The deal began with containers.
Not promises. Not ideology. Not blood oaths beneath dungeon moonlight. Those would be too idealistic for people like Josh.
It began with three containers of supplies.
Food, clothing, tents, electronics. Durable, goods, and most important of all, portable. The sort of cargo that looked mundane on the surface supply chain and became strategic the moment it crossed a gate. Josh issued the order from the private room at the Harlan Tower, still feeling the new scar pull slightly across his cheek whenever his expression shifted.
On the screen, the captain of Greencap Pioneer Squad Seven watched him with eyes that had sharpened from interest to calculation.
Kitahara said nothing.
She only sat beside him, hands folded, serene as a woman watching a seed fall into prepared soil, and parasitic eyes crawled into sockets.
Josh made the call, routed it through shell companies and transport subsidiaries, and ordered the goods moved toward the Saitama gate under the cover of mining support. His people did not ask why. His people had learned what should be asked and what should be left alone when the Harlans were on the move. They only confirmed quantities, timelines, customs arrangements, gate access, and the necessary bribes hidden under the cleaner name of "expedited handling."
When he finished, the Greencap captain's tone changed.
Only a slightest of change, but Josh heard it.
"So," she said, "you are not merely rich in the way humans like to try bribing me before they die. With their... super cars, whatever those were, and their mansions."
Josh leaned back. "I asked what you needed first."
"And you gave it." Her ears shifted, one angling toward someone off-screen before returning to him. "Then I will give you something too."
Kitahara's eyes moved to the captain.
The Greencap noticed.
This, then, was not information Kitahara had known she would provide.
Good, Josh thought.
The captain looked at him through the screen.
"There is a farmer named Phong."
The room changed.
The walls remained reinforced, the screen still hummed. Olen still lay sedated elsewhere with half a leg missing from existence. But Josh felt the name land inside him with the exact pressure of a blade tip finding skin.
He did not move.
The captain continued.
"He has established a kingdom called Yuè."
Josh said nothing.
Inside, something in him tightened.
The captain spoke with the matter-of-fact irritation of a frontier officer reporting inconvenient weather.
"It is an alliance of Tortura, trolls, lizardmen and their vassals, and the H'Re of the Dry Sea. He has also contacted the Wolven tribes and the Greencap Kingdom."
The sentence did not fit into Josh's understanding of Phong.
That was the first problem.
He had expected influence, yes. Some fortified village, some farming compound defended by nightmare plants. Maybe a monster settlement held together by fear, violence, and the absurdity of those mutated crops that made no sense no matter how many reports his people compiled.
He had imagined Phong as a petty warlord with better vegetables. A commoner who had found a corner of the dungeon, armed it with plants, and frightened nearby monsters into obedience. A farmer with the mentality of a lowly peasant, seeing only short-term benefits. A warlord who thought only of what he would gain in the next harvest. It was the norm. It was through fulfilling these short-term benefits that people like Josh were able to herd the "short-sighted, foolish" commoners like sheep.
This was different. An anomaly. A kingdom. A named one. Alliances across species: Tortura. Trolls. Lizardmen. H'Re - another unknown variable. Contacts with those cursed wolf centaurs Wolven and the Killer Bunnies of Greencap Kingdom.
Soft power that should have been built by one of the elite, long-term benefits, deep connections and mutual interests interwoven into a safe cocoon the riches and the elites had streamlined into a process since the birth of disparity. Now... it was replicated by someone outside of the circle, from someone of peasant background.
That realization tasted worse than blood.
Phong, a mere commoner, had replicated the elites own game inside the dungeon.
Not with family offices and donor networks. But it was close enough to taming the natives that Josh immediately thought of Christianity and how useful it had been in creating people who fought against their country in the name of the Vatican and God. Indoctrination, he thought, as he saw no other way Phong could turn the natives of the dungeon into his allies so quickly and reliably.
Josh felt his scar tighten.
He imagined Phong smiling that humble little smile while entire species called him farmer-king. He imagined Alex standing beside him. Dominic protecting him. Emma Tannenbaum translating his absurd influence into surface legitimacy. He imagined dungeon races moving because Phong asked, not because he had conquered them at bladepoint.
It was grotesque. Not because it was ugly. But because it worked.
The thought of treating the monsters equally and not something to be extorted by a superior race filled Josh stomach with disgust.
The Greencap captain kept watching him.
"Does this surprise you?"
Josh found his voice.
"No."
Kitahara's gaze flicked toward him.
The captain's ears twitched, unconvinced.
Josh forced his face to remain steady.
"I knew he had influence."
"Not enough," the captain said. "If you plan around him as a farmer with monsters, you will lose."
There was a small cruelty in that. Tactical, completely emotionless.
Josh almost respected it. Almost. Then another thought came, sharp and tempting.
