Chapter 79: Hunt Starbuster: Two Sides
King stepped inside.
The office was not what he had expected from a mountain fortress. The space was refined deliberately so. A wide desk dominated the center of the room, polished wood. Bookshelves lined the wall behind the desk, filled and organized.
The man behind the desk looked up as King entered.
He was in his thirties, with long blonde hair that was voluminous and wavy. He wore a high contrast three-piece suit , fitted without excess. Black leather gloves on both hands. Visible scarring ran along the left side of his face that did nothing to diminish the composed confidence that sat in his expression.
One gloved hand flipped a coin in a steady, rhythmic pattern.
King registered the second figure without making it obvious. Against the right wall, a slender presence in a fitted suit remained completely motionless, the build was so unclear that King couldn’t determine gender with certainty, an oni mask covering the face entirely.
A katana strapped at the hip. The figure was watching King with a fixed and unbroken attention.
The door closed behind King.
The man set the coin flat on the desk and gestured toward the chair opposite him.
"Welcome, King. You may sit."
King sat.
"I am Hunt Starbuster," the man introduced himself, settling back in his chair. "Chairman of the Hunter’s Association. Pleased to make your acquaintance."
"Why have you invited me here," King demanded.
"Straight to business." Hunt’s expression acknowledged this without objecting to it. "But, before we proceed, I want you to understand something. I hold no grudge against you."
King’s expression shifted barely. This man had placed a public bounty on his name and sent organized players to attack Eli and Maya, and he was sitting here with his coin flat on the desk talking about holding no grudge.
"The debt has been repaid," Hunt continued. "All of that is behind us. I invited you here so we could speak about the future."
"Debt," King repeated. "Repaid."
"Yes."
"You organized an attack on my comrades," King said. "People who had nothing to do with whatever issue you constructed between us. And you’re calling that a debt repaid."
Hunt tilted his head slightly. "You did harass one of my hunters and walk away with my scroll. Give or take, I consider us even."
The temperature in King’s presence changed.
Across the room, the masked figure tilted forward, one hand closing around the katana’s hilt with a grip that was not yet a draw but was no longer at rest.
Hunt did not move. "I wouldn’t recommend escalating, Mr. King." His voice carried no urgency. "I have no interest in this becoming something other than a civil conversation between capable men. I acknowledge your power. And in that regard, I have also taken measures I sincerely hope not to resort to." He let that land for exactly one second.
King looked at him. At the masked figure. Then back again.
He settled back in the chair and said nothing.
Hunt read the restraint correctly and continued. "I want to speak with you about the Third Woe."
"Go ahead."
"You know how it works," Hunt said. "The First Woe brushes us. Strips away comfort, establishes the new reality, forces individual survival. The Second sections us into territory, faction, conflict, the selection of the strong from the weak. And the Third." He paused. "The Third builds."
King knew exactly what he was referring to. The Kingdom Building Phase. The point in Allgods: Ragnarok where the game shifted from individual progression and faction conflict into the construction of actual power structures, governments, economies, armies organized under player-led hierarchies.
It was the phase where everything accumulated in the first two woes became the foundation of something larger.
However, he gave Hunt nothing visibly. No confirmation, or reaction.
"What does that have to do with me?" King asked.
Hunt extended one arm and gestured broadly toward the world surrounding them.
"As you can see, I am already several steps ahead of where most players will be when the Third Woe arrives."
He reached for the coin and held it between two fingers. "The Kingdom Building Phase will demand exactly what I have spent every day since this began constructing. Organization. Numbers. Resources. Political reach."
He held the coin flat between thumb and forefinger, both sides visible. "I want you beside me at the apex, King. Not above. Not beneath. As an equal. Two sides of the same coin."
King studied him for a moment.
"And if I refuse?" he asked.
Hunt set the coin down again. "Then you will exist in one of two positions relative to me. Under my influence, or against it. My reach extends further than your current information suggests. You have walked through a portion of what I have built today. I trust that has been instructive."
The room was quiet for a moment.
King ran the calculation without letting it show. Fighting here was a viable option in the narrow sense, he was ranked first in Power for reasons that remained accurate. He could likely reach Hunt across this desk before the masked figure completed a draw. Likely.
