After hearing that, Vanessa left the area after a long sigh. It wasn't like Terry couldn't see where she was coming from, she had things to protect as well, but Terry also had his things. The things that he learned and experienced since his birth, the feelings that he had when he was ignored for just being powerless… he couldn't betray those things while trying to keep the status quo.
In any case, Terry returned to where he had left the others, and they looked like they were wondering why he hadn't been hit by a lightning bolt yet.
"After lunch, all the guild masters will have a meeting in that tent over there to decide how they will work once they cross the entrance of the dungeon," Louis said. "I believe they have some sort of plan in mind, but you should voice your opinions in order to make better use of your own abilities. Until then, I would advise watching the creatures being defeated and using it as a reference."
The group split up after that, and Terry just moved to the entrance of a nearby building that had been semi-destroyed when some of those things had attacked for the first time.
It didn't matter how many times he saw it, and Terry could only think that they were making light of humans by coming alone. Also, while only the hunters in the area were fighting them, they were doing a terrible job pacing themselves.
After another creature was killed, their weapon turned into a small block of metal. The leader of the party grabbed it while the other members pushed the body to somewhere else… it didn't look like they had body parts that could be used. When Terry saw the magic stones being carved out, he realized that it was the size of half of his hand.
"If they have that and they are an intelligent species… Does that mean that we have that as well?" Terry thought.
It was a worrisome thought. If that were the case, one would ask when that magic stone appeared inside them and what would be the difference between monsters and humans. In any case, Terry couldn't check such a thing that easily…
Terry kept watching the fights for a while, but he didn't learn much. If he uses the hard gloves, the beast's strength, and his attacks wouldn't be matched unless he uses his skills. Terry had to obtain new weapons, but he will have to make them level up, and seeing them in action and them seeing they're getting more powerful also would look suspicious. In the end, Terry decided to focus on using the bow.
After a couple of hours, Terry headed to the tent that Louis mentioned. Some people were already there waiting for the meeting. All of them had a certain aura, the aura of powerful people. Some looked calm. Others looked like the type who was itching to pick a fight.
Mary and Oliver eventually showed, and then the last one to arrive had been Vanessa. That was odd. Terry could only see eighteen people there… he couldn't believe that there were only eighteen worthy contacting guilds.
"My name is Vanessa, guild master of the Chaotic Storm guild, and I thank you all for coming to help," Vanessa declared. "I asked for the cooperation of several guilds that were located in the northeastern part of the country, and more than half of them answered the call. While our numbers are small, I believe that we have what it takes to pull this off."
Now things made more sense. If around one-Fourth of the guilds answered the call, then Terry believed that the country had a good number of medium-sized dungeons.
"As usual, our goal when conquering the dungeon is to defeat the nearby enemies and their boss. However, things will be a bit different this time," Vanessa added. "Usually, when one crosses the dungeon, they are teleported to a random place where an exit can be found nearby. Meanwhile, the monsters always appear in the same spot. That being said, things are different here… probably because we aren't the first ones to use the portal. In this dungeon, both sides appear on the same spot, and the portals don't change from one place to the other."
More than one thing was wrong with that… if the roles had been reversed, the monsters should appear in random places. There was more than one thing wrong with that situation.
"As you saw already, all the enemies are pretty tough. Moreover, the portal will lead us to an open field where dozens of them will be waiting for us," Vanessa added. "Also, there is a nearby town where those things live. I assume that their boss is there. To kill it, we will have to kill hundreds if not thousands of them on their turf before they overwhelm us."
The guild masters began to whisper to each other. That was no surprise… that was one hell of a task. Aside from obvious personal reasons, Terry could see why Vanessa asked for his help as soon as they met. Even if each guild master could solo one of those monsters, not all of them could take them down instantly, so it was only a matter of time before they were surrounded.
"The numbers are against us, so we can't use our usual methods of attack," Vanessa said. "My plan is to break through their first line of defense with everything we have and then deal with all of them after destroying their formation in order to prevent them from alerting the others in the town. To increase our chances, we should attack at night."
"Why don't we wait for their numbers to decrease even further?" A black-haired man wearing full-plate blue armor asked.
"We tried that, and because of that reason, the size of the portal increased this much," Vanessa replied. "We have killed around two thousand of them in the last two weeks, and yet, they never stopped coming."