of magic it was. "So, you wanted to talk to me about something?"
Gren was glad that the topic was moved away from his relations.h.i.+p. "Yeah, I'm not really familiar with many of the women in the guild so I thought that you might be able to help me pick some people out. I'm looking for women that have hands around the same size and shape as mine that can use a weapon with this kind of design." Gren brought out his revolver and showed her the trigger. "It'll be longer than this but the trigger--the part here surrounded by metal--will be the same which is why I need women that have the same kinds of hands as I do. It's fine if they have no combat training since this weapon is easy to use and requires little strength but they should at least be interested in becoming a mercenary."
Judy was like Jessica and had a bunch of paperwork in a bag that she carried around. In Judy's case, she had papers that had information about the inactive guild members. "There are several women that are interested in becoming mercenaries but only a few meet your requirements about the hands. Do their lower bodies matter at all?" Gren shook his head so she continued. "I think you're familiar with Sinny--I mean Yasinia, the donkey centaur. Although she hasn't said that she wants to be a mercenary, she has expressed feelings of wanting to be part of your group so I think she would be a good candidate." Gren liked Yasinia but didn't think about having her as a mercenary. "Besides her, there's Umaru; I don't know if you've met her but, based on your confused look, I don't think you know who I'm talking about. She's the half-centaur that has human legs; she's quick on her feet but her upper-body isn't so strong which is why she hasn't been able to become a mercenary."
"I've seen her around but I don't think that I've talked to her. I think it might be difficult to protect her ears from the sound but if there's a problem there then I can just heal her." She had large horse ears on the top of her head which Gren was thinking about. "Any other ideas?"
Judy was looking through the paperwork for a while before she started focusing on one of the papers. "She didn't mention being interested in becoming a mercenary but Kendra is often talking about how she wishes that she could do more to help. Kendra is the tall woman that looks like a giant but isn't one according to her own words." Gren knew who she was talking about but still didn't know if she was fully human or part giant. "She seems sensitive about her height and gets depressed if someone says that she's a giant so you should avoid that topic when possible." Judy put away her papers and looked back up to Gren. "So, those are the three people I can think of that somewhat meet your requirements. Any others would need to come from the active guild members."
Gren was glad that there was someone to talk to about the inactive guild members. "Thanks for the help. I'll go talk to them about the new weapons later." Gren reached out to shake her hand but she just stared at it. "You're not going to shake my hand?"
"Is there a reason to shake someone's hand like that? I know that humans do it a lot but I've never really thought about why you do it." Gren wasn't prepared to be questioned about something that he did unconsciously. "Is it a religious thing?"
"No, it's not a religious thing. It's just a greeting that people use. I'm not really sure why I do it, if I'm going to be honest." Gren didn't have a reason so he brought his hand back to his side. "Well, I'll get ready for the women. Thanks, again, for helping me." It felt awkward to just end the conversation without a handshake but Judy walked away towards the stairs.
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The five women seemed confused since Gren didn't tell them anything about why he had gathered them. The three that he knew well--Jessica, Tahloh, and Yasini-didn't seem as worried but Umaru and Kendra were practically shaking. "Thank you for giving me your time on such short notice. I brought the five of you down here to train you to use this weapon." Gren picked up one of the rifles that he had placed behind him. "Even without any previous combat training, this weapon will allow you to easily take down an armored enemy."
Jessica remembered the conversation that the two of them had in the past. "Is this the weapon that you were talking about? It doesn't look like I imagined that it would." Although she reached out to touch it, Gren brought it back out of her reach.
"Sorry, but, until I explain how they work, I won't let anybody touch them. They're very dangerous and I don't want anybody getting hurt." Training these women would probably be tough but Gren was convinced that this would be the best way to protect the guild. "Now, about the precautions you should take when handling a gun..."