Ihasu was Clan Leader Gul's granddaughter? Crap.

Eik hurried to duck in behind Andihar's large frame, but only managed to make himself even more conspicuous. Clan Leader Gul stopped the palanquin from leaving with a wave of his hand.

Andihar too noticed immediately. "Someone you know?"

"Nope," Eik said before he could stop his own unnecessary lie, hearing the tremor in his own voice as clearly as if he had shouted it.

"Hm."

"Andihar. No celebration tonight?" Clan Leader Gul called. "Knowing you, I would have expected you to be deep in your cups already."

"Oh, please, Gul, where do you think we're going?" On the surface, the relationship between the two men seemed to be slightly tense but under the surface Eik suspected there was a humorous approach to their mutual grumpiness that could be called friendship.

"Where are you going?"

"The Winter Sun."

Gul nodded to himself. "Good choice."

"You want to come along? I'm sure your granddaughter would like to be introduced to our up-and-coming genius here," Andihar suggested with a heavy hand on Eik's shoulder. Eik swallowed. Andihar, you clueless, S-ranked bastard.

Gul gave it some consideration, throwing a glance back at Ihasu who looked exceedingly hopeful for a refusal. Eik could see clearly on her face how much she would prefer to not have to engage with another high status individual. Eik most certainly wasn't that, but she didn't know that with his mask on.

"Why not?" the clan leader said with a shrug and hopped back onto the cobblestone with an ease of movement that looked completely wrong for his seemingly frail body. "Ihasu, come on. We're going to go and get a bite to eat."

Rolling her eyes with a deep sigh, Ihasu scooted over and followed her grandfather off the palanquin. She sauntered up and offered Andihar a semi-sincere bow, eyeing Eik's mask with an arched brow.

Why the hell had he said that he didn't know who Ihasu was? She had been voluntarily stationed on Earth as a fracture specialist ever since he came back from Sweden with his father and the people from the Scandinavian settlement. He had talked with her often. There was no reason to pretend like he didn't know who she was.

And now he couldn't tell Andihar to not invite them. He didn't want her to know that it was him. Why not? How the hell was he supposed to know? With her he was just Eik. Not this rich, important guy he had suddenly become.

She hated high society and he didn't want her to think that that's what he was becoming.

She took a step closer and looked at him askance. "What are you wearing a mask for?"

Despite the situation, Eik had to hold back a snort of laughter. This was going to be a long evening.

***

Almost two weeks later Eik had sold another twenty pills of Eik's Legendary Mystery Medicine privately through Andihar, leaving him with a profit of about five hundred million credits—an utterly insane amount of money.

With the relatively slow rate of production, he couldn't afford to sell too many of the pills too quickly. Holding back and keeping the supply artificially scarce would also help keep the price up and the interest high. If the richest of society kept fighting to be the ones to get their fingers on the limited number of Eik's Legendary Mystery Medicine, he could charge almost anything he wanted.

Clan Leader Gul had changed his tune considerably in the few days since the auction, turning up at Andihar's palace personally to buy more pills. Eik had decided to let him have two more pills for thirty five million credits each—a price the filthy rich old fart happily forked over.

Already Eik had dug into his newfound wealth and hired workers and begun to import building materials to improve the general living conditions of the people of Forest. There was a lot of convenient technology in Gimleh that would make everyday life a hundred times easier for the Earthlings.

Besides housing and other civilian facilities, the workers had also begun construction of an outer wall unlike anything Forest had had before. It would allow the defenders of Forest to adopt a more reactive strategy against minor monster attacks, rather than the proactive patrols that cost significant manpower that would now be used more effectively elsewhere.

And as he earned more money, they could even begin to install automatic weapons systems to repel simple monsters. This was very, very expensive, however, and far from being economically feasible at the moment.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Having imported a variety of medicines from Gimleh, the selection of which Molanda had been more than happy to assist with, Eik had ensured that the general medical care in Forest had been improved considerably. Additionally, also via Molanda's connection, he had hired a few skilled healers to help with the worst injuries and diseases.

He had spoken more to Ihasu since the celebration dinner where she hadn't known that it was in fact Eik behind the mask. Feeling like there was something between them, he had decided to take a chance and ask her out to dinner.

Thankfully, she had said yes and Eik had decided to take her to the restaurant owned by Mogu, whom Eik had met the first time he went to Wanjihan's plant breeding store in Gimleh. He had been there with his daughter Saklo. He had been by to eat at the restaurant several times since and Eik knew that the mood was good and the food delicious.

"You know, I was hoping you would invite me out like this sometime," she said once they sat down at a corner tables. The restaurant was about half full but Saklo, the daughter of the owners, had smirked when the two of them walked in and managed to get them seated with some distance to the other diners.

