Starting With an SSS-Rank Goddess Summon!

WHIRRRR!

A hum of raw mana buzzed overhead, accompanied by the crackle of tiny golden static sparks as a shadow fell over Silas as Thor descended from the sky.

The golden-haired demigoddess floated down with effortless buoyant grace, landing on the turf with a soft thud that barely disturbed the grass.

She still held her massive wooden flagon in one hand, while the enormous half-gnawed roast boar leg was tucked casually under her arm.

A broad sunny grin spread across her rugged beautiful face as she looked down at Silas with her thunderous presence washing over him like a warm summer storm.

”Welcome back, Silas,” Thor boomed, her voice rich with warmth as she reached out with a heavy armored gauntlet and ruffled his dark hair with enough force to sway his whole upper body. ”Good to see you’re still in one piece after dealing with those weaklings...”

”Good to see you too, Thor,” Silas laughed, ducking out from under her massive hand. ”Thanks for looking after Aki while I was away.”

”Bah, the girl can handle herself! You saw her turn that troll into cinders,” Thor dismissed with a hearty grin.

She suddenly leaned in close, her bright blue eyes gleaming with mischievous curiosity. ”Hey... Open your mouth.”

Silas paused, his eyes narrowing slightly in suspicion. ”What? Why? What are you going to do?”

”Just open it, you cowardly whelp! I’m not going to poison you!”

Silas sighed, rolling his eyes, but complied, tilting his head back and parting his lips.

Before he could even ask another question, Thor tipped the rim of her flagon directly over his face.

GLUG-GLUG-GLUG!

A thick viscous stream of deep amber liquid poured straight down his throat.

’...Huh?’

It smelled like fermented volcanic honey and ozone so dense it made the air around his nose crackle with miniature spark arcs.

Silas swallowed reflexively and the liquid hit his stomach with the concussive force of an exploding artillery shell... it was an ungodly torrent of alcohol so potent that a single drop would have liquefied the liver of a normal mortal man and put a high-tier awakened warrior into a three-day coma.

Silas blinked.

He swallowed the last drop, smacked his lips thoughtfully, and exhaled a warm puff of vapor that smelled faintly of cinnamon and roasted grain.

His Gold Core circulated smoothly with the golden foundation effortlessly breaking down the divine toxins and transmuting the liquid into pure harmless vitality within a fraction of a second.

”Not bad,” Silas remarked casually, wiping a drop from his lower lip with the back of his thumb. ”A bit spicy on the finish, but the flavor is great... What is that, spiced mead?”

Thor stared at his face.

She leaned down until her nose was two inches from his with her eyes turning wide as she scanned his pupils, his skin tone, and his breathing for the slightest hint of a drunken stagger, a flushed cheek, or a glazed expression.

...Nothing.

There was not even a single trace of intoxication, he was as sober as a stone pillar.

’Even with that...?!’ Thor screamed internally, her jaw practically unhinging in disbelief.

’I mixed that batch myself!’ she thought with a cold sweat breaking out under her leather tunic. ’That wasn’t standard mortal brew! I slipped in three measures of the thousand-year reserve from the high vaults of Asgard... the stuff I drink after slaying cosmic void-serpents! A single flagon of that could bring a storm giant to its knees, and this guy drinks it like tap water?!’

She pulled back, scratching her messy golden hair with a deep frustrated scowl.

’Dammit all...’ Thor grumbled to herself, looking at the empty flagon. ’A Gold Core foundation really is an impenetrable fortress against poisons and spirits... If I actually want to see him properly sloshed and loose-tongued, I might have to swallow my pride and send a prayer to Father... He has a Gold Core too, so the old man has to have some ancient divine vintage tucked away in his private cellar that can actually bypass that metabolism!’

Perhaps she could invite him over to Asgard or something...? Thor didn’t mind either way though she would need to choose a day when Loki was not around.

