Tales of The Mighty Dragonair

Then he moved outside, followed by others, to exit the main building of his clan. The place outside the building was a very vast garden, but now it was filled with many villagers, people chosen by Ron according to his instructions.

"Listen up," he shouted, silencing everyone here, as they looked attentively at him, "I will give each one of you ten pieces of meat. If you feel something after eating the meat, you will go to this side," he said pointing to his right, "if you don't feel anything, return to outside and continue your celebrations."

The number of villagers in front of him was approaching two thousand, which meant he would abandon twenty thousand pieces of meat, simply like that.

He then took out a huge pile of meat one after another, arranged them in patches, each away from the other with a certain distance to avoid overcrowding.

"Willy," Omar suddenly called, "the guild replied, and they are ready to cooperate," he said.

"Finally," Arthur said with a chuckle, before turning to Ron, "Take charge of here, and let the villagers on the right side wait. If anyone came from outside just make him or her follow the same rule."

"I will see things done," Ron replied, as he was feeling excited about the possibility of finding more and more mage seedlings amongst his clan.

"Send a word as well to the prisoners, let them know they will be summoned to my hall," Arthur said, as he went inside the building again, followed by the three, Amelia, Omar, and Randy.

Once he sat on his seat again, he asked:

"What was the exact reply of them?"

"They said they will honor the agreement, and they ask if they went exclusively supporting us, what more benefits they will harvest," Omar said, saying the reply of the guild leader in the same exact words he read.

"Greedy, huh?" Arthur sneered, "it seems the news travels fast, and they already heard of my existence," he muttered. He didn't have any issue of raising the stakes with them, but if they proved to be traitors, dealing with the black raven clan behind his back, then he had to teach them a bitter lesson.

"Send to him, and say we will give the guild the exact same treatment of the rogue mages. Each mage comes from them will be rewarded by one monster," he paused, then he added, "and tell him I don't tolerate traitors. If it's proven for the guild to betray me, I won't stop at anything until I destroy and kill each single one of them, so he better control his men well enough."

Arthur knew it wasn't wise to threaten a potential ally, but he was willing to pay this hefty price for them, and they needed to bear the consequences of this. For him, paying hundreds of monsters wasn't a burden, as his ring had many thousands already, approaching tens of thousands.

However he was preparing for the future, when he reigned supreme over all this stretch of land. He didn't have time to go and capture more monsters, or that might compromise his, already tightened, schedule.

Omar nodded, and then took out a bird wing paper, wrote on it, then it went on flames. Arthur then looked to the three as he said:

"What do you think the guild will do? You know them well, will they honor this agreement?"

"They are greedy, but some of them had already dealt with the black raven clan," Randy replied, expressing part of the problem.

"Don't forget some guild elders already married, or their siblings got married to members of the black raven clan," Amelia added, expressing another part of the problem.

Arthur sat there, thinking about what he had to do with this problem.

"I think the guild master might do something crazy this time," Omar suddenly said, "I had spoken with him on multiple occasions, and he wasn't pleased by the way the black raven clan behaved with him and his guild. He once told me he was planning to move the guild to any other place, but he didn't find any suitable one, not yet," he added, expressing another side of the matter.

"If he took such a decision, won't the elders and many old mages there refuse to comply?" Randy asked, as he knew how much the black raven influence ran deeply in the hunter guild.

"I know, but he had a back up plan," Omar said, with a wide smile over his face, "he planned to unite the three hunter guilds in this area, and for a brand new hunter guild, more powerful and with much more members in it," he added.

"Two other guilds?" Arthur asked with some interest.

"Yes," Omar nodded, "there are two other guilds lying to our north and south, a day distance walk. They also had some problems dealing with the local authority like this branch, and the two leaders were also thinking alike the guild leader," Omar said.

"Are you sure of this?" Amelia asked, "the last time I checked, the two other guilds nearby were in much better state than this one," she added.

"I also went to the two of them once, they have much better treatment than this guild, and they have much more members than ours. Even the silver falcon is a member of one of them," he added.

"Who is the silver falcon?" Arthur asked, with much more interest than before.

"He is a monster of his own," Randy replied, "with no offense, clan leader, this one might be stronger than you are, stronger than the four of us combined," he added, with some embarrassment.

Arthur didn't feel offended, but tempted. If there was such a mage out there, he would prefer to make him swear allegiance to him.

"How old is he?" Arthur asked.

"Fifteen," Amelia said, with some annoyance, as she was always compared to this child, "he was tested by the academy, but he never joined it," she added.