Demonic Po*nstar System

Chapter 909: Making Big Moves

Figuring out how to proceed took Kaiden’s leadership circle less than an hour, because for all the bickering packed around those two plastic tables, the people sitting at them were frighteningly efficient once their collective future entered the discussion.

By the time the construction crews rotated shifts outside, the plan had three legs.

”Sponsors first,” Nyx said, turning her laptop so the table could see the shortlist she’d distilled from four hundred messages. Three names survived her initial culling. ”I sent out feelers earlier. All three replied within minutes, which tells you everything about our current market value.”

”Second,” Aria took over. ”We need consistent revenue for the guild. That’s a time-demanding move, but what we can do is make use of the twenty dungeons the Association owes us. Our people can clear some of them to harvest materials and train, and anything we don’t have the staff to run ourselves can be leased to smaller guilds for recurring income.”

”Twenty dungeons...” Alexandra repeated faintly, still not used to the scale of anything anymore.

”Which brings us to the problem.” Luna spun her phone on the table and caught it. ”We have a scary roster of high-tier awakeneds now, but absolutely nothing under it. Vespera’s people run the offices, Talia’s smiths make swords, and no offense to Tessa’s crew, but if we send them into anything above a C-gate, we’re doing a funeral, not a dungeon clear.”

”None taken by anyone present,” Nyx noted.

”We need bodies. Fighters, a lot of them, but also the boring stuff. Accountants. Logistics nerds. People who know what a permit is.”

”That’s not a high bar. Even I know what a permit is,” Calypso said, mildly wounded.

”You learned yesterday.”

”And now I know.”

”Knowing what a term refers to isn’t the same as...” Bastet couldn’t even be bothered to finish her own sentence, giving up halfway.

”So we announce we’re hiring,” Aria said. ”Every guild does it. There’s a board for it on the Association network.”

”There is, but that’s the basic bitch move. So boring...” Luna said, and then the grin arrived, the specific one she wore before ruining a ranked lobby’s evening. ”Kai...”

”Hm?”

”We haven’t posted anything since we left the facility. Do you have any idea what the internet looks like right now? Are we hiding in our dungeon? Under Vespera’s skirt? Or are we celebrating? Are we high on our new tiers? What are we doing?” She let the thought dangle. ”So many people are simply waiting for us to post an update...”

Kaiden looked at her, and the shape of the idea assembled itself in his head. ”Instead of going for the bland forum posts normal guilds use... What if we post the recruitment call ourselves, huh?”

”The entire planet reads our job listing within the hour, for free, and no sponsor on Earth could buy us that reach.” Nyx’s smile went wicked. ”Gremlin Bestie might have a truly foul mouth on her, and her brain is filled with obscene thoughts that should never see the light of day-”

”Oi. Fatty.” Luna was not amused.

But Nyx ignored her, save for a smug little twitch of her lips as she finished, ”-but on rare occasions, a coherent thought does form...”

”...Someone wants a beating...” The Storm Valkyrie growled under her breath.

”It also answers the question whether Kai is scared of what just happened, as many must suspect,” Alexandra spoke up. ”A man hiding from cosmic horrors does not post job ads.”

”Then it can’t read like a job ad,” Aria said. ”No corporate voice. We tell the truth. The headquarters is a tent. The dog broke a walkway.”

Luna cackled. ”Oh, that’s good. Put that in.”

”The role for Kai’s personal chef must be listed as taken,” Alice chimed from the dark halo above his head, the ring pulsing once with grave importance. ”Permanently. I refuse to interview replacements.”

”Noted,” Kaiden said dryly.

They built it together in just a few minutes, Nyx trimming Luna’s memes down to the two that were actually funny, Alexandra discreetly fixing the formatting, Vespera vetoing exactly one sentence about the guild’s finances and allowing the joke that replaced it.

When it was done, Kaiden read it through one last time and looked up at his girls, at the tent, at the two plastic tables holding up the entire administrative weight of America’s most watched guild.

”There’s no time to waste,” he said, and clicked the upload button.

...

The group line had been open in Sarah’s mind for the third hour straight, which had become standard procedure this week, because nobody on Valhalla’s Sinners’ support staff wanted to face the world alone right now.

At the edge of her vision, the awakened channel’s ban queue refilled itself the moment she cleared it. The fandom had not handled hours of silence well after what had just happened.

”Banned,” Leia declared from her end of the line, with the weary grandeur of an executioner working a double shift. ”Another doomsday prophet. This one had a graphic. That’s four hundred today.”

”The sentiment numbers of what the viewers think Kai must feel are really bad,” Emily reported in a small voice. ”Fear is outrunning excitement three to one.”

The feeds had been like this since the weird creature appeared above Earth, which was instantly followed up by Kaiden’s new designation...

Every talking head in the country had aged a decade on air, and panels of experts were debating whether the Anomaly-tier designation came with a legal obligation to live on a military base.

