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"

a low voice that only Kevin and I could

you rather piss off, Monica

asked me who I would rather deal with, I would've without a

crazy as a truly angered Melissa. I'd rather deal with her than

that I was in a business relation with Melissa, things

if it was someone else rather than

just say that

"ah..."

mouth. No words came out of his mouth. Deep in his heart he also shared the same sentiment as

was definitely

"See, even you agree!"

advantage of his hesitation, I

whatever, I don't want to talk about it

his hand in dismissal, Kevin

muttered, whilst following him

knew that

wasn't someone anyone

'That aside...'

was

did make him take the fall

my defense, everything

angry at Kevin, Monica was quite grateful for

all is well that

Monica off, she would've never have been able to

one person she detested with

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

loss she made for buying the sword would

"Get in"

as she rolled the window

"Aye, aye"

Talk about the devil...

one last look at the King's Crown hotel, I entered

auction had officially come to a

*

separating from the others, I returned to

you can come out

in the air and

Angelica for a couple of

for your

going to

Angelica made

"Aye"

towards the training

Angelica had been spending most of

its great insulating system, Angelica could now train

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

train

"That aside..."

'”Shua!

wooden

"The mask of Dolos..."

hands on the mask of Dolos. An item that would prove extremely

a lot of possibilities had opened up for me. Especially

the future

mask was so highly ranked, I could only use it for short periods of time before my mana would

limit on the things I

this was good enough for

it wouldn't be

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

they

"That reminds me..."

up, I stretched

start making preparations for the

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

supposed to be three big events orchestrated

destroying the first event, the banquet, there were supposed to be another two

However, they never occurred.

give up or

sofa in the living room,

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

must be something

could not figure

Even so...

I wasn't going to just sit

that was the perfect recipe

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

plan was could I come up with

have them set up a net that I wouldn't be able to escape from, I would much rather create holes in the net to later

come up with proper

I needed to spend the next month

Perhaps I can even benefit

I laid down on my

***

the same time, in

"dadadada, dum, dum dum"

her hair scattered, Emma hummed to the tune of one of her favorite

"Hm?"

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

Kevin's birthday is coming up

remembered asking Kevin for

when his birthday was, Emma remembered putting it on her calendar so that she

buy him a

as her cheeks

would I need to buy a gift

Emma silently shrieked as a myriad of thoughts entered

behind the gift. I'm just thanking him for all

meaning behind her action, Emma changed position. This time she was

should I

gift for a boy before, she

'Should I ask Ren?'

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

know, I'd

idea of asking Ren to help her get a gift irked her a bit. If possible she didn't

how much money

Emma suddenly recalled something.

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

check how much money she