"When do you want to go through with the deal?" Christine asked.

"As soon as possible," Yamoyan replied in a straightforward manner.

"It sounds like you want to complete the deal tonight," Christine said as she raised an eyebrow. She wasn't expecting such urgency from Yamoyan.

Why is he in such a hurry? Christine thought to herself in a perplexed manner. Could it be that he's afraid that the Lodais Organization will get to the Fall Crystals before him? But while I was visiting Nachi, I didn't hear him mention anything about their organization's intentions of buying this batch of Fall Crystals.

A thought then occurred to Christine, and she immediately understood the reason for Yamoyan's urgency. It must be because he received wind that I paid a visit to the Lodais Organization this afternoon, so he must be under the false impression that I want to sell this batch of Fall Crystals to the Lodais Organization.

"Is it too soon for you?" Yamoyan asked.

"No, I can go through with the deal anytime," Christine replied. "I'm happy to follow your lead."

Yamoyan snapped his fingers toward the distance, and Tolk and his other subordinates were already waiting there after seeing off the guests. In response to Yamoyan's gesture, they immediately rushed over to await his instructions.

Prince Yamoyan beckoned toward his group of subordinates, and they immediately huddled up close to him, following which he described the details of the deal to them in a quiet voice.

Meanwhile, Christine made her way toward Sherry and the others to give Yamoyan and his subordinates some privacy.

"What's going on?" Sherry asked with an urgent expression. "What do they want?"

"It's alright, there's no need to worry," Christine replied as a reassuring smile appeared on her face. "I was just selling something to them."

"Can we go now?" Sherry asked.

"Prince Yamoyan wants to finalize the deal tonight, so we'll have to make a trip to the airship," Christine replied.

"Tonight? Right now?" Sherry exclaimed with a surprised expression. "It's almost midnight already!"

"These are not people that we want to mess with. If they want to complete the deal now, then let's just do as they say," Lanyon said in a quiet voice. "We should avoid a conflict with them at all costs. By the way, what do they want to buy from us?"

"They want the batch of goods that I picked up in Tewadedan," Christine replied in a calm manner.

Lanyon nodded in response and didn't ask any further questions. He was a little befuddled as he recalled that Kaiba had brought that batch of goods from Tewadedan to their airship in person. However, he was in no position to be prying deeper and asking about what the goods were.

Their top priority was to find Erwin, and everything else was of secondary importance.

"I agree. This is not a place that we should stay at for any longer than necessary," Sherry said. "Let's get out of this city as soon as we receive some news on Master Erwin."

A short while later, Tolk approached Christine with a smile as he asked, "Shall we go to the airship?"

"You better not try to slack off, Tolk!" another subordinate of Prince Yamoyan's yelled from the barracks. "Get your people to help us carry the crates!"

"You can't even carry these crates on your own? How useless are you?" Tolk grumbled in response, then gestured toward his subordinates to go and help out over at the barracks.

"Impressive as usual, Christine. You've made a massive profit in just a single night," Tolk jibed.

"You're making it sound far more glamorous than it is," Christine replied with a smile. "I had to put my life on the line for this."

Prince Yamoyan's subordinates carried close to 30 heavy crates out of the barracks one after another.

Lanyon and the others were feeling rather bewildered. Are these crates all full of Loonies? How many Loonies are there in total?

After that, everyone emerged from the underground stronghold before making their way to the spire aerial port via horse-drawn carriage.

The process of finalizing the deal was very fast and effortless.

Tolk made sure to carefully examine the crates of Fall Crystal ore. He had no idea what these things were, but he had been instructed by Prince Yamoyan to meticulously weigh out the ore in the crates, and the combined weight of the ore in those crates really did amount to over 10,000 ounces.

These pieces of Fall Crystal ore were very unremarkable in appearance, and at a rough glance, they didn't appear to be any different from normal ore. However, when illuminated by the light of Nightglow Stones at night, one would be able to see that the pieces of ore contained countless irregular tangent planes. The light that entered the pieces of ore was somehow devoured by these complex tangent planes, and it was quite a remarkable sight to behold. 

Of course, Tolk wasn't worried that Christine would try to fool them. After all, no one dared to fool someone acting on Prince Yamoyan's behalf in this city.

"Carry the crates away," Tolk instructed as he beckoned toward his subordinates while closing the lids of the crates one by one.

He then turned to Christine before asking, "Where would you like us to put the Loonies?"

The crates that contained the Loonies for the transaction formed such a long line that it stretched all the way down the long staircase into the interior of the spire. It had been quite a difficult task for Yamoyan's subordinates to carry these heavy crates to such a high place with all the buffeting wind and sand around them.

"Come with me," Christine said as she beckoned toward Tolk. "Put the crates in the cabin and line them up one by one."

By the time Tolk and his subordinates had loaded the crates containing the 800,000 Loonies into the cabin, the altitude of the airship had fallen significantly, and it took Christine quite some time to count all the Loonies.

Seeing as Christine had declared that the batch of ore were her goods, Sherry and the others chose to wait for her on the airship's deck outside. After all, this was Christine's private property, so it was inappropriate for them to be overly invasive.

"The money's all there, right?" Tolk asked with a smile as Christine emerged from the airship's cabin.

"Of course," Christine replied with a smile of her own. "I have full trust in Prince Yamoyan."

