The moon was already high in the sky by the time I reached home. In the end, Thorne and I decided to grab something to eat before parting ways.
He had wanted to leave early since he needed to be home when his World coordinates were delivered. I, on the other hand, just wanted to get away from the subtle glares he kept giving me the entire time.
Right now, I was walking toward my home down a silent street. For some ungodly reason, my ancestors had decided to build our family home outside the city in the middle of nowhere, And considering I had sold all our cars and the nearest taxi checkpoint was kilometers away, it took me half an hour of walking every day to reach my own home.
Maybe I shouldn't have sold all of them.
Shaking my head, I kept walking until I finally saw the figure of a large mansion appear in the distance.
Increasing my speed, I soon reached the large, rusty gate in front of the mansion. A sign with "Astorin" written on it was fixed right beside the gate on the moss-covered wall.
I was about to push open the gate when, suddenly, a voice interrupted me.
"Young master, you're late."
An old man in his late fifties came running toward me.
"Uncle Zorin, shouldn't you have left by now?" I asked as the old man began unlocking the gate with his key.
"I was about to leave when the Academy called, complaining that you had run away again. I figured it was nothing, but just in case, I wanted to ensure you were okay before I left."
Listening to the old man, I smiled slightly. Zorin was the last housekeeper left after I had fired all the servants the previous year.
"You don't have to worry about me, Uncle Zorin. And don't pick up calls from the Academy anymore."
The large gate creaked open as the old man chuckled lightly. "Yes, yes, I will make sure to keep that in mind from now on."
"Alright, since you've made sure I'm fine, you should go home already. Stay too long, and Aunt Myra will get mad."
Uncle Zorin chuckled again and slightly bowed. "Yes, yes. Well then, young master, I'll take my leave."
Saying so, he turned around and exited through the main gate. Watching his departing figure, I couldn't help but sigh again. It didn't matter if the man was a former diver and still strong for his age—letting a 50-year-old man walk that far to the taxi stand? I really shouldn't have sold all of my cars.
Turning around, I began making my way through the giant, weed-infested courtyard toward the mansion's main door. Opening the door, I stepped inside the house, only to be greeted by a dark, empty hall.
"Lights on," I spoke, and suddenly, the hall was dimly illuminated by a single small bulb hanging from the middle of the ceiling.
Nodding to myself, I didn't waste any time and began walking up the stairs through the empty hallways until I reached the room at the far end. Entering inside, I turned on the lights and collapsed onto my bed in the center of the room.
Last year, I had gone on a bit of a selling spree, selling all of our family assets one by one. I had fired all our employees, sold entire painting collections, ancient artifacts collected for generations—even the furniture wasn't spared. Right now, the only room that seemed to have anything was this one, my own bedroom.
Part of it was because I needed the money, and the other part was to teach my family that leaving everything in my name wasn't such a great idea. I chuckled softly, just imagining the look on their faces when they returned to find everything was gone.
Well, IF they returned in the first place.
I immediately sat up and took a deep breath. Damn, I was starting to think about depressing stuff again.
Shaking my head, I took out my smartwatch and sent a message to a certain contact. I didn't have to wait long before I received a phone call. Accepting the call, a screen appeared in front of my eyes. Behind it sat a bald man of short stature with a monocle covering his left eye.
"Have you prepared it?" I asked directly, without any pleasantries.
Toad, or so was his nickname, slowly nodded without any expression on his face. "Send the money, and I'll send the credits."
Nodding, I pulled up my bank account on a separate screen.
17.39 billion—that's what was left after selling all of my family's properties. In an instant, 800,000 was all that remained.
With only a few clicks and swipes of my hand, I had transferred all of my money to Toad's bank account. On the call, Toad could be seen confirming the transfer.
"Good," he spoke. "I've also transferred the credits to your ID. You can check."
I took out my diver's ID and a small card from my pocket. Under it, my credits jumped from 16,277 to 46,530.
Looking at the amount of credits, I couldn't help but let out a sigh. 46,530 credits. I had managed to gather only 46,530 credits, even after spending my entire family's fortune.
Still, it made sense. Official divers didn't use our world's standard currency for trading. The association operated in six other Worlds, after all. That's why the association had issued its own currency—credits. Credits were the only viable currency in the world of diversity. That was partly why I had to spend so much to get so little.
Despite having an ID issued by the association for being a student at Orion's Path Academy, I wasn't an official diver yet, so it was impossible for me to earn these credits. The only way for me to get them was by using a middleman like Toad, who could exchange my normal currency for credits with a few interested divers.
These kinds of divers weren't easy to find; only a sparse few, usually those with an urgent need for normal currency, those expelled from their Worlds and forced to return to their home worlds, or straight-up idiots, would trade in their credits.
Even then, only a few crazy rich people would buy from them simply because the exchange rate was too outrageous. To be honest, even I had partly done it to piss off my family.
Even then I wasn't sure if these were going to be enough. Afterall I had no zero information about the world I was going to transmigrate into.
Thinking to myself, I swiped my hand and abruptly cut the call. The transfer was already done, so there was no need to stay on call anymore.