“So, since you didn’t tell us about any Russian mob attacks last time you went over relevant future events, I’m going to guess this is something new?” Allen asked as the three of them walked towards the nurse’s office.

  Nick nodded. “Right. This is definitely something new. I just can’t figure out what I did to spark it. I mean, they don’t know about my—” He paused and looked around. “They don’t know about that night, saving your mom, and the things I did before that, do they?”

  “Well, if they know about it, the cops might too, so you better hope they don’t, or you’ll be headed to the . . . Gallows,” Seo-ah said flatly, but then stopped to snicker at her own pun. “But I think you’re in the clear. The cops seemed way more concerned about hiding stuff than finding anything out.”

  “Yeah, they really did,” Nick sighed. He still didn’t know how it had turned out that way and whether he should be thankful. There should have been an investigation.

  “But you know Mom won’t let you over to dinner now. She thinks you’re in with a bad crowd, and she even tried to get me to leave the guild too,” Seo-ah added.

  Nick frowned. “Really?”

  “Yeah. She’s convinced those millions I made, the ones she had no problem paying off the house with and buying a new dishwasher with, were somehow earned illegally because of some seedy connections you have with the mob, and that’s why they tried to kill you.”

  “You told your parents about that?” Allen looked shocked.

  “I tell my parents about everything. What’s the point of family dinner if not to catch up on each other’s lives, share important events, and get trustworthy advice on our current problems? Like, just yesterday I found out that my brother got rejected by Stacy from the Abyssal Knights. She even said she already liked someone else, despite the fact she clearly doesn’t even have a boyfriend or talk to anyone,” Seo-ah replied, starting to share the gossip, but then she stopped. “Not that you guys can repeat that to anyone. Taejo is still very sensitive about the issue.”

  “Hey, at least it ended better than Nick’s last relationship,” Allen remarked with a laugh.

  “Hey, too far,” Seo-ah snapped though, her jovial mood vanishing in an instant. “Too far.”

  Nick shrugged. “Nah, it’s okay. He’s still just mad that his mother keeps texting me after the donation I made to help her not only replace the shop, but also build it back bigger and better with more gadgets and a lab for Allen.”

  “Are you serious?! First that girl Topaz, then that million dollars for Ms. Wilson’s pharmaceutical stuff, then helping that driver replace his car—are you just trying to burn through all your money as fast as possible?!” Seo-ah seemed to forget that Nick was injured as she hit him a few times on the arm. “You have to save that money! We have a lot of stuff we need to buy. Did you not see how expensive land, concrete, automated farming equipment for the guild’s dungeon, and the actual training facilities themselves are going to be?”

  Nick frowned. “Seo-ah, I know the size of the setup we’ll need to stop the outbreaks as they happen around the world, believe me. And the clock is ticking. I get it. First, it’s Azure Shores this month, then one outside Winnipeg in another month and another near Guangzhou in six weeks. I understand we have a lot of work and little time.”

  “Right, so even if you train Maria to kill the biggest, baddest monster in existence, you need to do more than that, Nick,” Seo-ah lectured. “She can’t be everywhere all at once. You need to stick to the new plan we devised: stop the dungeon outbreaks we can, prepare Maria, but also prepare the world. The dungeon guides you’ve released online as the Labyrinth God Daedalus are a good starting place to prepare the world, but you want to train people all over the world to increase everyone’s chance at surviving what you say is coming, which means we need to reach that funding goal and start building the first facility. Not to mention, we still have to buy the tickets to the Azure Shores dungeon, and last I checked online, they’re not cheap. You might think you’re made of money, but it’ll disappear quickly if you keep throwing it around.”

  “You’re right. I was too hasty in helping out Topaz and Ms. Wilson. You’re right. But . . .” Nick shook his head. “I’m not one to leave my friends to suffer if I can help it.”

  “Plus, it was nice having a personal driver take us from the gym to the school this morning . . . and Topaz is a really pretty alchemist,” Allen noted.

