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"

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

you

would rather deal

was weird, she wasn't as crazy as a

now that I was in a business relation with Melissa, things

it was someone

that

"ah..."

out of his mouth. Deep in his heart he also shared the same sentiment

was definitely worse

"See, even you agree!"

advantage of his hesitation,

want to talk about

his hand in dismissal, Kevin entered the

I muttered,

Kevin knew that

angry Melissa wasn't

'That aside...'

anger was

did make him take the

everything turned out just

being angry at Kevin, Monica was

say, all is well

she would've never have been able to discover

detested with

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

the sword would

"Get in"

the window of

"Aye, aye"

Talk about the devil...

last look at the King's

auction had officially come to

*

the others,

can come

my words, black smoke rose in the air and Angelica's enchanting figure appeared

a couple of seconds,

you for your hard

to

Angelica made her way

"Aye"

indifferent figure moving towards the training grounds,

been spending most of her

its great insulating system, Angelica could now train

energy being detected when training as the isolating system in the private training ground stopped all

could train all

"That aside..."

'”Shua!

wooden mask appeared

"The mask of Dolos..."

of Dolos. An item that

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

in the

so highly ranked, I could only use it for short periods

things I

was good enough for

strength progressing at a much faster rate compared to others, it wouldn't be long till I would be able to fully utilize the

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

for it, they were for way later into

"That reminds me..."

up, I stretched

making preparations

tournament, I knew that I had

there were supposed to be three

banquet, there were supposed to

However, they never occurred.

or are

sofa in the living room,

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

be

I could not figure out

Even so...

doing, I wasn't going to

that was the perfect

or so I was planning on doing a thorough investigation of everything that was happening

I knew what their plan was could

wouldn't be able to escape from, I would much rather create holes in the

up with proper countermeasures for when

needed to spend the next month

knows. Perhaps I can even benefit

I laid

***

the same time,

"dadadada, dum, dum dum"

Emma hummed to the tune of one of her favorite

"Hm?"

Emma opened her calendar and checked

is

asking

remembered putting

I buy

her cheeks suddenly

wait. What am I even thinking? Why would I need to buy a

the helm of her dress, Emma silently shrieked

no meaning behind the gift. I'm just

herself that there was no meaning behind her action, Emma changed position. This time she was laying

should I buy

gift for a boy before, she had no clue on

'Should I ask Ren?'

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

know, I'd rather

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

how much money do I have

Emma suddenly recalled something.

her bank account frozen, Emma just realized that she couldn't spend too much money on the gift for

how much money she