Valeria’s hand began to move slowly toward her hip, and Harold knew she was a moment away from drawing her sword. That was a sign that this conversation was over. Harold finally let go of Valeria’s hand, and she stepped away from him with a huff.
"Just try not to cause too many problems."
Harold tried to give her one last warning, and Valeria clicked her tongue at him.
"I’ll do whatever I want."
Valeria turned and began to walk out of the alleyway in annoyance, but Harold raised a brow when he saw Valeria stop a few steps away. Valeria shuffled from one foot to the other, like a young child trying to make a particularly hard decision, before she squeezed her hand and turned around to glance at Harold! There was a strange tension that filled the alleyway at that moment and made Harold feel very awkward, and Harold couldn’t believe the next words that came out of Valeria’s mouth.
"Can you lend me some money?"
The moment he heard this, Harold couldn’t help but sigh in exhaustion!
"Aren’t you a mercenary? You get paid hundreds to thousands for every job. How don’t you have any money!?"
Harold asked this question in disbelief, and Valeria muttered something inaudible while staring at the floor. Harold leaned in and asked her what the hell she said, and Valeria’s cheeks reddened as she barked at him!
"I lost it while gambling, okay! I lost it!"
"You idiot! How are you gambling when you know you have horrible luck!?"
"Shut up! I just didn’t know all the rules, okay! They tricked me! Are you going to borrow me the money or not!?"
Valeria glared at Harold, but the large blush of embarrassment on her face only made her look like a growling puppy, and Harold put his hand over his face and sighed! He couldn’t believe how much he was doing for his family! Harold reached into his pocket and grabbed a bag of coins before throwing them at Valeria.
"There are fifty gold coins in there. Try not to lose it all while gambling again."
"Yeah, sure."
Valeria turned around and quickly bolted out of the alleyway, and Harold clicked his tongue! The crazy bitch didn’t even say thank you.
"Stay close to her and try to make sure she doesn’t cause any issues until she leaves this domain. Once she enters the sixth domain, then let me know."
Harold spoke up into the empty alleyway, and a hooded figure melted out from the brick wall and bowed to Harold before it stepped out of the alleyway to follow after Valeria. This was one of Harold’s spies, and it was a creature from a distant world with the ability to melt into any surface easily. The spy did not have much physical strength, but it was unparalleled when it came to espionage!
Once the figure left, Harold let out another calm sigh as he turned away and vanished from the alleyway in a burst of blue light.
.....
[Earth]
[With Jason]
It had been a full month since Fiona and Betsha’s family came to visit, and they had all returned to their world. In that time, Mira and Gina had finally finished planning the wedding that would be taking place soon, and there were only a few things left for them to do before they could hold the ceremony. But before that, Gina had gone to meet with Riyala and Hesbeath on Minori so that they could relax together at Hesbeath’s hot springs and have what they called a "girls’ day out".
So for the first time in what felt like years, Jason was all alone in his mansion. Most of the women had gone to do one thing or another. His mom finally returned home so she could open up the restaurant again, and she took Maya with her since the new school year would be starting soon. Janet and Stella had both gone with Gina for the vacation in Minori, and Jason still chuckles whenever he remembers how difficult it was to get Stella to go for the vacation.
Stella had dedicated her life to him, so she was adamant that she needed to stay back and serve Jason since he would be alone. But Gina refused to leave Stella behind since this outing was meant for all the girls, and Jason had to eventually step in and command Stella to go with the other girls. This was the first time the girls would all be having an event together, so Stella needed to be there since she was a part of the family now.
Even Georgia, the daughter of Fiona, had gone on vacation, and Jason had a feeling that Georgia would really get along well with Hesbeath since Hesbeath was so much like her mother.
And that was how Jason somehow ended up being alone at this time.
But even though he was alone, it wasn’t as if Jason had much free time to himself. Jason had been preoccupied recently with both his training and the Aqualith sales business that had finally opened up in the past month. Jason had been pushing back the Aqualith business for some time now because he knew Earth wasn’t ready. But after going through the Blue Gate and finally gaining a few TITAN Rank warriors, Jason felt like Earth had finally gained enough strength to introduce itself to the Primordial Expanse, so Jason gave permission for all the countries to open up their inter-world travel runes and begin the sale of Aqualith! And in the past month alone, Jason had made enough money to be considered the world’s very first trillionaire!
The Monarch guild was the main hub for all the trade between Earth and the rest of the Primordial Expanse, and not only was Jason making money from selling his unprocessed Aqualith to the countries, but he was also making taxes through his guild for acting as the middleman between those countries and the buyers that wanted their Aqualith! It was a win-win situation for Jason, and Jason was sure that it wouldn’t be long before Earth became one of the richest worlds in the Primordial Expanse.
But Jason also knew that this wouldn’t last forever. Jason had gotten a significant amount of Aqualith from the world of Aquinas, but there were just too many worlds out there that wanted a piece of it, and it wouldn’t be long before Jason eventually ran out. Before that happens, Jason needed to think of a new form of trade that Earth could get involved in. Agriculture seemed like the most reasonable trade for them, but Jason didn’t want to sell the food meant for Earth to other worlds. Instead, Jason was already leaning towards technology.
In the past month, Earth’s technology had grown by leaps and bounds ever since Jason took over the world of the Machina. The Machina had managed to combine engineering and magic in a way humans never could, and since the Machina were very secretive about their inventions, there was no other world out there that was as advanced as they were! The scientists on Earth were already reverse-engineering the tools and machines used by the Machina, and it wouldn’t be long before they started implementing them on Earth. During his journey, Jason found that many worlds in the Primordial Expanse were very backward technologically, so if Jason could find a way to improve the way of life of those worlds in his domain, he could make a lot of money at the same time.
Another path Jason was looking into now was education, by building Academies in as many worlds as possible so that the different worlds could all share information and knowledge. But Jason still remembered how difficult it was to build one Academy in Honduras after the problem with the Witch of Calamity, so Jason would need to prepare a lot before he even thinks about replicating those Academies in more worlds.