  “Ow! Why did you hit me for what he said?” Nick complained as he rubbed his shoulder. “He’s the one who said she’s pretty!”

  Seo-ah glared at Nick for a second. “Yeah, but you were thinking about something that definitely deserved a hit.”

  “I was just thinking back to the mob. What if, because Evan is now poisoned, someone else made a move? What if it was another cousin that is going to try and take the lead at the family competition this year?”

  “Got any idea which one might be sniping for the heir spot and be connected to the Russian mob?”

  “I don’t know . . . Maybe Rosemary? She’s—”

  “Super hot,” Allen interrupted.

  “Allen! Focus!” Seo-ah snapped. “Nick has given you the knowledge you need to be a millionaire—no, billionaire. All you need to do is make the inventions he gives you and recruit and work with the people he listed out, those future innovators. Focus on making that money first, or you’re not going to ever be able to afford a girl like Rosemary.”

  “Hey,” Nick laughed as the group reached the nurse’s office. “Rosemary isn’t that bad. She’s much more—”

  “Expensive? Yeah. Everyone knows about the parties she throws. They cost more than an entire semester at this school,” Seo-ah said.

  “I didn’t know about those . . .” Allen blinked in confusion.

  “That’s because you’re not the type of person she’d invite. Like I said, get that new money, or you’re not going to get any girl from old money to go out with you, much less a Rosemary Gallows. You should know that already. Their parents pick their partners,” Seo-ah explained.

  “Speaking of money, are you ready to go visit DungeonSafe Insurance with me?” Nick asked Seo-ah as he pulled out his phone to check his schedule.

  “Oh? Did they reach out to you too, Gallows? They called me this morning to ask which dungeon I’m going to bet on next.”

  “They did. But I need to visit them for another reason: information. They have enough filthy fingers in enough questionable pies that they might know something about who tried to kill me,” Nick replied, keeping a cool head despite being incensed that some greedy, insignificant thugs nearly killed him before he could finish preventing the apocalypse.

  “Makes sense. But I don’t get why they’d be so eager to get you to bet on a dungeon break again,” Seo-ah said with a frown. “You think they might have been the ones who tried to kill you?”

  “No. I don’t think so. They’d have hired a proper mercenary group, not the Bratva. If you ask me, I think they’re going to try to figure out what we know, how we know it, and how they can make money off it,” Nick said. “They just want to use us to make money, the same way we want to use them to make money.”

  “Cool. So do we go after school?” Seo-ah asked. “And information about the attack aside, working with them could still be a quick way to make some cash. Maybe if you help me make another cool ten or twenty million, Mom will invite you back to family dinner.”

  Nick shrugged. “Sounds good. We do need the money. We can go there after I drop some food off at the orphanage. Though I guess if the insurance angle doesn’t work out, it’ll be fine. I still owe Topaz like three or four dinners apparently.”

  As soon as those words left Nick's mouth, Seo-ah’s eyes went wide as she pushed him into the nurse’s office they were lingering outside of. “Go get healed! I can’t stand to see you hurt! And don’t worry about the dinner. Our plan will work! We will earn you my mother’s approval no matter what!” she insisted before stomping off to class.

  “Huh. Her mother’s opinion of me must be really weighing on her. Weird, right? I suppose I need to work on that, I guess,” Nick noted, turning to Allen.

  “Examples of extreme density: adamantium, osmium, neutron stars . . . and Nick’s brain,” Allen said with a chuckle as he shook his head and followed Seo-ah.

