Chapter 93 92 - Meeting His Savior
The man sitting at the guild master's desk was Jorge Ortiz. He was Allana's older brother and was a very experienced and strong gatecrasher in New York City. Although they had no X ranked hunters, the Incubus Guild was the strongest in the city, and it was the creation of Jorge Ortiz. He had gained the nickname "The Reaper" due to the way he used his ability, as well as how deadly he was in combat. He had short black hair, and the same brown eyes as Allana. Currently he was wearing a black suit that was fitted to his built frame.
The Reaper looked at Milo and said, "You look very familiar…" there was a hint of a Spanish accent to his words.
Milo went on to tell him that he was the intern from the Academy that would be working for his guild for the summer. He chose to leave out that he was the unconscious student that he had dragged out of a back alley during a rift a little under a year earlier.
"Ah well welcome to the Incubus Guild, I see David gave you a tour of our headquarters?" asked Jorge.
"Yeah he did a great job showing everything you guys have to offer here," Milo said in response.
"Good to hear, there's a reason I chose him as my vice guild master," Jorge remarked. Hearing that David was the vice guild master came as a shock to Milo, he had no idea that he was so highly ranked in the guild, and he seemed like an everyday person the way he interacted with Milo, not someone who held a level authority only one level before the man behind the desk. "Now let's get down to business, take a seat, I wanted to discuss a bit of what you'll be doing here as an intern," Jorge said gesturing to the chairs in front of his desk.
Milo took a seat, as did David so that Milo could learn what his duties as an intern were. "We discussed a lot with the academy as well as the association about where you should be placed for your internship," Jorge started, "Your teacher Mikael gave extreme praise for your performance in his combat classes…"
Hearing that Mikael had praised his performance in class his first year gave Milo a warm and fuzzy feeling in his stomach. Mikael was his favorite teacher he had ever had. Not only did he push the students to be their best, but he did so gently and allowed them to find their own strength without forcing them towards enlightenment. Along with this, he allowed Milo to take karma into his own hands when deemed necessary, through the spars that allowed him to silence his bullies. His grades and treatment were based solely on merit not on how much money your family could provide.
"Anyhow, we heard a lot about your combat capabilities and it'd be a shame to see you stuck behind a desk while you were here. Because of this, we will put you onto a squad with a group of new recruits and your time here will be as if you were in our recruit training program," Jorge continued.
Hearing that he'd be being treated as if he were a new recruit made Milo begin to shake in excitement.
"As you will be acting as if you were a new recruit, tomorrow you'll meet the rest of our new recruits who you'll be going through training with. Remember, they all have received permanent licenses, not the provisional license you yourself have. Your training with them starts tomorrow at noon sharp on floor 78 in booth 13, I'll have David here bring you a complete schedule of your training regimen tomorrow."
Milo took a mental note of the time, and what booth his new squad would be training in. He knew that the floor would be the one with all the virtual reality stations, as David had mentioned that would be where he would start.
"As you know already gatecrashing squads are split into different roles to make it easier to defeat beasts and close gates. You've got your tankers who are your durable front line that take attacks, your supports who use their abilities to buff and heal the tankers and damage dealers on the squad, and finally your dealers, the ones who are tasked with dealing damage to beasts and killing them."
Milo nodded as he already knew the structure that gatecrashing squads used. When on his in field experience they were limited to 5 students after Maria was placed on their team, and luckily because it was a low ranked gate they got away without needing to use a tanker. As gates got higher in rank however, so did the difficulty and it only made it that much more important to follow the recommendations that were set forth by the GAA. They recommended that at least 10 gatecrashers enter a gate at a time and they have at least two that are one rank above the gate they were closing, so it was recommended that at minimum for a C rank gate, that a squad would consist of at least 8 C rank gatecrashers and 2 B ranks.