Eik had immediately gone for the brisik and Ihasu had ordered the same at his recommendation. Ever since he had first had it after being thrown through a fracture into Gimleh it had occupied a special place in his heart.

"Well, I've been thinking about it for a while. I just didn't know how to ask you," he admitted. Childish as it might have been, for the longest time he hadn't been able to admit what he had been feeling ever since he first looked into those orange eyes and heard that melodic chime of her voice. Now it was time to do something about it though.

They spent the next few hours talking about this and that. Their likes and dislikes. How they had grown up. Eik was careful to not mention that he had, in fact, already had dinner with her and her grandfather. He was now aware of just how powerful the Ougi clan was and that what she said about her own upbringing undersold that power to an extreme degree.

Even with all the time they talked, Eik barely felt like he had learned anything new about her family. She had seemed fond enough of her grandfather, Clan Leader Gul, but then again, one didn't need to dislike one's family members to dislike the family culture.

In her eyes, the Ougi clan and most other high status families had completely distorted values and she found it impossible to align herself with them. She felt alienated from them even though she loved them.

With everything that had happened recently, traffic between Gimleh and Earth had increased considerably so when they left the restaurant, they caught a fracture back to Forest.

Eik's house was more or less on the way to hers so they walked together to his front door.

"I had a good time," Ihasu said, her long, silvery hair glistening in the moonlight. "We should do this again."

"Yeah, definitely!" Eik said with a heart that was racing away at a hundred kilometers per hour. "I'd love to! How about next week then?"

"Next week sounds good to me. I'll pick the restaurant this time."

"I'll hold you to that, you know. I love trying new foods!" Eik said as he unlocked his door and pushed it slightly ajar. "Do you want to come in and say hi to my cat?" he asked.

She laughed out loud at that. "Maybe next time." Well, it had been worth a try at least.

Before he could react, she leaned in and gave him a peck on the lips before taking a couple of steps back into his garden. He was pretty sure his heart literally skipped a beat that time as his stomach did flips inside him.

He stared at her for a few moments, at a loss for words. "Do you realize I almost fainted just now?"

Again she laughed. "I'm sorry. I'll be more careful next time."

"No, no, don't be," he said with a grin. "That's what I was hoping for."

"I will keep that in mind then." Her smile never faded.

"Well, I had fun," Eik said, seeing her ready to go. "I'm already looking forward to next time. Get home safe and sleep tight," he said. With her own power level, there was really no need for him to walk her home, although he would have liked to.

"Me too! Good night." She bent her knees and leapt off, disappearing behind his house.

Barely able to believe what had just happened, he closed the door behind him and kicked off his boots in the entryway.

"Mis? Mis, are you here?" he called. A soft meow from somewhere in the darkness told him that she was home. "Want some food?"

When he turned into the kitchen, Mis was sitting on the counter waiting for him. He stopped short and stared at her with suspicion. "How are you always doing that?" he muttered under his breath as he got a bowl from the cupboard. He filled it with some dry food that she loved and slid it across the counter for her.

His father had also gone out for dinner tonight, taking his favorite girl Bin along, and still hadn't come back so Eik went to bed, tucking up under soft duvets he had brought home from his suite in the Alliance headquarters.

Aah, how nice. Yes, he was extremely busy, both with growing his business and growing stronger, not to mention the impending threat of the cult of Moon Shall Swallow, the ever-growing power of the Awakened beasts of Earth, and whatever the hell else was going on around him. But right here right now, there were things to be grateful for.

The friends he had left were finding their own paths even if they had diverged from his own, his sister was doing well, he had found and brought home his father whom he had feared dead, he was making absolute bank on one of the biggest inventions of the Unified Mass, and now an ember of something more was developing between him and Ihasu Ougi.

Life was pretty sweet if you knew what to look for.

For about ten minutes he lay in bed, staring up into the ceiling as he contemplated his life and the future. A soft creak from the door drew his attention and he sat up, narrowing his eyes as he stared into the darkness. "Mis? Ihasu, is that you?" he called, scooting to the edge of the bed. "Did you forget something?"

"I did forget something, actually," a hollow voice whispered gleefully into his ear from right behind him.

Whirling around, Eik suddenly found himself face to face with the cultist in the black armor who had spearheaded the attack on Forest several months ago. And who had come to show a concerning interest in Eik personally after Eik, who had been D-rank at the time, had managed to hurt him.

"I've been hoping to see you again, young man," the black armor sung. "I think it's finally time for you to come with me."

"How the fu—"

Profound Toxin instantly began to flow through Eik's body, his bed cracking in two because of the sheer force of his movement as he went for the cultist. But before the effect of Backflow could take proper hold, a gloved, dark hand snapped up and slammed into his temple, blackening his vision.

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