  Chapter 6

  After the nurse’s office visit, Nick was rather annoyed by the fact that he was still stuck in the school. He had promised everyone—including Ms. Wilson, who had used her pull to help him get away with so many absences—that he would attend a full day, that he would be a good student. But every minute he had spent earlier in class was a test of willpower as he had forced himself to stay seated and not go searching for his attempted killer, work with Maria on her training, or do more of the dungeon guides he had been regularly uploading to the Internet. He also needed to work on his plans to stop the next dungeon break, list out the materials he’d need to buy, and double-check that Seo-ah managed to get the tickets. It was a chance to stop a break before it happened, so even if he had to sneak into the dungeon, he wasn’t going to fail. Nick even thought about how he could possibly incorporate this into Maria’s training. She’d never go by herself, so he’d have to bring Adele and Spencer. Maybe he could entice them to come with a promise of a beach party?

  All of those things needed doing, yet he was stuck listening to some of the slowest, most monotone speakers read lectures from books like he couldn’t read them at home himself, and to make matters worse, the teachers had to stop every five minutes to explain a very easy-to-understand concept to one of the kids in the front row. So, rather than heading back to one of those classes, he had hung out in the nurse’s office, loading up a dungeon guide, before she kicked him out at lunch time.

  He headed to the cafeteria, hoping to find Seo-ah and Allen so the three of them could talk further, but he couldn’t spot them, so he just got in line instead, grabbing his tray, ordering a grilled salmon with lemon butter sauce, and finding a table in the corner.

  “Nick!!” a voice he had been hoping to never hear again called out to him as its owner rushed over to where he was sitting and plopped herself down like she was welcome.

  “Catherine . . .” Nick stared at the woman who had ruined decades of his life with as much indifference as he could muster, trying not to get angry at the idiot since he now had a very good idea who had been behind her demise, given how vindictive his grandfather could be.

  She had gotten her comeuppance in the first timeline, and she had now been cut off with her family ruined in this one. Justice had been done, he told himself as he did his best to not let his grudge fester.

  “Nick, don’t be like that. I’m sorry, I really am, but . . . but you should let me explain. It’s not my fault, I just—”

  “Catherine, could you please not?” Nick asked, trying to keep his cool. He didn’t have time in his life to waste on being mad at her or dealing with her. There was no skill, ability, or resource she had at her disposal that could help him deal with humanity’s coming doom, so he couldn’t even justify trying to repair the broken bridge.

  “Look, I like you . . . I mean, I still love you. It’s just that—” Catherine started to plead with Nick, the words feeling like daggers as they cut into him.

  “You slept with his cousin, gave him a poison that will cause him massive pain every day of his life, and then paid off doctors and medical professionals so that they would gaslight him and his parents into believing it was an incurable hereditary condition and that it was their fault despite the fact they practically raised you as their own, and you have the gall to say you loved him? How cheap is your affection for it to mean so little?” said someone Nick hadn’t expected to see at all as she towered over Catherine.

  “I never slept with anyone!” Catherine protested the woman’s complaints.

  “That does not make your betrayal any lighter. Now, I’m going to warn you, if you do not pick your tray up and walk the hell away, I’m going to beat you within an inch of your life so that you might better understand exactly what sort of pain you inflicted upon Nick on a daily basis while smiling and trying to assure him of that cheap, worthless love of yours.”

  Catherine again tried to protest the woman’s comments with her words as she stood up to face the woman. “Butt out! This isn’t your business! Who are you to—”

  “I’m his fiancée, the new one, the better one,” Jennifer Zhou proclaimed while staring at Catherine with a calm, icy exterior that showed not even a single ounce of emotion.

  “It seems that she is,” Nick admitted with a shrug. He failed to suppress a smile as he watched the devastated Catherine look back and forth between him and Jennifer before storming off, tears in her eyes.

  “I must admit, this is a nice school. My previous one had a great cafeteria but not so great that the trash would throw itself out when told to do so,” Jennifer said with a small smirk.

  “Thanks for that,” Nick said with a smile as he went back to eating.

  “You’re welcome,” Jennifer replied as she smiled back. “I was hoping that my arrival and subsequent saving of you, the damsel in distress, from the evil witch would help me accrue immediate affection with you so our engagement could begin on a positive note.”