Jorge wasn't done speaking, so Milo continued to listen, "You will be in a squad composed completely of B ranks, and you will be slotted in as one of the damage dealing roles. Our guild typically uses a 3/3/4 strategy for our squads, 3 tankers, 3 supports, and 4 damage dealers. Each role is then split more into subclasses. For tankers we use 2 shielders and 1 brawler, support is split into 2 healers and 1 buffer slash debuffer, and damage dealers are normally split into 1 ranger, 1 mage, and 2 warrior or assassin type fighters."
The subclasses were pretty self explanatory and were also covered in Milo's gatecrashing 101 class at the Academy. Shielders were self explanatory and used a shield to block incoming damage, they typically drew the most aggro from beasts as well due to them having the highest durability. Brawlers were in some way a hybrid between a dealer and tanker, they were mainly there to tie up beasts that went after the backline. Healers healed their team as the name implied and buffers and debuffers applied helpful effects to their allies or debilitating effects to the thing they were fighting in order to make a battle more favorable. During his in-field experience, Luke would have been classified as a buffer due to his barriers acting as a buff to a teammate's defenses.
Dealers were split into many different subclasses, warriors were the most common and would use their abilities to help them in close combat, they typically used swords and sometimes a small shield, like Zach did at the in field experience. Mages were people who used their abilities to deal damage at range, this was what Milo would most likely be filling, and were the second most common type of dealer. Mages were typically elemental ability users but there were a few other abilities that could be used at this role. After mages, assassins were the next in terms of rarity, and were fast, high damage, low defense attackers that finished off opponents using sneak attacks and confusing their opponent, Maria would've been the closest to filling this role, due to her choice of weapon and her combat style, although she could also fit into the mage category as well due to her ability. Lastly were rangers who used ranged weapons to deal poke damage at a safe distance, like Chloe had done with her crossbow.
"For your squad, Milo I was hoping to change things up a bit, Mikael mentioned a lot about your capabilities not only using your ability, but also your close combat strength as well. Thanks to this I'd like for you to act as a sort of hybrid mage and warrior, a spellsword if you will. I think that by having you rotate between using close combat as well as your ability it will not only put less strain on you and make closing the gates more efficient, but would also give your support better protection."
Milo nodded along in agreement, Jorge made good points and the idea of acting as a hybrid subclass type dealer fit Milo's fighting style perfectly.
"That pretty much covers all the info for what you'll be doing for the summer, once your team becomes efficient at closing gates in a simulated environment we'll send you to real gates to close, to start they will be lower ranked for your teams safety while you build more experience. I highly recommend getting to know your teammates a bit more as well, they'll be good connections to have once you graduate if you choose to join a different guild or start your own, and who knows they could turn into lifelong friends, that's how me and David originally met," Jorge said wrapping up his spiel for Milo.
Jorge then stood up, as did Milo and David, and made his way around to the front of the desk. He was shorter than Milo but had the body of a seasoned wrestler, making him much thicker than Milo, with arms as thick as telephone poles and legs as thick as tree trunks. He stuck out his hand and Milo grabbed it, shaking it.
"Welcome to the Incubus Guild, Milo Fenix," Jorge said while shaking Milo's hand.
"Thank you for having me," Milo said in response with a smile, "please take care of me."
After shaking his hand, Milo was told that there was nothing else he was needed for that day and he was free to head home, so Milo said thanks one more time and headed out the door that he and David entered through.
After he left, Jorge turned to David and said, "It's still hard to believe that he almost beat level 5 at only 17," referring to Milo's provisional license exam.
"I know," said David, "that kid is special, not only does he have an extremely powerful ability, he knows how to use it creatively, and flexibly. He's deadly with that strange weapon of his as well."
Jorge nodded, he had watched a recording of Milo's test and still had the image of Milo swinging the massive blade of ice and cutting through the hologram of the orcs like a frigid executioner. He then looked down at his hand, shaking it a bit. "He has a hell of a grip too," he thought to himself.