In a certain place on a certain land, a single figure was inside a torch-lit room, thoroughly pondering. It was a man with long, unkempt blood-red hair who seemed to be in his late twenties. He was Kolben, the leader of the underground syndicate, Five Headed Hydra. Kolben was visibly not in his mood, always wearing an irritated face. After all, the plan to make the Kingdom of Astley a puppet state of the organization had become a massive failure once the civil war broke out. It was not even relatively long since their human trafficking headquarters, which were situated in Astley, were raided by the authorities of the combined nations. The capture of Sabrina, the head of that division, was a great loss to the organization. She was then later retrieved by the selfish decision of her lover, Mordred, of the assassination division. In addition, before the raid happened, their drug-related and smuggling operations in the Dwarfen Kingdom were busted, and the head of the black market division was arrested alongside them. Their plan to control the Dwarfen Kingdom ended up being a failure as well. Their plan was to gain control of the Northern Continent by slowly corrupting the nations above it. Former Dwarfen Commerce Minister Alt Furs, the head of the syndicate’s black market, was to take over the royal family step by step and cooperate with Astley’s late crown prince, Richard XVI, for allowing the syndicate to freely operate in the shadows. But they miserably failed, and both of them ended up either heavily confined or dying. Their fall was also the fall of the Five Headed Hydra. Currently, they were struggling to keep up their routine in spite of losing so many assets. (Bad things keep happening one after another.) 𝘪.𝑐ℴ𝘮
On his desk, as he clasped his hands under his chin, Kolben could not help but ponder the series of unfortunate events their organization had been through recently. For all the problems their syndicate was facing, Kolben had been stressed out and always wearing a sour face. (For some reasons, those things suspiciously happened in short intervals. The capture of Alt, the raid of the slave market headquarters, and the loss and demise of the crown prince in the revolution must be connected with one another.) Due to the strange sequence of their downfall, Kolben speculated that there might be some connections between them. All the oddities happened within just a matter of a year, which strengthened his intuition that there was someone who was messing up with the Five Headed Hydra. (If there was really someone, who and how?)
He and his organization had been thinking of it lately, but they still could not point out a hint of their identity. No matter how far and deep Velfast investigated, he could not find a hint. ((Kolben.))
“—?!” As he was in deep thought, a man’s voice suddenly rang out in his mind. He was thinking so deeply that the voice actually surprised him a bit.
Nevertheless, Kolben immediately recomposed himself, crossed his arms, and answered the Telepathy call, as the person he was talking to was someone above him, a person who he had been obliged to follow. The Five Headed Hydra was actually not the whole organization itself; the syndicate was just a fraction of a bigger entity. In this world, Hydra was not the most powerful monster. There was always the bigger fish, thereby labeling the syndicate as inferior. ((What do you want this time?)) As if annoyed, Kolben responded to the caller with irritation in his tone. Even though he was a lot bigger than him, for some reasons, Kolben truly despised the man, and he was not afraid of portraying his hatred toward him. ((Ku ku. I heard that the Five Headed Hydra had suffered a drastic loss in the Kingdom of Astley, so you must be frustrated right now.))
((Don’t try to mock me. I’m quite busy; state your business this instant.)) Due to the consecutive failures, the activities of the Five Headed Hydra had lessened terribly. Even though Sabrina had come back, Kolben could not find the right people to appoint as the new head of the black market division, which was momentarily being managed by Sabrina. All of the upper echelons of the organization were in desperation. Despite all of that, there was no help from the higher-ups. That was one of the things Kolben had been pissing off. ((Alright, hear me out. I got a new mission for you.))
((Really, at this time? I have been carrying this burden of a syndicate for a decade as your order, and now you want to do another mission for you? This syndicate has been facing problems, and I have no hands for your demands.))
((Don’t worry, Kolben. It’s something related to your revenge.))
((…))
As soon as the man mentioned that word, Kolben was rendered silent for several seconds. Personally, he really did not want to manage the Five Headed Hydra, as he was only focused on one thing: revenge. He sought vengeance from the ones who killed the person he loved and cared about the most. But the man told him to forget about it, as it was a foolish idea. The reason why he despised the man was that Kolben thought that he let that person die.
((Ho ho. Not interested in it?)) ((Tell me more about it.)) ((Very well. You know that we had given the crown prince of Astley those crystals, yes?)) .
((Yeah, I know.)) ((Apparently, out of desperation, he used them during the revolution and got a massive boost for himself. Since he was basically borrowing my powers, I could see what he was seeing during that time.)) The crystals that Richard used actually contained a fraction of the man’s powers. For that reason, the man was able to connect his powers and use them as a link to gain access to his vision. In layman’s terms, it was a hacker creating a public WiFi hotspot to breach the connected devices. ((I saw him fighting and witnessed his humiliation. He was so pitiful that time, but amusing to watch. But suddenly, I lost connection with him. I find it strange since cutting that connection could not be that easy.)) ((So what do you want me to do?)) ((Kolben, I want you to investigate his opponent, Raphael Raevender.))
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