Failure

[Total damage dealt: 1223]

[Camouflaged Ghoul HP: 0/500]

[Camouflaged Ghoul killed! Exp +50]

[Total Exp: 510/1300]

[Congratulations! You've completed the daily quest. Exp +100]

[Total Exp: 610/1300]

"1200 damage... overkill much?" Zaen smiled. His new dagger didn't disappoint him at all. Thanks to it, he was able to get rid of the ghouls sooner than he had expected.

[Your rewards for completing the mission have been added to the inventory.]

[2/500 souls have been collected and stored with the Bloodlust Dagger.]

"It's better to fix the mask and slip out of here before anyone notices me." Zaen mumbled before using the repair toolkit he earned as a reward for completing the quest, "Oh... one rare tool kit can restore 300 points worth of durability. Let's just use one and save the rest for future use. The mask of secrecy is very important for me to hunt the ghouls without getting spotted. It was getting a bit troublesome to go on without it."

He then equipped the mask, and his reflection disappeared from the glass window he had been standing in front of.

"I still can't believe it's all real. Well... time to leave now."

***

A couple of hours later...

"What do you mean there are no more specimens! There were supposed to be five of them, at the very least!" Tom slammed his fists on the wooden desk, shattering it into minuscule bits, "Are you Impounders so incompetent that you can't even recover a single live specimen!"

There were five groups of Impounders present in the room. Each of the groups had 3 members in them, yet none of them had an answer for their poor performance. They had always been proud of their 100% success rate but in that week alone, they failed three tasks... no they failed all of the tasks given to them. Overall, it was just a small dent in their fame, but the missions they had failed were crucial for future missions.

First, Chris was defeated by an unknown attacker. Then they failed to recover a crucial witness, who had proof that could jeopardize their operations in the long term and now... they failed to recover a single alive ghoul specimen. So much for being perfectionists. It was obvious why Tom was so upset. They needed to recover one living specimen to test their new product on, but all they could recover was a half-turned dead ghoul.

"Chief, turn the frown upside down!" Mary, the scientist, chuckled while licking her favourite Blueberry-Jasmine flavoured lollipop, "Things aren't as bad as you think they are. We'll get new ghouls in no time. We just have to wait for a rift to open and-"

"You think of the rifts as supermarkets, don't you?" Tom snarled at her, "Do you have any idea how many people lost their lives to open the one rift we had been hoping to open? The last time we tried to forcefully open a rift, a tainted ghoul appeared. Thankfully we were able to stop it before much damage was done to the base. But-"

"Of course I think of rifts as nothing more than shopping malls." Mary's bubbly demeanour evaporated in an instant. It felt as if she was replaced by someone else. She threw the lollipop to the ground and threatening took a step towards Tom, "I don't give a sh*t about the people you lost. Neither does the Fist. All they care about are results, results that only I can provide. What do you think will happen when they get to learn about the incompetent soldiers you have been wasting their money to raise? You better start showing some results, sir. Or else their failure will lead to your demise."

"You-" Tom gritted his teeth to let out his anger. But was reminded to calm by Mary.

No matter how much he wanted to, he couldn't lay a finger on Mary, because she was under the protection of the Fist. Unlike him, Mary wasn't the Fist's hound dog, she was an important piece for them. Either way, right now Mary had switched with her second personality, so Tom couldn't anything other than taking her barrage of verbal slaps.

While her first personality was that of a sweet innocent child who always did what Tom told her to, her second personality was that of a total witch. Whenever she switched to that personality, she got unbearable. She knew what she had to do and would stop at nothing to achieve her goals.

She also had a third personality, but Tom had only seen her once on the day Mary became an underling to the Fist. And frankly, he never wanted to see her turn into 'that' ever again.

The Impounders were shocked as well. It was the first time they had seen someone talk so rudely to the Chief. It was even more shocking that the Chief didn't retaliate, but kept taking her abuse. They were merely foot soldiers, thus they were not aware of the hierarchy bestowed upon them by the Fist. Hell, they didn't even know what exactly the Fist even was. All they knew was that it was an organisation that paid them for doing tasks no one else could.

"If you need anything, I'll be in the lab." Mary turned around to leave the chamber, "I suggest rather than wasting your time hoping that someone would step up to claim the reward for being the 'Unknown Hero', you better start looking for him yourself. I have a feeling that he was the one who killed Chris as well as the other ghouls. Or would you like the Fist to deploy their private forces to investigate your failures?"

Tom burst out in rage the moment she walked out. And he directed that rage on the Impounders. Because of their failures, he was humiliated by a girl half his age.

"What are you fcking waiting for? GO AND FIND THE BASTARD RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS!!!"

"Y-Yes, sir!" The Impounders roared in unison before hurrying out of the chamber. The only problem was, they didn't know where to look for a man they had never seen before.

Tom's phone rang as soon as he was alone, "That fcking wh*re, she reported it already!?"

He took a deep breath to calm himself down before answering the call.

"Tom, you have disappointed us." Lady Five's voice echoed through the speaker, "I wonder what should we do with you and your failure of a squad."

"Ma'am, with all-"

"Did I give you the permission to open your filthy mouth?"

"..."

"Let me make one thing clear to you. You're nothing more than our dog. You bark when we tell you to, you bite whoever we want you to, and you eat sh*t when we tell you to. We don't need a dog that keeps barking unnecessarily, is that clear?"

"Yes ma'am. Crystal clear."

"Good. I assume you at least know why I happen to call you?"

"..."

"Right. I forgot your team failed to do anything that was asked of them. So much so that you can't even guess what I'm talking about."

"We'll capture the ghouls-"

"YOU FCKING MORON!!! I DON'T GIVE A CRAP ABOUT THE GHOULS! JUST FIND THE REPORTED WHO WENT MISSING WITH THE CRUCIAL EVIDENCE OF OUR PLANS!"

"Yes, ma'am..."