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"

my head repeatedly, in a low voice that only Kevin and I

Who would you rather piss off, Monica or

someone asked me who I would rather deal with,

she wasn't as crazy as a truly angered Melissa. I'd

I was in a business relation with Melissa, things weren't

it was someone

just say that things wouldn't really

"ah..."

my statement, Kevin opened his mouth. No words came out of his mouth. Deep in his heart

was definitely worse

"See, even you agree!"

of his

don't want to talk

dismissal, Kevin entered

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

the end, Kevin knew that I was

wasn't

'That aside...'

was

him take the fall for

defense, everything

at Kevin, Monica was quite grateful

they say, all is

pissed Monica off, she would've

detested with all her

that she had caught him, she would be able to take

for buying the sword would quickly be

"Get in"

shouted as she rolled the window of the limousine

"Aye, aye"

Talk about the devil...

look at the King's Crown hotel,

officially come to

*

others,

you can come

smoke rose in the air and Angelica's enchanting

couple of seconds, I thanked

you for your hard

to the training

Angelica made her way towards

"Aye"

indifferent figure moving towards the training grounds,

apartment, Angelica had been spending most of her time

system, Angelica could now train without holding

as the isolating system in the

could train

"That aside..."

'”Shua!

wooden

"The mask of Dolos..."

Dolos. An item that would prove extremely useful for me in

my hand, a lot of possibilities had opened up

the future at

could only use it for short periods of time before my mana would

the things I could do with the

was good enough for

progressing at a much faster rate compared to others, it

with the tournament coming up in a month's time, I wasn't planning on using the mask anytime

did have plans for it, they were for way

"That reminds me..."

up, I stretched

making preparations for the

the inter-academy tournament, I knew that I had to start making

supposed to be three big events orchestrated by

completely destroying the first event, the banquet, there

However, they never occurred.

up or are they planning

down on the sofa in

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

be something

could not figure out what the Monolith had in plan for the

Even so...

planning on doing, I wasn't going to just sit

the

on doing a thorough investigation of everything that was happening in and

knew what their plan was could I come up with the

to escape from, I would much rather create holes in the

with proper countermeasures for

that, I needed to spend the next

I can even benefit

laid

***

the same time, in a different

"dadadada, dum, dum dum"

her hair scattered, Emma hummed

"Hm?"

Emma opened her calendar and checked her schedule.

Kevin's birthday is

asking Kevin for his

birthday was, Emma remembered

I buy

as her

wait. What am I even thinking? Why would I need to buy a gift for him? I've never bought a gift for

her dress, Emma silently shrieked as a myriad of thoughts

just

changed position. This time

I

for a boy

'Should I ask Ren?'

how close Ren and Kevin were, there was a chance he would know about what Kevin

know,

to help her get a gift irked her a bit. If possible

how much money do I

Emma suddenly recalled something.

that she couldn't spend too much money on

how much money