The Sinners’ pages, Kaiden’s verified Association channel, and Eclipse’s brand-new official guild account had all gone silent.

The most powerful man alive had watched the sky open above him, walked out of the Association building, driven away in a van, and gone completely quiet.

The world did not know what to do with that, so it had chosen collective psychosis.

”You do all realize he’s doing it on purpose, right?” Leia said, savoring her own theory syllable by syllable. ”The man has the best dramatic instincts of anyone alive. Every hour of silence makes the eventual post hit harder. We are witnessing showmanship, ladies. I would bet my salary on it.”

”But... what if he’s not okay?” Emily asked quietly, and the call’s energy dipped, because she’d said the thing the other two had been carefully not saying. ”Even he could be affected by all that happened... What if he’s sitting somewhere dark right now?”

Nobody banned anyone for a few seconds.

”He has the girls,” Sarah said at last, gently. ”He has his mom. He’s fine, Em.”

”I know. I know he does. I just wish he’d say something. Anything at all...”

Three feeds detonated at the same instant.

Emily screamed out loud.

”POST! POST! IT’S A POST!”

It was a photo.

Kaiden Grey, the Anomaly, the man whose class had a cosmic horror for a source, was sitting on a white plastic folding chair inside what was unmistakably a construction site tent. He was grinning at the camera like he didn’t have a single problem in the world.

Behind him stood his women, and every single one of them was grinning too. Nyx parked her two enormous bazookas on his shoulders, chin on his head, being pushed away by a dark halo.

Luna was throwing bunny ears behind Aria’s head. The demoness had one arm slung around the cat girl’s shoulders.

In the back corner of the frame, unsmiling, stood the Shadow Monarch herself, and somehow her refusal to pose with the rest made the whole picture funnier.

At the very edge of the tent flap, out of focus, one of six enormous burning eyes was peeking in.

The headline above it all read:

’WE’RE HIRING!’

”What the fuck?” Leia spoke after ten long seconds.

Sarah was already reading.

’Eclipse is recruiting.’

’FIGHTERS: Awakened combatants of any tier are welcome to join, but fair warning: We aim for the very top, and a guild with our ambitions does not attract ordinary enemies. Apply only if you are willing to stand against whatever the mana apocalypse throws at humanity next, and against whatever humanity itself throws at Eclipse.’

’EVERYONE ELSE: Operations, logistics, finance, administration, engineering, medical, kitchen staff, dungeon management. A guild runs on the people standing behind the ones throwing the fireballs.’

’WHAT WE OFFER, HONESTLY: salaries that are, at present, average. A headquarters that is, at present, a tent. A cashflow that would make our accountant cry, if we had one. A commute that includes a guardian beast the size of a mansion who has already destroyed one (1) walkway and will sit near you without warning. He means well.’

’WHAT NOBODY ELSE CAN OFFER: Eclipse will become the greatest guild this world has ever seen. Join now, and when that day comes, you’ll be able to say you were here when headquarters was two plastic tables and a power strip.’

’Applications through the link below. Interviews begin at the earliest possible date. Follow the signs. Mind the dog.’

’- Kaiden Grey, Guild Leader, Eclipse’

’P.S. Due to facing serious threats (deadly pouts) I could no longer ignore, I must add that the Guild Leader’s personal chef position is taken. Permanently.’

Silence held the call for a full three seconds.

”He’s okay,” Emily said, thick with tears she wasn’t bothering to hide.

”The dog is in the frame!” Leia shouted.

”The dog’s eye is in the frame,” Sarah confirmed, reading the walkway line for the third time as the accumulated dread of the past hours left her body all at once, replaced by relief so complete it felt vaguely stupid. ”The whole world is writing think pieces about whether he’s a threat to the species, and he posted a job ad from a flimsy tent.”

”I told you,” Leia breathed, vindication and awe wrestling over her voice. ”The showman let the entire planet lean in, and then he dropped a fucking JOB AD.”

Then she just began laughing manically. ”Hahaha! This is too good!”

”The application portal just crashed,” Sarah reported. ”Nineteen seconds. It survived nineteen seconds.”

On the news broadcast she kept pinned at the edge of her vision, a live panel cut from ’containment scenarios’ to dead air as all four guests read their phones at once. The retired general’s face lost a brief war against a smile while the anchor started laughing on camera.

...

An hour after the post went live, the compound was louder than ever, and Kaiden walked through the middle of it with his mother at his side.

Concrete panels had climbed visibly since the morning, dozens of workers crossing paths under the cranes. Every one of them found a moment to not look directly at the two of them, in the specific way people don’t look at things they’re desperately curious about.

”The researchers will arrive within hours,” Vespera said.

”I’ll set my monsters on watch duty. Can I leave the screening to you?” They had to ensure none of them carried items they didn’t approve of.

”Yes.”

”...Thanks. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

”Nothing. You wouldn’t exist.”