While everyone's eyes were on the old president, waiting for him to check if he had received the notification from the bank, nobody noticed all the piles of stones beginning to glow slightly and then all disappearing at the same time.

All the stones that were present on that floor inside the building; the ones Davies had already bought and the one that the stone merchant had packed up for Lee Jung, suddenly disappeared mysteriously, yet no one noticed.. except the one who was the cause for the sudden disappearance of the stones.

'So, it does work..' a slight smile appeared and disappeared from Davies's face, within the span of one second, but he returned his focus back to the old president after that thought, slightly anticipating the reaction of everyone else when they realized the sudden disappearance of the stones.

The old president ignored the different looks on everybody's faces as it had come to light that he was subtly supporting Lee Jung, he didn't care about them anyway, they could think whatever they wanted to think after all and it would do nothing to him, it was up to him to do whatever he wanted to do, to whoever he wanted to do it for, whenever he wanted to do it, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.. at least, that was what his fate-corrupted, optimistically proud, mind told him.. as for if there were actual consequences for all the actions he had made to get in Davies's way today..

Davies had already decided on that, and it was but a matter of course, but for now, let him enjoy the beauty of life that he did not know had become a luxury for him the moment he had gotten in Davies's way of doing things.

The old president brought out his phone and logged into his banking app, and after a few minutes of manipulating the phone, typing in different passwords, and dealing with other things, he was able to confirm that the transaction had actually been done, and whatever was being shown on the POS machine was nothing but baloney, though he did wonder what had actually gone wrong with the machine.

It shouldn't have any issues as it was a fairly new one, he remembered authorizing the purchase of a new POS machine as the former one was quite faulty, he heard.

'That couldn't be the faulty one still being used even after he had authorized the purchase of a new one, right?' he wondered as he looked suspiciously at the POS machine still being held in Davies.

In the end, he decided to find that out later as he didn't want to get into that right now as if such a thing was actually true, it would make him lose face, so he instead did what he was supposed to be doing at the moment and said,historical

"I've confirmed the payment, it seems there is something wrong with that POS machine, probably nothing more than a small glitch," he spoke, confirming Lee Jung's payment.

While he spoke, he didn't notice the stone merchant, flinch when had mentioned that the machine was probably faulty. If he had been more attentive to his surroundings, he would have noticed that the merchant seemed to begin sweating even though they were in a fully air-conditioned room and the temperature was not one where people would sweat in.. at least in normal cases.

Lee Jung was obviously happy to have had his payment confirmed and a victorious smile quickly appeared on his face as he side glanced at Davies, not even trying to hide his look. The look in his eyes said he wanted to relish defeating Davies and taking something he wanted from right before his eyes, but upon turning back to go and grab his prize, he was left stunned.

"...!?"

"W-where are the stones?" he couldn't even find it in him to shout as this was not something he expected.

His voice hadn't been loud, but somehow it had swept through the ears of everyone on the scene, probably due to the weight of the words and the absurdity they contained, after all, stones weren't something that could just disappear into thin air.

"What do you mean, they were right.. here," the stone merchant quickly turned around to look at where he had put the stones but was stunned at what he was seeing.. or lack of anything to see at all.

The stones that he had packed up weren't there..

The sudden question from Lee Jung and the sudden actions and shock of the stone merchant made everyone look in the direction of where the stones should have been, but they didn't see anything.

"I don't see anything wrong.." Davies mumbled, but Lee Jung somehow heard his words and erupted.

"THAT'S THE POINT, NITWIT!!!"

"THE STONES I JUST BOUGHT ARE GONE!!!" Lee Jung raged in fury. He had just spent all the money he had on a bunch of stones that were supposed to give him quite a few gains, but they were all wrong.

Davies's face immediately tightened up in annoyance at Lee Jung shouting in his face and he instead commented angrily,

"I guess that means I won," he spoke not even trying to hide that he had no love lost for Lee Jung's stupid attitude. It created an image of him not caring about another person's misfortune, but at this point, he didn't even care that much, especially when said person was an asshole he didn't like.

Davies's words seemed to have awakened Lee Jung to even more consequences of having the stones he had just bought, stolen and his face turned even uglier.

Suddenly, a voice came from just beside Davies,

"Uh.. Mr. Lake.. your stones have also disappeared," Daniel's voice rang through his ears in a low tone, but just like when Lee Jung had found out about his stones disappearing, Daniella's disguised voice rang through the crowd.

"You say what now?" Davies asked like he couldn't believe his ears.

"... Er.. your stones have also d-disappeared," Daniella spoke in a trembling voice she didn't know what the cause was of the stones' sudden disappearance, but she did know that if Davies was not the best person to be around whenever he actually got angry, and the sudden disappearance of stones that he had spent a few billion to buy was almost guaranteed to make him angry.

Fiona, standing not far from Daniella and having been watching the situation all this while, suddenly had her face turn ugly at the mention of Davies's stones disappearing.

Unlike the other people watching the situation and enjoying the conflict, she had seen a glimpse of Davies in a bad mood, which was very scary. She bit her lips hard as she remembered that she was the one who had invited him here.

There was an unexpected silence after Daniella told Davies about the disappearance of his stones and Lee Jung's. In normal situations, Lee Jung would have been the first to laugh at Davies, but the current situation concerned his property as well, and everyone else was simply stunned and wondering what exactly seemed to be going on.

Thousands of stones couldn't just disappear into thin air, right?

Amid this silence, Davies's icy voice spoke with the most unbelieving tone anyone had ever heard,

"... So you mean to tell me.. that I spent more than two billion Powerstone dollars buying STONES!!!" he spoke, the last word being emphasized loudly.

"... and the stupid establishment where I bought the stones don't have enough security to safeguard MY merchandise," he finished his words with his eyes falling on the security guard who had touched him but had instead had his hand frozen by him instead.

"Wow, just wow," he began to chuckle and clap, but one could only hear a cold amusement in his tone as his eyes ran over everyone that he knew to be linked to the Diamonds In The Rough, causing all of them to have cold shivers by just having his eyes run across them.

"Hey sharp shoes," Davies called out at Security Guard 1 and began to walk towards him while speaking.

"You were quick enough to appear behind me to tell me to not use mana on the premises, so what were you doing that you weren't able to notice someone stealing billions worth of merchandise from right before your FUCKING EYES!" he finished his sentence loudly, after which he took a deep breath..

"... you know what, I shouldn't even be mad.." he turned away from Security Guard 1 and began to walk back to the old president who seemed to have descended from his fate-inducing high, after realizing that a few billion powerstone dollars' worths of merchandise had just been stolen on his property, and he couldn't even explain to the owner of the property as he wasn't even the one who had received the payment for the merchandise.

Cold sweat began to run down his back as he watched Davies walk towards him as he did not know what Davies was going to say or do, but his heart sank after hearing the conversation going on between Davies and the gold-haired youngster who was one of the people that had come with him.

"Hey Daniel, how much is this place worth?" he asked a question while looking like he was trying to calm down.

"... A few billion.. I don't know the exact amount, I'm sorry," Daniella replied and apologized, not understanding what the worth of this place had to do with the current situation.

"A few billion, huh?"

"And I lost a few billion, hmm.. I guess I can take this place as an apology.." he said with a slight smile as he arrived before the