With only 20 minutes left before leaving, Alexander glimpsed dozens of lights and figures in the shadows of the distance; there were also more lights approaching from other directions, all sharing the fact that they were closing in on his location. When they got close enough, Alexander was still a bit surprised by the number of people who had arrived; at a single glance, he could tell there were more than 100 people in this group. At the front of them all, Kael approached alongside a man almost as sturdy and tall as himself, who was seated in a wheelchair being pushed by one of the subordinates. It didn't take long for them to finally get close enough to carefully glimpse the shop.
The crowd stopped a few meters from the entrance. The noise of shuffling boots, the screech of rusty cart wheels, and the murmurs of exhaustion ceased abruptly. More than a hundred pairs of eyes stared fixedly at the flawless facade of the establishment. For most of them, it was the first time in a year and a half that they had seen intact fluorescent lights, much less felt the blast of cold, purified air escaping through the entrance. Several men and women rubbed their eyes, murmuring among themselves, convinced that the fog or hunger was making them hallucinate. An older man in the front row simply dropped his scrap-metal spear to the ground; the metallic clang broke the silence, but no one paid him any attention; everyone was hypnotized by the shelves full of food.
Kael took a step forward, clearing his throat. He no longer had the arrogant attitude from their first encounter. He stood right at the edge of the door, taking care not to cross without permission.
"Sir… I brought more people. Just as I said I would," Kael called toward the interior with a tone that mixed respect.
Kael pointed to the burly man in the wheelchair. Garek, despite being pale and breathing with difficulty due to the wound in his side, maintained a rigid posture. However, his eyes scanned the place from side to side, reflecting total amazement that he couldn't hide.
"He is Garek, one of the leaders of this district. I told him about your rules; no one here came to fight, and we brought plenty of gold this time," Kael presented. Garek leaned forward slightly. He swallowed hard upon seeing the bottles of ice-cold water behind the counter.
"Kael said you were a god or something similar," Garek said with a raspy voice. "I stopped believing in miracles a long time ago... but seeing this in front of me... If you have medicine for the mutant rot and food for my people, we will give you every ounce of gold we could drag here".
Behind them, the crowd began to stir. Desperation started to win over caution. The sight of clean food, soap, and freshly made tea instinctively pushed them forward, pressing against one another.
Alexander looked at the watch on his wrist and then at the mass of hungry people.
"You have exactly eighteen minutes before the shop closes," Alexander said clearly, causing the crowd's murmurs to fall silent instantly. "Bring the gold to the doors; after counting how much gold you have, you can place your orders".
———————
CURRENT WORLD
———————
FLUSH!
Shaking the invisible dust from his clothes, Alexander appeared in his closed shop, which was completely empty, as he had put everything away and taken it to the apocalyptic dimension; the entire shop structure in that world was now resting in his personal space.
"Not bad at all for the first exchange". Alexander couldn't contain his smile; 4,375 gold bars now rested in black bags in front of him; with the current price of gold, that would be over 400 million dollars. But where to sell so much gold without being led into an investigation... investigation.
That was the real current problem. If he showed up at a bank or a currency exchange with pure gold bars, the government would freeze his accounts within hours. He would end up in an interrogation room answering federal agents about how the owner of an ordinary supermarket suddenly possessed the reserves of a national bank.
"First things first," Alexander murmured in the darkness of his shop.
With a simple thought, the heavy black bags disappeared from the floor, sucked into his dimensional space. There, they were completely safe.
He walked through the empty aisles. The shop looked desolate without the shelves, fridges, or merchandise. Although technically a multimillionaire, he couldn't even spend as he pleased at the moment; so close and yet so far at the same time. Although he has money saved, it's not like he can spend it recklessly for himself; all previous money went directly to a tuition fund for his talented sister, who was enjoying the life many envy.
