Chapter 38: Struck Gold

They got to the third floor, and not long after, they saw Sophia and Lily standing amongst monsters. Leon saw Lily using lightning and completely destroying all the monsters that were around her.

Leon froze for a moment. He had no idea that his sister was even capable of that, and she had never told him.

"I take it that you didn’t know she could do that?" Xander asked after seeing how Leon was looking at his sister.

Leon shook his head to concentrate. "That’s not important. We should help them," Leon said and summoned Shadow. Shadow popped up and immediately knew what to do.

They all attacked the monsters together, and in a few minutes, the floor was filled with the bodies of the monsters that were left.

"Lily!" Leon called out the moment she was done. He rushed up to her, and she rushed to him. He hugged her tight.

"I really thought you would be in trouble. Thank goodness you are safe," Leon said and then stepped back.

"We will talk about you having an ability later," Leon said and looked at Sophia. She grabbed his face and planted a kiss on his lips.

"Someone is happy to see me," Leon replied, and she almost smiled.

"We should leave," Xander said. "There are already two S-ranked hunters here. There is really no point in staying around."

Leon understood why Xander was saying that, and so he nodded.

"We should get out and allow them to handle it," Leon said, and they got moving. They made it to the second floor and then to the first floor, but as they got close to the door, they saw Crimson leaning on the wall. He was whistling a tune.

The group stopped when they saw him. Sophia and Lily recognized him in a second.

"S-ranked Hunter Crimson," Lily muttered.

"Seems your friends know me, Xander," Crimson said. He pushed himself off the wall. "Jade is handling the rest of the monsters herself, and she will get it done. I decided to come here because I know my little brother.

I knew that you would try to get away from me. You always do. Do you not like me, little bro?" Crimson asked.

Xander froze for a moment and stepped back. His heart rate increased, and Leon saw that, so he decided to step in and speak for his friend.

"I’m sorry, but we were trying to leave because the hunters were already here. Xander has expended a lot of energy fighting, even with the battle suit, and so we all needed to rest," Leon explained.

Crimson raised a brow, then he smiled and moved out of the way. "Then you deserve some rest, bro. I’ll keep in touch after I’m done with this and the guild." He waved his hand in the air and walked inside, leaving them there.

Xander heaved a massive sigh of relief. Sweat had formed on his forehead. He walked out without a single word.

Leon watched him go. The fear that Xander had for his brother was not something that Xander could seem to control. It froze him up.

’What could have happened in their lives to make him that scared of his brother?’ Leon wondered as they left.

[.....]

The case of the gate break was announced to be a temporary gate that had somehow come into the safe area and opened. The professionals explained that it was nothing to be worried about and that it was fully handled.

They gave their condolences to everyone who had lost their lives, and the guild and government would work hand in hand to compensate the families of everyone who had suffered from it.

"They are doing everything to make sure it goes away as fast as possible," Leon said as he sat at his PC. He closed the site and then went into a public Reddit. There were hunters there talking about how some strange things had been happening in the gates.

Monsters not from that gate seemed to have been appearing a lot, with higher-ranked monsters in lower-ranked gates. There was also the fact that the monsters had started exhibiting strange behaviours compared to the past.

"Something is going on with the gates, and no one is talking about it. They are trying to hide it." He grabbed his chin for a few seconds.

Knock, knock.

Leon got up and walked to the door. He opened it, and standing outside was Lily. She had been at Sophia’s place.

"Sophia and I made this, and she wanted you to eat," Lily said while holding a plate of food. Leon looked down and collected it.

"You guys seem to have bonded so well," Leon said. Lily gave him a bright smile and then waved before walking off.

Leon closed the door and walked back to his table. He placed the plate down and turned on the system.

"Ten million by next week. I have to get that for Kate." Leon stretched his hands and cracked his fingers. He opened the investment platform and immediately got to work.

He could use the eyes three times today, so he was going to make sure that he went all out.

He turned on appraisal, and immediately, every investment that could work was shown to him. He searched and searched for everything that was least reasonable with its returns, but even that was a hard ask, as most of them would only double his money.

He opened his Viper stocks, and it was sitting at over twenty million.

"I could sell it and get the money that I need, but the appraisal says that Viper will keep growing. I can’t throw that away."

While he was locked in thought, a stock appeared on the screen, and it immediately caught his attention when he saw what the appraisal showed.

"Ten times return? This is it, haha, I finally struck gold again." He eagerly clicked on it so that he could read the details about it.