Chapter 110: Following a Theory

“Howdy, it’s been a minute.” I waved as I walked into the Hungry Wolves Hunting Guild. I already had the gear provided to me from my deal with Nina, and it was time to test it in a combat environment. The gear had its own mana stores which could be recharged with batteries and mana crystal, so it wouldn’t be taxing to my limited mana stores. 

I also wanted to visit a well-dungeon-populated celestial body to experiment with the dungeon cores on it. Getting a ship and doing a stealth trip was on the table, but being around people gave me a safety net that I appreciate in my weakened state.

Of course, I could try and set up something with Nina, but I felt that I was already pushing the limit with the favours. 

If I did accidentally destroy a dungeon core, then I just had to keep quiet about it. It wasn’t illegal to destroy cores on a non-company-owned moon. A number of cores did get destroyed accidentally over the years just from the after-effects of powerful area-of-effect attacks. 

At the counter was Mern, the owner of this establishment. He replied, “I guess it has been a while.” 

I walked up to the counter. “Pretty empty in here.” From my repeated visits, this place was normally on the emptier side of establishments but still usually had a few people around.

Mern solemnly nodded. “Most of the regulars have taken a vacation, along with Ketty, so I’m manning the counter while she is gone.”

“What happened?” I asked. From his tone, it seemed something serious happened. 

“Petly passed away on a mission.”

“She did?” I replied, surprised. I remembered she was the oldest person in the guild and was considered the strongest out of the regulars that came here. I didn’t know her exact level, but it was certainly up there, as I remembered people even guessing she was likely higher than me. Even though that guess was certainly wrong, she must’ve been high for them to suggest that.

I couldn’t comment much on her as a person, as I barely knew her, but she seemed very well-liked by everyone, and from my small interactions, she was a nice, if loud person. 

“But let’s not rest on negative topics; you came here for something. What do you need?”

“Yes, I wanted to see the list of your deployments.” I had an ideal location I wanted to go to, and I hoped it would be on the list.

My talk with Mern didn’t last long, but there were a few deployments that met my criteria. So I signed up for one of them and went back on my way.

Later on, back at home in my room, I had time to look through the data Nina sent, and the speculative information about Dominous Hood was extensive. 

Maybe I should ask who she is working with next time.

The information was so palpable that there had to be a whole operation behind it, and I couldn’t tell if it was directed by Nina or if she was just part of a collective that had been investigating. 

Espr do you have any colour commentary on that?

(“ Human politics is something I have little knowledge or interest in ”)

Fair, but who knows, one of your potential sources might know something.

(“ Good theory ”)

Espe went silent, leaving me hanging for the joke of it. Though I didn’t believe Espoiramissa had any actual information it could provide. Whenever it did talk about humanity and civilisation, it was usually in broad strokes rather than anything specific about planets or organisations. Even if Espr did have the reach to acquire such information, I doubt it ever went out of its way to do so out of pure disinterest.

Sigh… Anyway, they seem to have been up to a lot.

From the data, it followed Nina’s theory that they had been active for a long time. Not some ancient level of time, but anywhere between twenty and forty years before they went public.

Now, while the information had a list of cases they suspected Dominous Hood to be involved in, nothing was proven. Which made conveying any of that information to the public infuriatingly difficult.

From a public point of view, Dominous Hood had a relatively good reputation. It wasn’t perfect, as they were still considered somewhere between a terrorist and a vigilant group, but it was better than I would’ve liked. The reason for this was complicated. From harsh laws that prevented misinformation, which even included speculation, from being spread in many countries and planets–which meant they couldn’t be blamed for anything that was potentially them without proof. So any cases they were known for were the ones that painted them in the positive-ish light, like dealing with a shady company type shit. 

There were other reasons, of course. Nina had a long list of media outlets, politicians, etc, that were believed to have been bribed. There was the donation front they were a part of. It was easy for me to call them the worst pieces of shit in the universe, but that would simply be as effective as screaming into the void. They had done their best to have a good public image, and they could go fuck themselves for that.

Though… there is that option.

Of course, nothing was universal; plenty of people disliked even the publicly known actions of the group, and people did discuss the possible other illegal shit the group was a part of. It was as easy as going onto some online forums to see that. However, the issue remained that it wasn’t the majority's opinion. 

In an annoying twist of fate, my experience with the group made a great source of evidence. Though that would require opening up my family to more danger, and I couldn’t do that. Anyway, it was easier to murder the whole organisation than to convince people to change their minds, so that was my choice.

Continuing down the information spiral into the motives and patterns section. Their tendency to acquire artefacts–again while not proven–was heavily suspected. 

Nina had written that she knew they would eventually come after her. Whether that was because of her status or the artefact she possessed, I can’t say I knew much about the staff Nina had before it was stolen, but I knew it was something powerful.

From the files she gave me, they had no idea why they were acquiring these artefacts, only that she prioritised dungeon artefacts over man-made items. Dungeon-found artefacts definitely felt different for me; they weren’t necessarily more powerful, but usually there were. And from the knowledge I gained from Espr, I knew that was because they were connected to somewhere else, which granted them the ability to restore their own mana and who knows what else.

Maybe I should send that bit of information to Nina...