"I'll have to start little by little; to avoid the attention I can't afford to have, I'll have to melt the gold and sell it at pawn shops and jewelry stores in neighboring cities; that way I'll stay clean and have money for a while". Alexander wouldn't do something as stupid as going to a jewelry store and thinking the management wouldn't report him for the amount of gold he has; although he can take bars to jewelry stores to make jewelry, that would lead to scrutiny and he needs the certificate for those bars for their sale.
He took his phone out of his pocket. Seeing the signal bars and the Wi-Fi icon active gave him a strange sense of relief after being in that hell of toxic fog. He opened the browser and started looking for homemade melting crucibles, molds, and high-temperature blowtorches he could buy online with the last savings left on his credit card. He needed to turn those perfect bars into deformed and anonymous pieces as soon as possible.
The apocalypse and his new customers would have to wait a few days. Now it was his turn to play smuggler in the real world.
———————
3 Days later - Restaurant Cenit
———————
Alexander chewed the piece of lobster slowly, allowing the truffle flavor to flood his palate. The restaurant "Cenit," suspended over a glass cliff, offered the best view of Aethelgard. The country with the highest tourism rate in the world, it was considered a true wonderland with a crime rate of 10% compared to other countries with a 30% rate.
The country was also nicknamed the "Backyard of Wealth" due to the immense amount of rare minerals found there. It was considered the top exporter of minerals in the world. The only usable currency was the EG. Unlike other countries that used paper money as representative currency, Aethelgard used gold coins directly along with another unknown alloy that made it impossible to melt again after its first casting; not because you couldn't, but because any attempt to do so turned the minerals into a useless mass.
EGs were fragments of condensed wealth, accepted in any corner of the world not by political agreements but by a simple truth: their value was intrinsic, a nearly neutral currency with more value than Euros. EGs were loved and hated for the same reason: their value could not be inflated or devalued, and the only thing the currency obeyed was the people directly. There were no governments or banks besides Aethelgard that made these coins, and they have remained so and will remain so for decades.
After taking a sip from his glass of vodka, Alexander paid special attention to a couple not far from him; after spending 3 days melting gold and deforming it with his space into irregular shapes, he had barely sold one bar, and that was by breaking it into irregular pieces and visiting different jewelry stores. Now he had 2,666.67 Ǝ̶̶₲ in his bank account, which would be almost 200 thousand dollars; he had barely sold one of the 4375 bars. Sales efficiency was very slow, which was why he was here today, looking for someone to sell them to, and he had already set his sights on a target. From the couple talking, he recognized the woman: the youngest daughter of a jewelry tycoon, Amelia Kessler.
Two tables away, the prey was pouring another glass of red wine with a trembling hand.
Arthur Pendelton. The son-in-law. The man who had married into the Kessler empire and had spent the last five years being pointed out as the Kessler family's useless decorative son-in-law.
Through his enhanced senses, Alexander had been listening to Arthur's conversation with his wife, Amelia. Arthur was desperate about his current situation, with no opportunity to show he was more than a simple son-in-law, to prove that he too was capable, but all his attempts hit a wall before even seeing a glimmer of opportunity.
When Arthur stood up, frustrated, and walked toward the private bathrooms, Alexander knew it was time. He didn't walk behind him. He simply visualized the interior of the luxurious marble bathroom and took a casual step, bending space to materialize directly behind.
Arthur was in front of the mirror, splashing cold water on his face, cursing under his breath. Upon looking up, panic stole his breath when he saw a man appear out of nowhere behind him. In the mirror, Alexander was standing right behind his ear, and Arthur felt a chill through his spine, unable to move.
"Don't get scared so soon, Arthur Pendelton; how am I going to negotiate with you if you faint or even have a heart attack? Old people today are too dramatic," Alexander said, shaking his head with mock pity. These old men couldn't handle anything anymore.
"Who the hell are you? Security!" Arthur, seeing he was being mocked, tried to scream, but the sound died in his throat.
Alexander didn't even move a finger. He simply isolated the room's spatial coordinates. The distant hum of the restaurant disappeared completely. No sound remained, not even the hum of the pipes. Arthur's heart raced as all sound was cut off from his ears, feeling the accelerated thumping of his heart against his ribs.
