“Palms down!” The cry came from the top of a makeshift barricade, the unblinking eye of a gun barrel staring at him through some sandbags. “Who are you?”

Behind the barricades, the casino loomed. It was a strange building, shaped almost like a pyramid of glass and steel. Grey had never been there before the Genesis, but he knew above the game floors sat a host of suites, restaurants, bars, and hotel rooms. The public blueprints had told him as much. A sign hung above the doors, the letters having long flickered to dim. They read ‘Gilded.’

Grey lifted his hands, his palms facing downwards, and raised his voice. “Hello,” he said. “Is this the home of the Hunters?”

Some shuffling sounded behind the barricade, but the gun barrel remained steady. “I said who are you?”

“My name is Grey. I’d like to join you. Most of my family… They’re gone. I don’t know what else to do.” His face twisted for a moment, but he let the mask crumble a moment later, showing a forced calm in its place.

“Sit tight,” the man said, “I’ll get a hold of someone higher up the food chain.” The crackle of a radio was heard, and the man spoke again. Grey used Chi Breathing to listen. “Yes, this is Lopez. Got a guy here, says he wants to join. Name’s Grey.”

Some muffled response came from the radio.

“How does he look? I don’t recognize him, if that’s what you're asking, but he could be. Heard those bastards got a few fresh faces about lately. Might be one of them.”

Another response came.

“Eh, I think it’d be fine. Worst case scenario I put a bullet between his eyes.” This last part the man meant him to hear, raising his voice so it carried over the barricade. “I’ll send him up. Chris’ll watch him.”

Grey caught the word ‘fine’ through the radio, and then it clicked off. The gun didn’t move, but a head peeked over the top of the barricade. The man had blonde hair and a longer beard. He smiled.

“They’ll see you, but no promises. Walk over to the gate if you would.”

The gate was little more than a piece of fence on wheels, and it slid open enough Grey could slip through. On the other side, several guns pointed at him. A man, different from the other guard, pointed his assault rifle at the sword and handgun on Grey’s hip.

“Going to need you to take those off and any other weapons on you.”

Grey did so, his spear and anything valuable already in his Inventory. “That’s all,” he said after a moment.

The bearded man nodded at one of the other guards, a stern-faced woman. “Heather, pat him down.” The guard obliged, and once she deemed Grey unarmed, the man nodded, lifting his sunglasses up until they rested on his bald head. “My name is Chris. Follow right behind me, alright? They don’t like new faces around here.”

Grey followed the man through a pair of glass doors and into a lobby lined with red carpets, marble flooring and pillars, and an unmanned desk. Past it was a game hall. Empty slot machines sat in rows, their lights dark and unblinking. A few men sat at the bar on the side of the room, their eyes tracking him over the rims of their cups. Chips lay scattered across card and roulette tables, as though they had been abandoned in a rush. The place smelled of booze, cigarettes, and incense.

A few lights shone from above, and Grey made a mental note. The Hunters had access to electricity, but it must have been limited. The second floor was less a floor of its own and more a mezzanine, one that looked down on the game room from its balconies and tables. Hunters leaned across the wooden railings, the ruby tips of their cigarettes bright in the dim light.

Chris led him through the room and up a stairwell. They skipped the third, fourth, and fifth floors, stopping only when they reached top. They entered a long hall, paintings and sculptures decorating the walls on either side of them. Grey’s boots clicked on the polished wooden floor, and a man and a woman in armor stared at him from their spot outside a pair of tall wooden doors.

“This is where I leave you,” Chris said. “Go in through those doors and be respectful. The boss will decide if you have what it takes.”

Grey raised an eyebrow but said nothing, sparing the man a nod. One of the guards, the woman, cracked the wooden doors, allowing him through and slipping in behind him. Grey entered the room, which seemed part study and part armory. All manner of swords and axes hung from the walls, and on the marble desk in the back of the room, a revolver pulled straight from an old western sat in a glass case.

A man sat behind the desk. He looked young, no more than his early thirties, and he had handsome features. His black hair was neatly kept and swept up and to the side. He had a groomed beard and blue eyes that seemed to never stop roving. He wore a tidy suit, no weapons visible on him.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“Grey, is it?” he asked, standing. He reached out a hand. “My name is Alin.”

Grey shook his hand, his own hands covered by tight gloves. “Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise.” He swept his hand at the chairs in front of his desk and sat back down. “Sit, sit.”

“Thank you.” Grey picked one of the chairs and met the man’s eyes. He already had a plan if things turned awry. His spear could be out in a moment, and he would hurl it into the guard behind him before taking this man hostage. From there, he had several windows, the doors he came from, or another door in the back to choose from. He gave himself a seventy-two percent chance of escaping with little to no damage.

“So you want to join the Hunters?”

“I do.”

He lifted a manicured eyebrow. “May I ask why?”

“My family’s gone. Friends, too. Only way to live in the city is to pick a side.” Grey shrugged. “I tried the ARA, but they’re… stuffy.”

