As promised, Lily and her students showed up after one week, the territory that she was managing was pretty close, but she didn't have enough time to do anything. She probably just greeted everyone that was going to work with her and then told them what they should do for the next two weeks since each group would use the dungeons for only two weeks.
"I am back, and as I promised to Kate and Natalie, I will pinch your ears if you stare too much at the chest of the guild receptionist," Lily said.
"You are a bit late for that," Billy said, and then Lily ended up pinching his ear. "You look more healthy and happy than usual. I guess it is true what they say, pregnant women, most of the time look full of life force."
"What is this? It is unusual to see you praising anyone," Lily said while smirking. "I will tell Alexander and those two about this."
Putting the jokes around, Billy and Lily were pretty relaxed around each other. They had known each other for over a decade, after all. Nevertheless, Billy informed Lily about the times they could use the dungeon. The monsters were more vicious and three times stronger at night, so they would only enter during the day. He assumed that most of them couldn't fight for many hours, so Billy managed to make a schedule where he let half of those seven hundred use the dungeon every day.
"Wow, you made some nasty changes in the walls," Lily said. "The next time the enemies try to climb them, we will have an easy time defending."
Billy also created a lot more watchtowers, and he improved those and the older ones to have an only a small opening for the guards there to use crossbows. They will be completed invulnerable to long-ranged attacks. That kind of structure was only possible by those who could use magic because the builders would have a hard time creating walls on only three sides. That was one of the tricks of the watchtowers. Otherwise, it would be challenging to chance personnel and get ammo.
"I so increased the tunnels around the town. The only problem is the fact that they can't be built on the western side of the dungeon," Billy said.
"Is that the direction the entrance of the dungeon leads to?" Lily asked.
"That is right," Billy replied.
Billy never tried to mess with the layout of the dungeon, but he wondered if it was possible. It was probably too dangerous, though. Besides, what would be the point of him doing that?
Regardless, Billy thought that Lily was going to help her students. Still, she never entered the dungeon, not even to show them the basics. She really had a lot of faith in them, or she already had said what needed to be done. In any case, the groups that entered the first day returned carrying a lot of pelt and leather. Still, some of them had a lot of scratches on their bodies, and the best group only stayed inside for one hour or so.
"Now you guys know how a real battle is, but it can't be compared to a real battlefield or war," Lily said while her students were tending their wounds. "I am expecting that eventually, all of you can stay inside the dungeon for a full day, but in order to do that, it is important to recognize your current limits and challenge them with caution. You can't improve if you die or lose an arm."
Although her belly got bigger again, Lily still looked like a true master. Her air of childishness had disappeared, and now she was a veteran of a war that demanded respect.
"They really have grown a lot…" Billy thought.
Billy couldn't complain about the performance of those kids since they had brought a lot of materials. According to the receptionist, the guild master received around fifty copper coins per kilogram of pelt and leather, and since the students brought around one hundred, Billy gained fifty silver coins without doing anything. Naturally, he could have obtained more, but the kids also need to be paid for their hard work.
Lily expected that she would help Billy with the renovations, but he had finished the job. The tunnels were a secret of the town, and since some of those kids were from another state, it wasn't a good idea to show them yet.
Over the next few days, Lily stayed in the dungeon, and then she marked the duration of each run of her students. Since they were archers, they were pretty good with knives as well, but they didn't use those. Not to mention, the monsters had longer attacks as well, and they would use those if they saw their targets using knives. They were that smart.
"Since you are done here, why don't you come to help us?" Lily asked.
"Who said that I am done? The tunnels that I am going to make will be way longer than before," Billy replied. "Besides, even if your group leaves, there will come others."
Since Billy didn't have much to do, he decided to talk with Lily for a while. He had been walking across the town over the last two weeks to get acquainted with pretty much everyone, but he couldn't do that all day. It would look like he was trying too hard and had too much time in his hands. While that wasn't much fun, his job was also related to making apparitions and talking with those people to see if they had something to complain about or if they had some ideas. Pierre and Gerald told him that.. It was something that required a lot of patience and some social skills, Billy wasn't an expert at both of those, but it was something that he had to do since he was earning a lot of money by managing that region.