The media. His instinct immediately thought of the media. How the elites had controlled the right to dictate right and wrong, the right to explain, to define for centuries. How he had been using the media as his weapon ever since he graduated from college.
If the public learned Phong had built a hidden kingdom inside the dungeon, the world would descend on him. Investors, governments, military agencies - not army maybe, but special forces would surely be sent down. Corporations, research divisions, and political parties would flock the camp like flies around a rotten piece of meat. Predators with flags and predators with stock portfolios. They would tear open every secret, demand access, flood the gates, and make Phong's quiet little kingdom impossible to hide.
Human greed could be used like fire.
Josh could leak it.
No. Not just leak. He could shape it.
Frame it as illegal occupation. Treasonous dealings with dungeon monsters. A private army beneath American soil. A national security threat. A foreign-connected farmer building a sovereign territory in the world's most important strategic frontier.
The headlines wrote themselves.
Kitahara slapped the idea down before he spoke it.
"No."
Josh turned to her. He had not said anything. His mother's expression remained calm, but her voice hardened.
"Do not even think about snitching."
The Greencap captain's eyes narrowed, clearly understanding enough from tone if not thought.
Josh's mouth tightened. "If this became public—"
"You would ruin yourself."
"I would ruin him."
"You would alert him."
"That is not the same thing."
"It is worse." Kitahara leaned forward slightly. "Tell me, Josh. What do you do when Phong decides he no longer needs to hide?"
Josh said nothing.
Kitahara's voice remained quiet.
"What do you do if he steps out publicly and announces that Yuè exists? What do you do if he stands beside the lizardmen queen, the troll king, the Kamohai, the Tortura, the H'Re, the Wolven, and whichever Greencap faction still answers him, and says the gates are now political borders?"
Josh's jaw tightened.
"What do you do," she continued, "if he bans American divers from entering his controlled territories?"
"He can't ban—"
"US shouldn't be allowed to do most of the things it had done the past 100 years. Did it ever stop them?"
The room went silent.
Kitahara let the word sit.
"He can block gates with violence. With sieges, with dungeon fauna humans still classify as monsters, with plants surface researchers cannot reproduce, with logistics networks inside floors the government does not control. If he commands enough of the local lifeforms near Manhattan, then the US politicians would understand all too well that they had just been force fed their own medicine."
The Greencap captain smiled faintly on the screen.
Josh hated that she did.
Kitahara continued, each word measured.
"And if news of his kingdom becomes public, do you know what the politicians and wealthy donors will do?"
Josh did know. That was the problem. He saw it immediately, because he had lived among those people his entire life.
They would panic first. Then calculate. Then decide who could be sacrificed to calm the useful man.
Josh's throat felt tight.
"You think they would choose him?"
"Yes. They would witch hunt every last Harlan on US soil if it mean they would be considered the good guys in Phong's eyes." Kitahara said. "If Phong becomes the key to stable dungeon alliances, controlled routes, safe infrastructure, and possibly Floor Three expansion, then he becomes invaluable. Too valuable to alienate for your pride."
She did not soften the last word.
"If the public learns that he has a kingdom and that you have been attacking pieces of the same political map, the higher-ups will not rally to you out of loyalty. They will ask what apology, payment, prosecution, or sacrifice is required to ensure Phong's patriotism to the United States."
The word patriotism carried a faint edge.
Josh remembered Ashley Merriweather's failed attempt to recruit Team Nemean. He remembered that Phong was still Vietnamese. He remembered the way Hans Tannenbaum had stepped between power and coercion with the calm of a man who understood leverage better than law.
His stomach cooled.
"They would use me," Josh said.
Kitahara did not blink.
"Yes."
As a sacrificial lamb.
Because he would be cheaper than losing Phong.
That was how elites worked. They were your "friends" as long as you keep feeding them, and allowed them privileges. But if one asset threatened another asset of greater value, the smaller one was trimmed, sold, blamed, mourned publicly, and removed privately.
Josh looked back to the screen.
The Greencap captain was watching all of this with keen interest.
Kitahara folded her hands again.
"Phong is like a cobra hiding in grassland," she said. "To catch it, you do not rattle the grass. That gets you bitten. Then you die from the poison while congratulating yourself for bravery."
Josh said nothing.
"You let it be," she continued. "You locate it in the grass. You learn where it hunts, where it sleeps, where it thinks itself safe. Then you tighten the noose while the snake believes no one has seen it."
The Greencap captain's ears angled forward.
Kitahara turned slightly toward the screen.
"For now, we leave Phong be. We expand indirectly through Pioneer Squad Seven. We dive elsewhere. We build influence far from where he expects Josh to move."
Josh heard the warning underneath.
Phong would have prepared for him near the Manhattan gate.
Of course he would.
If Josh tried to recruit or conquer Greencap Bunnies near Phong's territory, Phong would be ready. And so would his ridiculous and growing armies of dungeon natives. Every absurd ally Phong had fed into existence waiting to turn Josh's push into another disaster.