“The ARA? Hmm,” he said. “The feds can switch the alphabet up however they like, but in the end, they’re all the same. I see what you mean. You do realize this puts me in a difficult position, however, right?”

“You think I’m a spy?”

He splayed his hands as if it were not his fault. “I don’t know you. You seem like a good enough person, but you admitted yourself you come from a rival organization.” He tapped his desk for a moment. “You know, this was my old man’s office. Big military history nut, as you can see. Anyways, he specifically loved samurai.

“Not the romanticized samurai, how they really were. Now, stop me if I go on a tangent, but samurai were renown for their loyalty. Part of this was culture, of course, yet there was also a give and take between the daimyo- the lord- and the samurai. To the samurai was given land, a home, servants, arms, and armor.” Alin waved a hand. “You know, wealth, such it was measured at the time. The daimyo, in turn, was given loyalty and service to the point of self-sacrifice.

“Such give and take is how the world functions. The employer gives money; the employee offers labor. I’m not so self-centered as to call myself their daimyo, but my men, they’re warriors all. Samurai. Self-serving at times, but ultimately loyal. It serves them to serve me. You could have that, too.”

“How?” Grey asked, his brows furrowed. Alin used a lot of words to say little, but he was still running a game. A gambler at heart, perhaps. It would be poetic, if nothing else.

“Prove yourself.” He tapped his desk. “We raid these Anomalies. They give us meat, materials, power. You understand, I’m sure. I’ll put you on one of these teams. Take the hardest assignments. Throw yourself into danger- wisely, of course. If I hear you’re proving your loyalty, then I will give in return.”

This was a possibility he had already considered. He had scouted all of the Dungeons in the Hunters’ territory and watched a few of the skirmishes between their forces and the Guild. Short of a Gold, he was confident in his ability to survive any of these situations. He observed Alin’s face. The man expected him to be unsure, so he acted as if he were thinking it over.

He could never have guessed that Grey was an old hand at hell, even compared to the other Returnees. Throwing himself into danger was simply training, and that was something Grey already wanted to do. With his decision made, he considered his primary objective in the coming weeks.

Swing the war in the Hunters’ favor.

It would force the ARA into intervening, for the winner would upturn the scales of power in their own direction. Forcing a confrontation would allow him to play double agent, and ultimately, it would allow him to kill Jessica.

“I accept, but,” Grey held up a finger, “But I will not do anything that is sure to kill me.”

“Understandable. Would you like that in writing?”

“Doesn’t mean anything anymore, does it?”

Alin nodded. “True. If you’re sure of things, go out into the Den. Talk. Meet your new comrades. Some of them have some… interesting stories, though I suppose all of us do by now. Ask for Beth, she’ll give you a room key. When I have something for you, I’ll send someone with the details.”

Grey left the room and headed back down the steps. He would heed Alin’s words and talk to some of the other Hunters. Observe first, act second. He had to learn the hierarchy, the major players, who disliked who, and so on. It was a tall order, but such things were like pieces to a puzzle. When assembled, they formed something truly beautiful, a plan capable of accounting for all variables.

“Do you have room for another?” Grey called, faking a smile and claiming a seat at the bar on the first floor.

A younger looking man in rumpled clothing downed a shot and coughed, the woman beside him whooping and slapping his back. The two others at the bar laughed. The woman turned to face him. She had the sort of plain look to her that made the eyes want to skip past, but an angry red scar peeked from below the collar of her shirt. Her brown hair sat atop her head in a bun.

“We do,” she said. “Newbie?”

Grey chuckled. “I guess so.”

“Taken or Townie?”

“Taken,” he said, confirming his identity as a member of the Tutorial.

She poured dark liquor into a shot glass and slid it his way. “Got a name?”

“Grey.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “That’s different. I’m Erin.” She clapped the back of the coughing man. “This is our resident babyface, Austin. Those two are Brent and Asha.”

Brent was a dark-skinned man with rugged features and a wiry build. Beside him sat Asha, a relatively pretty woman with deeply tanned skin and dark hair. He exchanged pleasantries with them.

Making friends with a smaller group first was important for several reasons. Firstly, it was easier to infiltrate such a group. In psychology, the ingroup was the social group a person was included in. He had to become associated with the ingroup. Right now, he was an outsider. By becoming a part of their ingroup, the other Hunters would become less suspicious of him, assuming their comrades would know who they associated with. That meant less questions and easy trust.

The key was in approach, however. The competitive structure of the Hunters presented a difficult social challenge. Even among the ingroup, there was competition and hostility. He couldn’t introduce himself as a new competitor, not without backing, so he had to come off as harmless. More importantly, this group was at a bar, suggesting they might be more amenable to his approach.

With his act firmly in mind, he downed the shot, slapping his chest and coughing. Blood rushed to his face, and he laughed while the others mocked and laughed at him.

Of course, the alcohol helped as well.