"Alright, in that case, we'll be going back now," Tolk called out to his subordinates, then prepared to leave.

However, Christine stopped him before he could go, then thrust a large back of Loonies up his sleeve. "Thanks for your hard work."

Tolk smiled as he felt the weight of the bag of Loonies in his hand. "You're as generous as ever, Christine."

"It's just reward for your hard work," Christine replied with a smile.

Tolk made a farewell gesture to Christine, then departed with his subordinates.

Only after all of Yamoyan's subordinates had faded into the distance did Lanyon cast his gaze toward the cabin before asking, "Christine, are those crates all filled with Loonies?"

Christine nodded in response. 

"Please don't misunderstand, it's just that you've already told us what kind of person Prince Yamoyan is," Lanyon said as a concerned look appeared on his face. "You've taken a massive sum of Loonies from him. Will he..."

Christine heaved a faint sigh in response. "Your concerns are very much warranted, Brother Lanyon. Truth be told, I'm also thinking the exact same thing."

"Then what should we do? Should we return to the mansion and wake everyone up before leaving right away?" Georgina suggested.

Christine shook her head in response. "Staying in Madeira will always be safer than venturing into the desert. I know what kind of person Prince Yamoyan is. No matter what happens, there's no way he'll attack us while we're in the city."

"Also, we still have to wait here for further news on Master Erwin," Sherry added.

"You can all go back to the mansion for now. There's no point in standing out here in the wind," Christine said. "In any case, as long as we're in Madeira, there's no need for us to worry too much."

"What about you?" Sherry asked.

"I still have somewhere I need to go," Christine replied.

"I'll go with you," Sherry immediately offered without any hesitation.

Christine was rather surprised by the offer, but she didn't turn him down.

Meanwhile, Lanyon and Georgina exchanged a look with one another.

...

At this point, it was already the middle of the night, and for a second time, Christine returned to the residential house that was the contact point for the Lodais Organization in Madeira.

It was impossible for Christine to predict whether Prince Yamoyan was going to take back the 800,000 Loonies. Whether her group would be able to emerge from the desert alive with those 800,000 Loonies would depend entirely on the mood that Yamoyan was in.

After some careful contemplation, she realized that only the Lodais Organization could get them out of this predicament.

Thus, she knocked on the door again, and it was the same young man who answered.

The young man was taking a nap on the sofa beside the door, and he immediately sat up in an alert manner upon hearing the sound of door-knocking.

He opened the door to find that it was once again Christine who was visiting, and she was accompanied by an unfamiliar man.

The young man knew that for Christine to visit them at this hour, she had to have something that she wanted to discuss with Elder Nachi. Thus, he immediately invited them into the room. Even though there was still a weary look on his face, he made sure to put on a polite smile.

"Wait here for me, I'll be back in a moment," Christine said to Sherry.

Sherry nodded in response, then sat down onto the sofa and began to look around with a curious expression.

After Sherry had taken a seat, Christine glanced at the young man before casting her gaze upstairs.

The young man immediately reacted to her silent instruction, taking her to the second floor before opening the secret passageway for her.

The wooden door at the end of the secret passageway swung open, and Elder Nachi was still up.

"Christine? Why are you here again?" Nachi asked with a perplexed expression. 

"I have a large sum of Loonies that I need you to take care of for me," Christine said as she sat down onto the sofa and declared the purpose of her visit, ignoring the look on Nachi's face. She was acting a little cold as she was still a little displeased at the fact that the Lodais Organization had sold information regarding her to Yamoyan.

However, that was the way that the Lodais Organization ran its business, so there was nothing that she could do.

"How many Loonies do you need us to process for you?" Nachi asked as he cast his gaze toward Christine, wondering where this sum of money had come from. During her visit in the afternoon, she hadn't mentioned this at all, yet she was suddenly coming here with such urgency to see him in the middle of the night. Thus, he was speculating that she had most likely only just received this sum of money.

"800,000 Loonies," Christine declared.

Nachi was immediately able to guess where the money had come from upon hearing this. The fact that it was such a large sum and she was turning to the Lodais Organization indicated that the money had most likely come from Yamoyan's pocket.

With that in mind, Nachi was able to guess that Christine had most likely sold that batch of Fall Crystals. However, he naturally wasn't going to directly articulate this.

Furthermore, he wasn't holding this against her. If the Lodais Organization really wanted to purchase that batch of Fall Crystals, then he would've mentioned it during her previous visit in the afternoon. The fact that he hadn't done that naturally indicated that the Lodais Organization wasn't interested in the Fall Crystals for now.

"How would you like me to process the money?" Nachi asked, pretending to be completely oblivious to the situation.

"I'm going to give you the 800,000 Loonies in exchange for an invoice. With this invoice, I'll be able to withdraw this sum of money from any contact point of the Lodais Organization in the future," Christine said.

Nachi's eyes widened with surprise upon hearing this. This was something that he had never thought of, nor experienced in the past.

I don't think there's a precedent for this in our organization, Nachi thought to himself. We do offer a safekeeping service for our clients, but I've never even heard of this idea being proposed before.

"Why do you look so surprised? Haven't you ever done this before?" Christine asked with an amused smile at the sight of Nachi's bewildered expression.

"Truth be told, this proposal of yours really has given me quite a shock," Nachi said as a smile also appeared on his face. "You really are a breath of fresh air in the business world."