Mercenaries Guild

The only place mercenaries can rely on, is the Mercenaries Guild—regardless if they work alone or in teams. They are recognized in the Eastern continent as one of their top factions and were also established there. This organization’s leader is “Mercenary King”. Even in Western continent, the current Mercenary King, Bud Illis, is called one of the strongest and most influential people on the Eastern continent.

Mercenaries own one of the most precious cultural heritage in Eastern Continent, Directory, also called one of the scariest things in Mercenaries Guild.

General

Although compared to other forces of the continent, mercenaries are not necessarily strong (mainly because they don’t learn proper martial arts or sword arts), but still are one of the fundamentals in any occurred war; since there were no wars without mercenaries. There are mercenaries anywhere you go on the Eastern continent.

Mercenaries don’t care about good or evil, that said they would accept any job if the conditions were good enough. Were incidents always happen, people usually bring mercenaries or adventurers to be the ones to resolve them. Each mercenary moves according to their own set of rules—in some aspects, a decision must be made on what “best for business” is. 

First Mercenary King

“	The Great Mercenary King who created the large faction that managed to survive on the Eastern continent while many kingdoms rose and fell for 1,000 years. He was the role model for all mercenaries and the mercenaries did not hesitate to act on his behalf.	”
— Volume 4
on Chapter 360

According to Cale’s intuition, the first Mercenary King was the White Star. In the beginning, Cale planned on finding his weakness, but instead started doubting the identity of the first Mercenary King. There is no information found in Directory about who the first Mercenary King was or what power he used, as if he wished to hide it himself. After losing everything he loved due to his curse, White Star needed an easy job to start with; which ended up being mercenary.

Leeb-An City’s Mercenaries Guild Branch

Leeb-An City’s Mercenaries Guild building was located a bit away from the eastern pleasure district. The Merchant Alliance and the Mercenaries Guild shared control of Leeb-An City.

The Mercenaries Guild had strong authority in Leeb-An City by controlling the day-time aspects through placing one of their people as the major, but even without it they always had influence in the city. As well, mercenaries from Leeb-An City branch developed close relationship with the underworld by partnering with Mostue faction to gain money and suppress Merchant Alliance; making them a part of the criminal structure. The Mercenaries Guild was much stronger than the Merchant Alliance, however, they lacked funds. The way to resolve this issue was to protect Mostue’s organization and receiver some dirty money from the underworld through them.

Mercenaries Guild protected Mostue’s faction that fought for power in Leeb-An City’s underworld and forced Arm’s faction to take their opponent down slower than they planned—so they’d avoid direct contact with Mercenaries Guild that have branches all over the entire Eastern continent. You could say no one, even continent’s strongest criminal organization, would not want to have a bad relationship with them. Through Real Arm’s initiatives leaded by Cale Henituse, the relationship between those power factions and Mercenaries Guild drastically changed, seeding even deeper hostility and mistrust than before, because of White Star’s goals—killing Bud Illis to gain his ancient power and taking over Mercenaries Guild and Directory.

After incidents caused by Real Arm, mercenaries’ pride was touched, and Mercenaries Guild was in a state of emergency, giving the Mercenary King opportunity to move. They planned to take it as an opportunity to have the justification to act against Arm that was swallowing the underworld and at the same time reducing Guild’s source of funds. But, before that, they were robbed by Real Arm, while being beaten up by a single sword master. Both Mercenaries Guild’s and Arm’s positions cleared out, and both organizations were getting ready for open hostility.

(…) White Star wants to kill me without anybody knowing. (…) That is why I am openly walking around where people can see me. (…) I need to survive. (…) I also want to kill that bastard as well.—Bud Illis, Chapter 343.

Central Headquarters

The Mercenaries Guild’s central headquarters used in the last two hundred years is an extravagant and spectacular built of marble, located inside the free city, Resting City. The original, first founded branch building was in the outskirt of free city and was a three-story wooden building with a secret passage in the basement that only authorized leaders of Mercenaries Guild knew about and could use. To be precise, only the Mercenary King knew, but some of the core members had little knowledge about it.

The secret tunnel was created by the first Mercenary King and leaded to the Directory underneath the first Mercenaries Guild’s branch. You can’t use any magic or ancient powers inside the tunnel nor Directory’s, because “that area will explode if someone tries to infiltrate it using any type of power.” The original Mercenaries Guild base disappeared after Cale and Bud learned about who the first Mercenary King might be. 

Mercenaries Guild vs Arm

Mercenaries cooperated with Cale Henituse and Molan household to destroy Arm’s secret bases. While Cale and Choi Han’s group were fighting in Caro Kingdom’s Dubori territory, assassins under Ron Molan and Mercenaries Guild’s veterans, under Bud Illis lead attacked first boundary of Arm’s first secret base on Eastern continent. Later, both groups met together to attack the place were old Molan residence was located and then was under Arm’s justification. This battle was planned to show off Mercenaries Guild’s strength and suppress Arm’s power and that Molan’s family could take back their lost home (and to rip off the White Star’s three “arms”).

Inside Molan residence, they found a magic circle that teleported to second secret base near the restricted area Gate to the Demon World. Bud send Expert Ranger Brigade to scout the area and find a path that could lead to their base. 

Mercenaries Guild assisted Cale’s group and Dark Elves, with 100 people, in battle against Molden Kingdom’s Monarch, Elisneh the First—who was one of White Star’s subordinates as Illusionist—to help Elves take over the fake World Tree. In preparation time, Mercenary King was hold hostage by Molden Kingdom’s dethroned princess, Jopis, and had to be rescued by Cale, and afterwards they gained her as an ally. They made a deal where the fee for help from Mercenaries Guild’s was excluding them from kingdom’s road tolls, and were going to get money to all mercenary related tasks for 10 years. Ron’s business received “rights to run a few important inns”, and all discovered and gained belongings was supposed to be Roan Kingdom’s—and because of another deal with crown prince Alberu, items they picked up would belong to Cale.

Members

Mercenary King, Bud Illis.

Highest grade mage, Glenn Poeff.

Swordsman, leader Crock.

Member of the Expert Ranger Brigade, Pan.

Trivia

• Leeb-An City’s Mercenaries Guild branch leader signed a contract with Mostue’s faction to gain dirty money, so they can supress Merchant Alliance who had more funds than them.
• They are described as people who would go crazy for free beer.
• Mercenary King Bud Ills plans to build a Mercenaries Guild on Western continent.
• Mercenaries treasures their lives the most; veterans of Mercenaries Guild are called veterans not because they are strong, but because they managed to survive longest during battles and wars.
• Expert Ranger Brigade were the guild's hidden strenght and could be compared to 1,000-man Knights Brigade.
• Regular members of Mercenaries Guild don’t know about their partnership with Cale Henituse.
• They have Metal plaque for members of the guild. It was something that only other guild members would recognize.

References