But the operative word was likely, and the cost of being wrong about that single variable, surrounded by thousands of organized players in a fortified mountain, was absolute.
Beyond that, killing Hunt didn’t end the Hunter’s Association. It handed it to whoever Hunt had designated next and guaranteed King a war on an organizational scale he currently had no infrastructure to absorb.
Logic over emotion. Same answer he mostly had.
"What about the others?" King asked, intentionally deviating. "The rest of the top ten."
Hunt’s expression didn’t change, but something behind it settled with satisfaction. "For a start, Liz is already with me."
CREAKK
The door opened.
Liz Starbuster entered with precise timing like she had been waiting precisely for this cue.
She moved across the room toward Hunt’s side of the desk with rehearsed steps, her suit tailored close, the skirt cut short enough that the movement of crossing the room placed her fit, thick thighs on full display.
She took her position beside Hunt and held King’s gaze with a directness that was neither professional nor subtle.
"With you included," Hunt continued, "the remaining names in the rankings become significantly less relevant."
King took a moment to evaluate.
"Very well," King said. "I will think about it."
Hunt gave a single, precise clap like a punctuation mark. "Brilliant. When you’ve reached a decision, you know how to reach me. I would expect your reply before the Third Woe begins."
King stood.
He looked at the masked figure one more time, then at Liz, who was watching him with an appetite she made no effort to conceal. Then at Hunt.
"I’ll take my leave," King said.
"Allow me," Liz responded, moving before the sentence was fully out, stepping ahead of him toward the door with a particular intention to her stride, each step carrying more emphasis in her curves than normal steps required.
King was unmoved, they’d be foolish to think all was truly forgiven.
---
As the door shut behind them, king spoke first, breaking the silence. "Really impressed with what y’all have built here, surely you’ve got a view where I could appreciate it more properly?"
Liz stopped with a slight smile. "But of course, follow me" she replied, unable to pass on the opportunity to show off.
She led him to an elevator that connected to the exterior.
They rode the exterior elevate upward in silence, the mountain face falling away beneath them as the mechanism carried them toward the summit. When it stopped and the view opened up, King stepped forward and took it in.
The full scope of Hunt’s construction spread below him in every direction. Territory that had been raw mountain geography was now a functioning sovereign entity. The operational complexity of it was genuine.
King began cataloguing. Routes down from the summit. Entry points in the wall where the stone construction changed character. Elevate positions and their relationship to the interior geography. Blind spots in the guard coverage created by the natural rock formations.
"So," Liz said. "What do you think?"
"Impressive," King said, still looking at the territory below. "Very impressive."
"Not that."
He registered her moving closer a half second before she reached him. She placed one hand against his jaw and turned his face toward hers, the distance between them reducing to mere millimeters. King could feel the proximity of her boobs.
He placed both hands on her shoulders and stopped the movement.
"Maybe another time," he said. "I have to leave."
Liz held the distance for one moment, then stepped back with a naughty smile. "Till then, Mr. King."
She escorted him down to the base without further conversation. King walked out through the gate the same way he’d entered, back into the valley.
He found the fast travel node and stepped through.
[KING’S LAND]
The estate was quiet when he arrived.
The common area held Vi, awake and sitting at the table with her interface open. Eli was asleep against the far wall, Maya had been taken to her room.
Vi looked at King when he entered.
"How did it go?"
"Hunt offered an alliance." King moved to the table and sat across from her.
Vi’s expression worked through something before she settled on the question she actually wanted to ask. "Did you accept?"
"I told him I’d think about it."
She held his gaze, waiting for the rest.
"Hunt has built something real out there," King said. "The scale of it, the organization. If he becomes an enemy, in a numbers game, he trumps."
"So what are you going to do?"
"I don’t know yet."
King stood and moved toward his quarters. Vi watched him go without pushing further, reading the space he needed.
He entered the room and closed the door. Sat on the edge of the bed, opened his interface, and navigated to the messaging panel.
He pulled up a contact he had not spoken to recently.
Pantheon.
King opened a new message and began to type.
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