Alexander reached out his hand and made Arthur's body rise; Arthur felt his body float a few millimeters off the floor, losing control of his balance, before being slammed against the marble wall with the force of an invisible truck.
"The good-for-nothing Kessler son-in-law. I didn't know you until this morning, and you fall perfectly into what I need. I know you hate the Kesslers for all the restrictions they've placed on you and your business. And that you would even sell your soul for a chance to escape their restrictions. I am here to offer you that opportunity". Alexander paused deliberately so Arthur could process his words. With a snap of his fingers, a small black vortex appeared in front of them, and two black bags fell out heavily.
"There are 130 24-karat gold bars here; I'll give you the chance to work for me so you'll never be repressed by the Kessy family again—well, they'll probably try to repress you again, but this time you'll have the chance to counterattack and not simply take the hits like a punching bag".
Arthur breathed deeply several times, trying to calm down; this damn way of negotiating would kill people before they could hear the words. He couldn't help but feel resentment; if Alexander only wanted this, why did he have to give him such a death scare? Although his thoughts were a chaos of curses, he didn't dare show anything on the outside or say anything.
"I understand what you're telling me, but can you put me down first? I'm not someone who likes being in the air," Arthur spoke after calming down and seeing that the guy in front of him didn't have bad intentions with him. He did have bad intentions.
"Oh, right, for a moment I forgot that fish don't breathe in clouds anymore," and with another snap from Alexander, Arthur fell to the floor with a dry thud. His knees protested, and the cold marble reminded him he was still alive, although he didn't feel entirely safe. He stayed there, panting, looking at Alexander's boots.
"Well, now that your feet are on the ground," Alexander said, sitting with total nonchalance on the sink. "Let's talk business. Don't look at me like that, Arthur. I'm not a killer; I'm just a man who hates bureaucracy".
Arthur sat up with difficulty, leaning his back against the wall. The fear was still there, but resentment was starting to surface.
"Why all this?" Arthur managed to say with a broken voice. "If you wanted to sell gold, you could have entered through the front door like anyone else".
Alexander let out a short laugh.
"With four tons of pure gold under my arm?" Alexander leaned forward, his gaze turning sharp. "They would have arrested me before I could say 'carats'. My knowledge about laws and all that political shit isn't much, but I'm sure they wouldn't miss the chance to try to throw me in the pit for this; I prefer to avoid all that shit until later. And that's why you're here; although you're a 'useless' son-in-law, you still have your utility in the Kessler family".
Arthur froze. Alexander didn't just want money; he wanted to use his in-laws' structure to wash a fortune.
"Kessler... he supervises everything," Arthur replied, feeling his words come out through pure survival instinct. "But he has blind spots. There are batches of 'antique jewelry' coming in from abroad that no one checks thoroughly if the signature is mine. But Sir, moving that amount of gold without registering it... is suicide".
"It's only suicide if you don't have control," Alexander replied, dismissing it with a wave of his hand. "You will make this gold clean one way or another. You weren't thinking you'd just work for me and enjoy the benefits without having some real capability, right, Arthur? With this, you'll be able to trample the Kesslers if you have the ability to do so; I'll help you make gold as common as moss in the river".
"Take thirty percent as the fee for your work".
Arthur closed his eyes for a second. The offer was a mix of terror and his deepest dream of revenge.
"Thirty percent…"
"It's a win-win game," Alexander added, getting down from the sink and dropping the two bars in front of Arthur with a heavy sound that echoed through the bathroom. "Consider this your 'hiring bonus'. Melt these two tomorrow. Clean the money and put it into this account".
Alexander handed him a black card with no name or numbers, just a shiny chip.
"Well, that was all I needed," Alexander concluded. Before Arthur could ask how they would meet again, Alexander simply took a step back and vanished into thin air, as if space had swallowed him.
Behind him, Arthur remained on the floor, clutching the two gold bars to his chest as if they were the remains of a shipwreck. His knuckles were white, and sweat soaked the collar of his silk shirt.