"It is a pleasure to see you again Gremory, unfortunately, we have no time to lose" Marquis Joseph spoke.
"It is a pleasure to see you too, Marquis, I see that you requested my presence here."
"At the moment we need all the help possible and that includes our best and only mage. I am happy to say that the Grand Master's plan to delay the orc army until reinforcements arrive can work. We have already coordinated our adventurers from the Virtus guild together with the merchant's guild to make constant attacks for the next few weeks without having to leave the battlefield. If we can destroy their food stocks then we may have a chance to turn that to our advantage. "
"Just the Virtus adventurer guild? So I see that you haven't summoned the guild I belong to..."
"Are you part of a guild ??? I didn't know that, but I'm afraid the only major guild in town at the moment is the Virtus guild, except for a few small guilds that were hired directly by Virtus."
"I think my guild is probably one of those "Small Guilds", have you heard of Hjmar?"
"Ah, that guild that defeated a small group of goblins some time ago. I can contact them directly if you want."
"There is no need, I will go in person. Be ready to leave at sunrise."
---
'I haven't seen them for so long, I wonder how have they been.' Gremory thought as he walked towards the Guild Hjmar's new address, provided by the Marquis.
It was a very dangerous area of the city, and the signs of rust on the iron door were clear just like the holes in the ceiling. Still, it was much better than a simple wagon with a plaque displaying the name of the guild.
The guild was empty and was just a small room with a small bell on the counter. The wooden floor creaked when entering, so the presence of the bell was redundant, yet Gremory went to the bell and rang it.
"Dantoon, we have a customer." Claire's voice was heard from the back of the guild, and a sudden movement began to occur from the back of the guild. The day was still clear but it was clear that they were sleeping.
Danton came to the front of the counter a little stunned and spoke. "Welcome to Hjmar Guild, how can I help you ?."
"Huh, have I changed so much that you don't recognize me?" Gremory replied sarcastically.
Gremory's appearance had changed thanks to his daily physical training, but the real difference was in his Body Runes, which had expanded in his body, causing an increasingly grotesque appearance due to all these skin markings.
After realizing his mistake, Danton quickly tried to correct it. "No no no, I was just a little sleepy. But wait, you're still alive. Claire, Rudo, look who's here."
Claire ran to hug Gremory when she saw him. "I thought you died, we used all the reward but still Sani was unable to heal you, so when the Marquis came we thought you would be safe but then you just disappeared." She said while crying dramatically.
Despite the rush, Gremory spent an entire hour talking to them and catching up on what happened. He explained what happened to him and his position as a mage in the Viridian house now, except for the part that involved the rituals and then heard about how they finally managed to move from a simple wagon to a more permanent location.
Although they spent all the reward money with Sani, with the help of the merchants they saved. They went back to the camp and collected all the loot and sold it. They bought this place with that money and started accepting any kind of services involving monsters.
But incredibly they didn't know that there was an army of orcs coming towards the city. Marquis prepared a document in which he directly summons the Hjamar Guild with a reward of 100 silver coins a day + any loot they find, and Gremory used that document to call the Hjmar Guild directly on this mission as part of the front line of this war.
"I am part of Hjmar, if you guys are not coming then I will not either." Gremory said to convince them, but they accepted quickly because money is always a problem for them.
'Great, now I just need to get ready to leave tomorrow.'
Usually, a magician wears a robe just like the ones that were delivered to Gremory at the Viridian House, but Gremory was no ordinary mage and depended a lot on his mobility. So with his dimensional bag, he took a Leather Armor. Unfortunately, that armor aimed more at mobility than protection since Gremory had other methods of defense. So for the most part the armor was just woven with extra protection at vital points, which made it almost impossible to inscribe a functional rune on that armor.
---
When the first sunlight appeared on the horizon, there were already hundreds of adventurers in a huge caravan leaving the city, and the guild Hjmar was among them.
Although Grand Master Kluster sent Gremory here to serve as a representative of the Viridian house, he don't want to lead these people to their deaths. So Gremory didn't care when Virtus Guild leader Geoffrey imposed his leadership on everyone else present.
Our mission was simple, to reduce and delay the advance of the orcs using any means necessary. And as soon as we arrived in the non-human territory Geoffrey had a brilliant idea, to attract the orcs to non-human settlements to let them gradually destroy themselves. Even though non-human settlements along the edge are generally peaceful since any other aggressive settlement close to the edges has been eliminated already.