Maybe even a killing field built specifically for him.
Josh remembered Daniel.
The thought came uninvited.
His father's corpse had been described in reports no one wanted to read twice. Bites, burns. A massacre with no proof Phong had ordered it, but with Phong's shadow over every unanswered question.
Josh clenched his hand under the table.
The Greencap captain spoke.
"The farmer's influence is strongest near the Manhattan routes and the lake network. If you wish to move against Greencap interests without stepping directly on his roots, Saitama is wiser."
Kitahara nodded. "Exactly."
Josh did not like being guided.
He liked it less when the guidance was correct.
"What do you want from us besides supplies?" he asked the captain.
"For now? Nothing public," she said. "I will not be seen as a pet of humans before I have gathered enough squads. Food and medicines first. Tools next. Then weapons. Then advisers, if your people know how to keep their mouths shut."
Josh almost smiled.
"You will find that expensive people usually do."
"No," the captain said. "Expensive people usually speak too much because they believe consequence is for others."
Kitahara laughed softly.
Josh did not.
The captain continued, "Bring divers if you must. But not fools who think Greencaps are animals. My warriors will tolerate trade. They will not tolerate handlers."
That, too, sounded like something Phong's world had infected.
Or perhaps the dungeon races had always been like that, and humans had simply never listened long enough to notice.
The call ended only after logistics were confirmed twice.
Three containers in Saitama gate. Food, clothing, tents, electronics.
No banners yet, no declarations. No visible alliance traceable or readable by Phong. Josh hated to admit it, but the stain he had looked down on had grown too big for him to control while he was busy thinking he had the world as his backups. And now, it was Josh who had to do the catching up.
When the screen went black, Josh remained seated.
Kitahara waited.
At last he said, "How long have you known?"
"About Phong's kingdom?"
"About all of it."
She tilted her head slightly. "Long enough to know that brute force against the dungeon locals is inefficient. Not when human armies are forbidden from walking the dungeon."
"That is not an answer."
"No," she said. "It is the answer you get right now."
He looked at her.
His mother's calm did not waver.
"You still think of the dungeon as a place to enter, win, and exit," Kitahara said. "Phong thinks of it as a place to live. That is why he is dangerous."
Josh's scar pulsed.
"And you?"
"I think of it as a market." She stood. "Markets can be entered. Studied. Distorted. Captured."
That was his mother.
Not farmer-king, hero. Not conqueror either. She was a predator with skin of silk.
The next morning, Josh traveled to Saitama.
He did not bring Olen.
Olen remained behind, pale and furious in recovery, already fitted for the early stages of a mana-tech prosthetic his father had demanded be better than the limb he lost. The Necromancer claimed he would use the recovery period to recruit more people for the upcoming stage of the tournament and adjust to the prosthetic once it arrived. He had started looking for potential addition in the West Coast and had found some interesting candidates.
Josh accepted that.
He needed Olen useful, not resentful and stumbling through a foreign gate missing half a leg.
The two remaining Brooklyn Knights did not come either.
One had withdrawn before sunrise, signing the papers with shaking hands. The other lasted until a counselor mentioned returning to controlled dungeon exposure and began laughing in a way that made the staff call security. Watching two teammates erased from reality had broken something in them that wealth, contracts, and pride could not repair.
They gave up being divers.
Josh hated them for it. How dare meat shields had inconvenient self-preservation when they were already paid and allowed the privileges of elites circle? Then, somewhere deeper than pride, he decided that he need to focus on someone else - a certain farmer who had built a kingdom beneath everyone nose.
He brought Andre, Mathias, and Shirlene.
The standing pieces of his coalition.
The old Boston Jokers carried their own damage. Andre was quieter than before. Mathias kept checking the edges of shadows as if the double irises eyes might open there. Shirlene wore a glove over her left hand where the pinky had vanished from existence, her face pale whenever she forgot not to look at it.
But they came.
Because ambition had its own hooks. Because fear of falling behind could be stronger than fear of dying. Because Team Nemean had killed a legacy boss, and everyone with eyes knew the next stage would belong to those who moved before the announcement made cowards of the rest.
Adam Choi had stayed behind. He was more useful in the backline studying their opponents, devising strategies.
At the private terminal, Josh paused before boarding.
His reflection in the glass showed the new scar clearly.
A banner's answer.
He touched it once.
Then dropped his hand.
The dungeon was not a wilderness anymore. It was a map of hidden states, hungry factions, sleeping kings, and alliances no human government fully understood. It was a chess board with native species as pieces, and currently, only had 2 known players: Phong and his mother.
Josh stepped onto the plane for Saitama with the stolen war banners secured in his cargo and the first containers already moving ahead of him. For once, he was not walking toward the easiest fight. He hated that. But he could no longer afford anything else.