Darius Supreme

Difo himself was greatly enraged, but managed to keep his expression in check. "So, my question?" 

Darius waved his hand. "Right, right. Well, the amount should vary per group depending on how much is needed, instead of a flat rate for everyone. It could be anywhere between 200 silver and 3 gold." 

Difo felt his lips twitch. Such a broad estimate was as good as saying nothing, and the look on the fellow's face told him that Darius would likely not entertain Difo any more than that. 

He slightly regretted going so hard. In hindsight, it would have been wiser to come from a soft position like the fools from that so-called 'union' in order to play his trap to the end, yet he never expected this lad to respond to slightly hard tactics with absolutely harder responses. 

"Thank you for the clarification." Difo finally acquiesced and sat down. 

Seeing as the banker had now been silenced, the table returned to being relatively quiet. Darius waited a bit, but since nobody else uttered any objection, he moved on. 

"The third issue plaguing our encampment is motivation and efficient division of labor. Some who are more adept at performing certain tasks are allocated to others due to the closed nature of each individual camp." 

Darius raised a hand to stop the surge of voices that were about to break out. "No, I'm not asking you to give up control of your subordinates to me or any other party hereto re-distribute them. I'm not so impudent and let me remind you I'm only here to help, not take over." 

He lowered his hand and gazed at the crowd bluntly. "Right now, the camp is effectively dead. There is no motivation, no galvanization, nothing. Your subordinates are lounging around, eating away at the purchased resources and wasting funds while hemming and hawing about the battle which had entered a stalemate." 

"On one hand, I don't blame them. You've all made great progress with the Adept undead here in the first few days, but after encountering the obstacle called Bone Dragon, everything became stifled." 

"As for finding a solution to that particular problem, it will have to wait for now. However, by the time we'll have thought of something, you'll find your men unwilling to fight without being forced. You yourselves are powerhouses and leaders, you don't need me to tell you how motivated your subordinates were when they first arrived here compared to now, do you?" 

Many fellows shifted uncomfortably. They had long noticed the problem Darius was talking about, but those had been internal secrets they hadn't wanted to be leaked out, so how did he find out, especially after being here for less than 24 hours? 

Darla, who was naturally also at the table, smacked her lips and pretended like she was oblivious to some of the gazes pointed at her. Kiran though, gazed at her reproachfully, since he knew exactly what she had done, though he didn't voice it out. 

After all, the relationship between both guilds was complex. They were competitors yet also sister-guilds. There were often positive exchanges, and when problems befell one, the other would rush in to help. However, they also competed over many things and that made them like rivals. 

Darla hid her face deeper when Kiran chastised her with his eyes, grumbling under her breath about fair business. 

As for Darius, he continued. "As such, I think you need to galvanize your men into action to rebuild morale to increase work efficiency. I suggest setting up a temporary mission hall. There, micro and macro issues can be posted for your workers to chose to attend for remuneration in terms of money or certain items." 

"These missions will encompass simple things like cleaning, administration, logistics, and what not concerning your individual camps which you can post yourselves as well as those concerning the encampment as a whole. This will allow the workers to gain a bit of extra income on the side and will keep them busy and actually productive." 

Seeing how they were all gazing at him silently, Darius coughed and finished his point. "Obviously, for the macro jobs concerning the entire camp, I shall fund the remunerations paid out to various parties." 

It was only now that the various powerhouses smiled and murmured to each other, nodding with acceptance to Darius' suggestion. After all, it was reasonable, and more importantly, it didn't come out of their pocket! 

Darius then moved on. "The fourth issue plaguing the encampment is the lack of information regarding our target. While you have drafted many abilities and responses to the Bone Dragon, it is in the end, merely an underling of the main target, the Stonekeeper." 

"If his mere lackey can hold the allied forces of Andrato back so stably, how then will we deal with its master? It would be foolish to assume that you all haven't been hiding at least one trump card or two, but shouldn't we assume the same about Marasmus?" 

"At this moment, very little is known minus what the mission poster provided. As such, I have put in place measures to gather more information on this target so that we may effectively plan out our attack." 

There was once again a slight uproar as many parties spoke derisively and with disinterest. It wasn't that they thought information gathering was useless, no! They understood that the more informed party would likely be the victor! 

But it was Darius' talk about collaboration that made many shy away. If they all killed him together, who would get the final rewards? How were they supposed to split those incredible treasures? In the case of lost members, how would they be compensated? 

Darius understood what they were thinking and smiled cruelly internally, but his face wore a frown. "Fellow gentlemen and ladies, forgive me for being rude, but who here believes they can kill the big boss all on their own?" 

"Putting aside his power, how exactly will the fight be handled? Will you all take turns attacking to see who would win or will you all attack at once and hope to be the one to deal the last hit? If it's the latter, how is it any different from my suggestion of a collaboration?" 

The table was even more disturbed and chaotic after Darius revealed the one thing many here had been worried about, the exact execution of the 'final battle'.