There was also a disturbing piece of information that the crime rate had increased by over 3000% across the universe in the last forty years. This was something Nina had written to be suspected to be Dominous Hood’s doing. Now this didn’t mean these groups even worked with Dominous Hood, but just the group helped them start up. Again, there was no proof and/or even good evidence, only speculation, but the crime rate doesn’t go up that much without a bloody good reason.

“Sigh, you know, what? Fuck the laws sometimes.”

(“ You can’t fuck a rule ”)

Not yet. 

(“ True, do you want me to help make that feasible? ”)

What..?

I tried to be funny, but Espr just left me confused with the slapback that my brain couldn’t compute.

It took a few days, but I hopped onto the operation onto a moon that had multiple domain dungeons on it. I didn’t stay around long and went to find a far-off domain dungeon that I knew people were likely to visit.

I said hello to the people from the guild who joined. They were happy to see I was still alive.

Very quickly I split off to begin my experiment.

“Let’s make this quick.” I no longer had access to [Burst], which was a huge loss to my movement; even if I kept it, I couldn’t justify using my mana for it as it would be a waste. Instead, I relied on my enhanced physical abilities for movement.

Now, while still having my physical abilities was a boon, there was the massive issue that I used [Burst] as my primary evasive technique, and that was now lost to me.

I created Starlight weapons and shields and made my way to a domain. This was an opportunity to test my fighting capabilities. 

Upon reaching the area, I quickly began my combat test.

With starlight weapons in hand, I sliced through the waves of monsters. Annoyingly, they were too slow for me to actually practice dodging under my restraints, but that wasn’t my primary   so I continued the killing.

Once the waves had been dealt with, I made my way to the core. I could feel its presence with my soul   and it was a little way underground, so I spent a few minutes digging it up.

“Found it.” I pulled the large blue sphere from the ground and held it in my hands.

(“ Your only option is to shatter or leave it ”)

Espoiramissa said, with no worry or concern, found in its voice.

What if I used its mana for myself? It would be a good power source.

I didn’t directly state I would try to absorb the core. Using it as a battery made perfect sense from my question point of view.

(“ Humanity could never utilise a dungeon core as a source of mana before. You are in no position to change that ”) 

Espr harshly stated. I could feel it nearly wanting to laugh.

Not yet…

Now was I the person who was about to start the revolution in being able to use mana cores as a power source? Likely no, but there had to be something with it that I could utilise to solve my problem.

I poked and fiddled with the dungeon’s core. I felt a resistance as the core pushed back with intent, but my ferocity wouldn’t be hampered by that. The last time I was this close to a dungeon’s core, I didn’t dare touch it as I didn’t want to break it, but this time, I didn’t hold the same feelings. If it broke in my attempts to take its secrets, I would just have to find another one. 

My soul pressure wrapped around it, and then I felt something snap, then reconnect. As I moved my soul pressure around, I felt that repeating snapping and connecting feeling from the core. I utilise my increased understanding of mana that I had gained over my recent experiences of holding large quantities and my training with storing excess mana to delve deep into the core.

During one of those snapping feelings, I gave up a little bit of mana to examine the core further.

“It’s a fake…” At the very least what was in front of me wasn’t as real as it seemed to be.

(“ Don’t you think it was a little rude to keep invading its privacy? ”)

Like you care what happens to it.

(“ Oh why is that? Is it because what is in front of you is simply a glass projection? ”)

No, I don't think you would care either way if this was a fake or the real deal. 

Espr didn’t care about most things and I doubted other Dungeon Cores held any more importance simply because they were Dungeon Cores… 

So, Espr, tell me what exactly is in front of me?

(“ A Dungeon Core ”)

More.

(“ A shiny dungeon core ”)

Details on why what is in front of me is not real. Even the extra cores you created on your body had more presence than this. I assumed that was because of your power, which may be true, but that felt real. What is in front of me feels fake; I didn’t originally; even every core I had seen before never felt this way, but now that I have noticed it, I can’t un-notice how empty this core feels, and if I check those other cores again, they are likely going to feel the same way to me.

It was a simple situation: once you noticed something, it could never be unseen. I could never notice it before, as it required an advance search with my soul pressure and mana, using everything I had learned about both to notice. 

(“ Well ”)

Well?

(“ You already know the answer ”)

Sigh…

Espr was right. I had a guess for the answer, and if it was so confident I already knew, then it must be an obvious one.

“It’s a damn projection, like everything else apparently.”

Bobple

Power went out then spent a whole day travelling around getting test done, fun, got stabbed a lot.

Chapter wise. I know the whole public facing PR Shit of DH has never been a greatly explained or written thing. Downside of only having the basics of the story planned out. (I do plan on writing stories were I do plan a lot more out from the beginning, that will be fun challenge). If I did rewrite the story (Which realistically would never happen) I would rework that plot point.

One thing about this arc that I am happy with, is that the average word count for this is arc is around 1850. Which has made me happy, considering last arc was around 1300 words average. 500 more words on average is a lot, and has helped me make sure that certain chapter plot beats are actually finished in a chapter. (Last arc it felt like for me there was a lot of not much happening chapters). Overall, I am happier with this arc so far, even if chapter upload rate could be more consistent. 

No chapter next week, for the obvious holiday related reasons.