In the Hogwarts Forbidden Forest—formerly the territory of the Acromantulas, now the exclusive barbecue ground for the Father Troubleshooters:
A small suitcase sat all alone on the ground covered in dead branches and fallen leaves.
Beside it, Deva Path silently guarded the suitcase, preventing any creature from drawing near.
Inside the suitcase, the four Father Troubleshooters and twenty-two Saints were dividing their spoils after the operation.
As for Black Zetsu, he had already led the remaining five Paths back to Albania.
What lay displayed before the Father Troubleshooters was an endless array of gold, silver, and treasures, nearly filling this hall that stood over ten meters high with an area of over a thousand square meters.
Such a vast mountain of wealth could easily rival the Dwarf treasure hoard occupied by Smaug inside the Lonely Mountain.
Even a super-wealthy individual like Kyle had never witnessed such a scene before.
Originally, the Grindelwald family's wealth was by no means less than the pile before them, but after his old man's forces collapsed, the Grindelwald family had been reduced to penniless paupers.
The money currently in the vault of New Nurmengard Castle belonged, strictly speaking, to the old butler, Butler-Man.
With the financial standing of the August family, there was simply no way to compare with the top ten families in the British Wizarding World.
Although this was only a fraction of those families' total wealth, it still far exceeded that of the August family.
George and Fred had completely gone wild, plunging headfirst into the sea of gold and splashing about non-stop, muttering repeatedly, "We're rich! We're rich! Ehehe..."
Cedric was relatively more reserved, though his pupils had already turned the color of gold.
Oh, apologies—a snake's pupils were originally yellow to begin with.
Exasperated, Kyle grabbed the collar of the twins' fate, hauling both of them out from the gold.
"Stop splashing around; we still have serious business to settle."
Hearing Kyle's words, the twins sheepishly ceased their foolish antics.
Looking around, aside from the other three Father Troubleshooters, the Saints were all gazing at him with expectant eyes. Even Mac, who always kept a cold face, showed a trace of excitement deep in his eyes.
Although Mac's sole interest lay in eating—eating and nothing else—if one wished to travel the Wizarding World and sample every kind of magical creature, one still couldn't do without the support of Gold Galleons.
With a wave of his hand, Kyle cast an Undetectable Extension Charm non-verbally, instantly expanding the hall storing the treasures several times over.
Because the quantity of treasure was far too vast to count every single gold coin one by one, Kyle casually divided it into four roughly equal portions.
"Johnny, and Mac," Kyle pointed to the two golden mountains on the right, "these two portions are yours. How you divide them among yourselves is up to you."
Kyle's generous gesture thoroughly stunned the two of them. Originally, they believed that splitting a single golden mountain between two teams would already be immensely generous, yet they had been directly allocated half of the entire haul.
"Young Lord, this..."
Before Johnny could finish, Kyle raised a hand to cut him off. "Say no more; your contributions are worth this much."
In truth, this half of the treasure was well deserved.
In this Standard Gringotts Job, the Saints had exerted the greatest effort.
During the holding action outside the Four Violet Flames Formation, they had faced enemies tenfold their numbers, yet managed to stall them, creating more than enough time for the Father Troubleshooters to execute their mission.
To say they held the top credit for this operation was not an exaggeration in the slightest.
As for the remaining two golden mountains, they were split between the Father Troubleshooters and the Six Paths of Pain respectively.
Regarding this arrangement, neither the other three Father Troubleshooters nor the Saints had any objections.
As for the Six Paths of Pain, this was actually treating them a bit unfairly, considering the Four Violet Flames Formation they cast and the summoned beasts brought forth by Black and White Zetsu had played a massive role in the operation.
Without them, the Saints could never have stalled so many Aurors with just twenty-some people.
Furthermore, their remaining behind to cover the retreat bought invaluable time for everyone's escape; claiming their contribution was the second greatest was completely beyond question.
However, as the Outer Path—the seventh path beyond the Six Paths of Pain—so long as Kyle had no objections, Pain and Black Zetsu would naturally have none either. After all, this money would ultimately wind up back in Kyle's hands anyway.
Kyle had originally even considered splitting the money fifty-fifty between the Father Troubleshooters and the Saints.
On second thought, however, he decided against it.
Once the Six Paths of Pain completed their operation to overthrow the Albanian Ministry of Magic, they would inevitably need to recruit manpower locally—how could they accomplish that without Galleons?
If, after taking Albania, the only force they could deploy remained just the six of them, why would Kyle have Black Zetsu go through all the trouble of taking over the Albanian Ministry of Magic in the first place?
He could just send the Six Paths of Pain to fight directly.
Dividing the loot did not mean the matter was over. While the Saints were done, the Father Troubleshooters still needed to find Dumbledore to hand in the task reward for this Standard Gringotts Job.
After bringing out all the stolen treasures and stacking them up in this hall, the very first thing the Father Troubleshooters did was have Cedric search through the pile of gold to locate Voldemort's Horcrux.
Cedric did not disappoint, finding it in short order.
It was a gleaming golden goblet with two finely crafted pure gold handles, its surface adorned with exquisite symbolic engravings.
Kyle recognized what it was at first glance—Hufflepuff's Cup.
Legend had it that it possessed miraculous and special magic. Hufflepuff's descendants passed it down generation after generation, until at some point, the golden cup suddenly vanished.
Who would have thought it had actually fallen into Voldemort's hands?
If that were the case, then Slytherin's Locket was extremely likely to be in Voldemort's hands as well.
After all, aside from Gryffindor's Sword, two relics belonging to the other three Founders had ended up in Voldemort's possession. As Voldemort's ancestor, if Slytherin's locket wasn't with him, that would truly be bizarre.
Having finished dividing their spoils, the Father Troubleshooters soon arrived outside Dumbledore's office door on the eighth floor of the castle, carrying the golden cup.
At this moment, Dumbledore was suffering from a massive headache. Major events in the Wizarding World had been breaking out one after another lately.
The exposure of Kyle's parentage, Grindelwald's return, the convening of the International Confederation of Wizards...
And now, a major heist at Gringotts.
According to the goblins at Gringotts, the Dumbledore family vault had also been cleaned out by the robbers.
The location of the Dumbledore family vault happened to be in the deepest depths of Gringotts, right next to the vaults of the Lestrange, Malfoy, and Black families.
Thus, it too had been completely emptied by that band of suspected Death Eater robbers.
————
Supporting me on Pa-treon to gain early access to advanced chapters and enjoy expedited updates. Your support is greatly appreciated.
pat-reon .c-om/Dragonhair
(Just remove the hyphen - and space, to access Pa-treon normally.)
