The Author's POV

"Did you manage to retrieve all of the stolen goods?"

Asked Amber as she sat on a large leather chair. Before her, a female secretary politely nodded her head.

"Yes, we have Madam"

"Mhm, how much would we have lost if Ivan had succeeded?"

"That..."

The secretary hesitated.

Brushing her hair to the side, Amber's brows knit and her tone became stern.

"I want a clear answer"

Instantly the atmosphere turned sullen.

"2.7 b-billion U"

Closing her eyes, the secretary mustered up her courage and revealed everything that she knew.

"huuu..."

Hearing the sum, Amber took a deep breath.

She then looked at her assistant and asked once again. She wanted to make sure she didn't mishear.

Unfortunately for her, she did not mishear as her secretary shook her head.

"2.7 billion U, am I hearing incorrectly?"

"U-unfortunately not, Madam. After investigating we found a lot of the auctioned items to have been replaced with fakes. Excluding the sword, the last item, everything that was stolen had an accumulated value of 2.7 billion U"

"Haaa...alright, you may leave"

Letting out a long sigh, Amber dismissed her secretary.

'2.7 billion...'

Although this was within her estimation, hearing the number still threw Amber off. This was a lot of money.

Even she, a ranked hero as well as the owner of multiple businesses would need at least a couple of decades to be able to save up that much money.

"Thank you, Madam, I hope you have a good night"

"Yes, yes"

Dismissed, the secretary bowed her head. Amber casually waved her hand in response. She needed to be left alone.

'”Clank!

Closing the door behind her, the servant left the room.

Silence prevailed over the room as Amber quietly picked up some papers and looked through them.

'”Flip! '”Flip!

For the next thirty minutes, Amber skimmed through the stack of papers.

Written on them were the details of the incident as well as other information regarding the times retrieved from Ivan's dimensional storage space.

'Sigh, I can't seem to be able to concentrate...'

After a while, Amber put the papers down.

Just thinking about the whole situation gave her a headache. In fact, her head was already starting to hurt.

Opening her desk drawer, Amber took a small cylindrical bottle and took out a pill.

"If not for Monica, things would've turned out disastrous..."

Taking a glass of water, Amber downed the pill and muttered.

Had it not been for Monica, her night would've been a sleepless one.

Most of the responsibility for the incident would've been put on her, and in all likelihood, she was going to be the one who would have to pay a large portion of the damages.

"To think that there was a day where I would have to thank Monica. The world is truly something..."

Bitterly laughing, Amber leaned back on her chair and covered her eyes with her arm.

She was tired.

...

Outside the King's Crown hotel...

"See, everything worked out just fine"

With a smile on my face, I patted Kevin on the shoulder.

All in all, everything worked out just fine.

Rather than remaining angry at Kevin, Monica actually thanked him and completely forgave him.

Everything worked out just fine. There was no need for Kevin to remain angry at me.

"Don't touch me!"

Smacking my hand away, Kevin grumpily made his way towards the limousine that was a few blocks ahead.

"Oh, come on! It wasn't that bad. Monica is not even angry at you!"

"It doesn't matter. You backstabbed me"

"Tsk, if we're talking about selling out shouldn't we be talking about you?"

Clicking my tongue, I rebutted.

"What about me?"

"Did you forget about the fact that you literally exposed our conversation to everyone a couple of hours ago?"

"What? that's different"

In response to my argument, Kevin's brows knit.

"Is it though?"

"Yes, it is"

repeatedly, in a low voice that only Kevin and I could hear, I softly

you rather piss off, Monica

would rather deal with, I would've without a doubt have chosen

she wasn't as crazy as a truly

a business relation with Melissa, things weren't

someone else rather than

that things wouldn't

"ah..."

came out of his mouth. Deep in his

definitely worse than

"See, even you agree!"

his hesitation, I

don't want

his hand in dismissal, Kevin

you're running away...', I muttered, whilst following

end, Kevin knew that

Melissa wasn't someone

'That aside...'

was

him take the fall for

my defense, everything

at Kevin, Monica was quite

is well that

pissed Monica off, she would've never have been

detested with all

she had caught him, she would be able to take back all of the items that he had stolen from

made for buying the sword would

"Get in"

the window of the

"Aye, aye"

Talk about the devil...

last look at the King's Crown hotel,

officially

*

separating from the others, I returned

can

smoke rose in the air

for a couple of seconds, I

for your

going to the training

made her

"Aye"

moving towards

had been spending most of her time in the

Angelica

as

could train all she

"That aside..."

'”Shua!

my bracelet, a wooden

"The mask of Dolos..."

An item that

mask in my hand, a lot of possibilities had opened up for me.

in the

highly ranked, I could only use it for

a limit on the things I could

this was good enough

faster rate compared to others, it wouldn't be long till I would be able to fully utilize

tournament coming up in a month's time, I wasn't planning on

it, they were for way later

"That reminds me..."

I stretched

making preparations

left till the start of the inter-academy tournament, I knew that

to the tournament, there were supposed to be three big events orchestrated by the

event, the banquet, there were supposed to be

However, they never occurred.

give up or are

sofa in the

that they wouldn't give up on such an important event just because one of their plans had

must be

could not figure out

Even so...

going to just sit down and

was the perfect recipe for

planning on doing a thorough investigation of everything that was

once I knew what their plan was could I

have them set up a net that I wouldn't be able to escape from, I would

up with proper

that, I needed to spend the next month

can even benefit

I laid down on

***

same time, in a

"dadadada, dum, dum dum"

bed with her hair scattered, Emma hummed to the tune

"Hm?"

phone, Emma opened her calendar and checked her schedule. Suddenly, something caught her

birthday is coming

ago she remembered asking

told her when his birthday was, Emma remembered putting it on

I buy him a

her

am I even thinking? Why would I need to buy a

the helm of her dress, Emma silently shrieked as a myriad

no meaning behind the gift. I'm just thanking him for all

Emma changed position. This time she was laying down face

should I buy

Having never bought a gift for a

'Should I ask Ren?'

her. Given how close Ren and Kevin were, there was a chance he would know about

don't know,

help her get a gift irked her a bit. If possible she didn't want

much money

Emma suddenly recalled something.

account frozen, Emma just realized that she couldn't spend too

to check how much money she had