The Stargazing Witch & The Dungeon Planet
Side Chapter Hood 4: Victory and a Loss

Side Chapter Hood 4: Victory and a Loss

Far away in a different galaxy was a man wearing a casual business suit, his brown hair combed back and his silver eyes focused on the image of certain staff that was now put away for the time being.

“Do we know if it was a leak?” He turned away from his phone, deleting the image and looked at his assistant who was in charge of sorting through the information being sent his way.

“Not currently. From the live reports before the facility got destroyed, it seems the teleportation device was forcibly activated by some method outside the standard access.”

“That still means there was a chance a leak occurred.” The manager replied, “How many knew of the particular devices' locations.” He asked, knowing about the protocols put in place on Earth.

“Out of the sixty teleportation devices located in the state of Aras, it was policy for low and mid-low members to know about five devices. However, the portal that was forcibly activated was known to fifteen members.”

“Isn’t fifteen too high? How did that even happen?” The manager sighed, annoyed the protocol they made for their own portal devices wasn’t followed. Dominous Hood had many methods of commencing their operation on planets and moons. The portal pads were an invention of Juptar’s commander and members of the technical division. The downside was that they required Juptar’s commander to activate them. Which was why they were only used on Earth. However, they did have other easy-to-use methods of transportation for different areas, and there was a purpose to the non-uniform approach to their transportation methods.

“Correct, however, the spacing between the portals made it difficult to travel. Aras was one of the first locations we set up. While this means we had a lot of political power, bribes, and blackmail, the faults in the physical setup remained unfixed. I apologise.”

“That’s not your fault,” he excused the apology. “So can we find out if any of these fifteen were the ones to leak the information?”

“Out of the fifteen, only six remain. The other nine have gone missing, believed to be a part of the casualties at the Newcastle recovery or Juptar destruction.”

“Okay let me know if anything comes up,” the manager dismissed the assistant.

“Understood.” She nodded and left the room.

The manager sighed and pulled up his phone. This was of course a special phone that held no purpose outside of connecting to Hood software. Each time after he saw an image it immediately got deleted in case something ever happened to it.

The manager was happy with the success of the mission, it was one step closer to their next goal for that project. 

Dominous Hood had many projects and missions currently ongoing, and while he wasn’t in charge of any of them directly, he was the supervisor of multiple of them, which meant they all reported the documents to him. 

Then his phone began to ring, and recognising the number he answered. “Hello, Zeye.”

“Good day to yourself sir, I heard there was trouble, is any support needed?”

“Trouble seems to be handled, but the mission has been completed and our forces have retreated so nothing to worry about. Has everything been well for you? You must have settled into your recent promotion from a year ago now, no complaints headed your way yet?”

The individual over the call sighed, “There have been some complaints about my former partner and suggestions he should work under me 'cause I can ‘control him’. 

“Thomas was always a wild one. Effective and loyal, but wild nonetheless.” The manager smiled, remembering when the two of them worked directly under him years ago. 

Zeye asked, “You want a report on his situation sir?”

“You know you can’t do that, different departments alltogether.” The manager chuckled, “I will say hello to him myself when I get the time.”

“Fair enough,” Zeye replied.

“Maybe if Thomas gets promoted the three of us could have lunch together like old times, when you two were youngsters.”

“Sir, three things. One we were twenty, you twenty-eight, you're making it sound like we were kids and you the dad. Two Thomas getting promoted above his current level is a dream that everyone would deem impossible. Third, that does sound nice, I will see if I can get permission for that one day.”

The manager laughed, “It might be a few more years, with the current development of Projects Arm, Lim and Deve, I doubt we will have free time to do that for at least… hmm… three to five years?”

Then the manager heard a beep on his coms. “Talk later Zeye.”

“Understand, take care.” The phone hung up and the manager called out, “You may enter.”

The assistant had re-entered the room, “Hello, new information has arrived.”

“Good, what do we know?”

“Juptar’s commander, Haru is confirmed dead. We also haven't been able to recovery the mana furnace from his body yet, we are thinking it may've been destroyed. It is also suspected the leak came from a higher ranking source, which further expands the net which needs to be searched. The reasoning for this was the point of view of one of the team leaders who was beside Haru, the assailant went straight for Haru once he moved out. This is not confirmed to be the leak, however, but it merely strengthens a potential possibility.”

“A possibility that we still must take account of.” The manager sighed, knowing the extra work that was headed their way. “What about the assailant? Are they alive and do we know anything about them?”

“No to both, we suspect Haru tried throwing the assailant into the void of space so the status of the assailant is currently unknown. Information on the assailant is also lacking, we know they have Fire-related abilities and combat strength to rival multiple tiers 7~8 simultaneously and also have a large array of wide area destruction capabilities. Proven from the mass casualties and the destruction of the moon itself. All attempts at appraisal were met with failure as well.”

“Hmmm… cross reference it and see if anything comes out.” The manager ordered. It was sad to lose such a powerful ally in Haru, but they just had to hope his final gambit took down the adversary, otherwise it would've a lacklustre use of such a power skill. 

“Understood, would you like anything else to be done, sir?”

“Actually yes, inform the project Lim leader to add this individual to the list, if they don’t already, and work with them to track them down if they are still alive. Finally, could I get a statement on what Project Arm’s management is going to do about the recent auction being held on Vector Prime?” 

“Understood, they shall be done.” The assistant left the room again.

The manager alone again sighed. “Why can’t this be easy sometimes?”

“Well anyway, to the glory of Dominous Hood.” He picked up his glass and smiled. Remembering the first meeting he had with the two he called youngsters, a fond member to do this day, “We really should meet up.”