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"

voice that only Kevin and I could hear,

Who would you rather piss off, Monica

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

she was weird, she wasn't as crazy as a truly angered Melissa. I'd rather

in a business relation with Melissa,

someone else

say that things wouldn't

"ah..."

statement, Kevin opened his mouth. No words came out of his mouth.

definitely worse

"See, even you agree!"

his hesitation, I

want to talk about it

hand in dismissal, Kevin entered

away...', I muttered, whilst following him from

Kevin knew

Melissa wasn't someone

'That aside...'

was somewhat

make him take the

everything turned out just

being angry at Kevin, Monica was quite

all is well that

she would've never

she detested

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

for buying the

"Get in"

shouted as she rolled the window of the

"Aye, aye"

Talk about the devil...

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

had officially

*

from the others, I

you can

the air and Angelica's enchanting figure

a couple of

for your hard

going to the

in acknowledgment, Angelica made her

"Aye"

indifferent figure moving towards the

had been spending

insulating system, Angelica could now train without

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

train all

"That aside..."

'”Shua!

a wooden mask appeared

"The mask of Dolos..."

hands on the mask of Dolos. An

a lot of possibilities had opened up for me. Especially when

in the future at

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

put a limit on the things I could do with

good enough

compared to others, it wouldn't be long till I

with the tournament coming up in a month's time, I

for it, they were for way later into

"That reminds me..."

up, I stretched my

making

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

tournament, there were supposed to

first event, the banquet, there were

However, they never occurred.

up or are they

the sofa in the

knew that they wouldn't give up on such

be

the Monolith watch, I could not figure out what the Monolith had in plan for

Even so...

doing, I wasn't going to just sit down and wait

the perfect

on doing a thorough

their plan was could I come up with

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

up with proper countermeasures for when the

I needed to spend the

who knows. Perhaps I can even benefit

laid down

***

time, in a different

"dadadada, dum, dum dum"

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

"Hm?"

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

birthday is coming

she remembered asking Kevin for

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

I buy him a

her cheeks

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

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

right! There's no meaning behind the gift. I'm just thanking

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

I buy

never bought a gift for a boy before, she had no clue

'Should I ask Ren?'

and Kevin were, there was a chance he would know

don't know,

a gift irked her a bit. If possible she

much money

Emma suddenly recalled something.

just realized that she couldn't spend too much money

how much money she