  “Our engagement? I don’t remember taking Grandfather’s deal, Jennifer,” Nick said, looking at her strangely. He hadn’t expected her to be there. He hadn’t expected she would help in such a forceful way, and he definitely hadn’t expected that she would admit that the reason she helped was to manipulate his feelings toward her. Everything she was doing was a surprise, and he had to admit, if he had time to invest in a relationship with her, her behavior really would have left him intrigued and wanting to find out more.

  “No matter which path down the mountain the water takes, it always returns to the ocean,” Jennifer replied with a smile. “Your grandfather and mine have already decided on the outcome, the only thing left to be determined is how and when our fates will reach their destination.”

  “You have a lot of faith that the will of our grandparents is absolute,” Nick said.

  “When you’re young, your elders are the gods that determine your existence. No matter what your parents tell you, you believe them. But over time, one lie becomes two, two mistakes become ten, and afterward, every lie, mistake, and missed appointment becomes the crack in that divine veneer that lets you see them not as gods but as people. Humans like you and me.”

  “All the more reason not to assume their words are fact,” Nick noted.

  “But nothing my grandfather has said has ever been false,” Jennifer replied, taking a small careful bite of her own homemade bento box, with rice, cutely cut sausages, egg rolls and sushi, and looking up at Nick, her eyes staring into his. “His words have been as reliable and true as gravity.”

  “And he picked me, of all people, to be your partner?” Nick looked at her skeptically. It was true that he had some means at the moment, but he wasn’t the declared heir, he hadn’t amassed a large enough fortune to woo someone of her status, and he didn’t have a class or level to be impressive enough to partner with her. All he had was the Gallows name, as his grandfather had been more than keen to point out.

  “Indeed. He said that, without you, there is no future. That you’re the one to save me from the trials and monsters ahead of me,” Jennifer stated calmly. “A thing he only said just recently, and it’s the reason I’ve been trying to warn you of a rather clingy rat named Yulian Serebryakov. Though I suppose if you are still in good health, then you must have gotten my warnings and taken adequate measures to protect yourself.”

  Nick froze, nearly dropping his fork as he processed what she said and wondered how much of the future her grandfather could comprehend and if he knew Nick’s true purpose. He couldn’t help but stare, trying to figure it out as she calmly took a few more bites of her meal and then stood up.

  “Wait, what else can you tell me about this Yulian?” Nick asked. “Where is he?”

  “My family’s position in the matter doesn’t permit me to say more, given what you might do with the information. Though you might consider buying some insurance.”

  “I was planning on it,” Nick replied as he studied Jennifer.

  “Well, then that settles that. This has been pleasant,” she said with a small bow of her head. “But I should get going before that face of yours distracts me from the rest of my studies. A dangerous weapon indeed, Mr. Gallows.”

  “It was nice to see you, Jennifer,” Nick replied, standing up as well to be polite as she departed.

  As she walked away, Nick could see Seo-ah and Allen entering the cafeteria, waving at him from a distance before getting in line.

  ———

  When Nick and Seo-ah arrived at DungeonSafe Insurance, they were greeted by two men. Each of them was dressed like the fanciest butler Nick had ever seen. The second they saw Nick, they walked hurriedly toward him.

  “We’ve been expecting your arrival,” one of the men said, speaking as politely as possible and approaching Nick on one side while the other guy flanked Nick and Seo-ah on the other side. Their words were polite, but their faces showed a stoney demeanor that Nick thought no sense of humor could chisel away. Still, he tried.

  “That eager to take my money with some more bets, are you?” Nick asked with a laugh, trying to lighten the mood. He couldn’t help but feel that he might have overestimated his safety in a public building as he followed the two to a private elevator.

  “So, have you guys been enjoying the warmer weather?” Nick asked, but neither of them responded. They just quietly stared ahead of them at the elevator doors until they finally opened.