”Alright, pack it up, people!” Silas called out, breaking her train of thought as he turned back toward the path. ”Let’s head back to the settlement.”

With the women hauling the heavily laden supply sleds behind them, the group began the leisurely trek back toward the southern gate.

Aki walked closely by Silas’s side with her small hands clasped behind her back as her bright blue eyes swept over the landscape with proud affection.

”This land is called Vineworld,” Aki explained, her melodic voice chiming over the rustle of the trees. ”When I got here, the system classified it as an vegetative Unknown Zone... Geographically, it sits on a place very similar to the Umbral Basin where your main territory is located, Blessed Land sits inside the Basin, and my Wonderland sits inside Vineworld!”

Silas raised an eyebrow. ”Similar how?”

”The ecological hierarchy,” Aki replied, gesturing toward the wild groves in the distance. ”Just like the Basin, the outer perimeter here is almost exclusively populated by Tier 2 beasts... The mana density is stable, the place is rich in natural wood and earth elements though there aren’t any sudden unpredictable dimensional tears dropping different kinds of weathers on our doorstep. Honestly... I would go as far as to call it the flowery colorful version of your Umbral Basin!”

Silas chuckled warmly, reaching down to playfully flick a stray leaf from her bangs.

”Well, that’s a massive relief. The Umbral Basin was a grim foggy place when we first got there and still is. Having a flowery version is a huge upgrade... except, of course, for the trees that try to eat your face off.”

Aki giggled, a bright, cheerful sound that echoed through the woods.

”Oh, the carnivorous willows? They’re just territorial! Once the boundary towers finish synchronizing with the Keep’s core, their hostile aggression will be suppressed automatically... Don’t worry about me, Silas. I promise you, I’ll be more than alright here.”

”I know you will,” Silas smiled, looking at her with genuine pride. ”You’ve done an incredible job, Aki.”

Aki hopped twice on her toes with a pair of small springy hops that made her bangs bounce, and then her hand found his and slid inside it as though it had always belonged there.

Silas closed his fingers around hers without thinking about it.

”Mmm~”

Aki hummed under her breath and studied a nearby root with great concentration, pretending very hard not to be smiling.

They reached the massive black steel wall, passing through the gatehouse without incident.

Inside the perimeter, some of her people immediately rushed toward the supply depot, retrieving heavy wooden freight wagons to assist with unloading the slaughtered beasts.

Aki sighed contentedly, looking up at the sprawling layout of the burgeoning settlement.

”I have to say, the administrative interface for territory management is remarkably convenient... As long as we clear the timber and lay the foundation, the system allows Lords to erect residential quarters, storage vaults, and workshops almost instantaneously through the core console. It’s like playing in an architectural sandbox!”

As they walked past the orchard Eluned had grown along the inner wall, Morwenna casually broke away from the group.

She reached up with her arms, deftly plucking three large, perfectly radiant Golden Star Apples from the low branches.

”Heh...”

She wiped one against her leather trousers and took a massive juicy bite with the sweet nectar dripping down her chin as she let out a satisfied hum.

’I hate Eluned but I guess it’s okay because of her apples...’

Eluned, who had finally detached herself from Silas’s side, trotted over with an expectant delicate palm extended outward.

”A fruit for me, please, Morwenna,” Eluned said with a serene sweet smile. ”I did spend three hours cultivating the soil, after all.”

Morwenna immediately pulled the remaining two apples against her chest, turning her back with a sharp petty scoff. ”Get your own, leaf-brain... My hands did the picking, so these are my plunder.”

Eluned didn’t yell.

Instead, she simply lowered her extended hand, letting her head tilt downward with her large emerald eyes welling with an impossibly deep heartbreaking sorrow.

”O-ok...”

Her lower lip gave a pitiful quiver, looking for all the world like a forsaken goddess who had just been cruelly denied her only source of joy in the mortal realm.

Morwenna’s jaw clenched.

She stared at that pathetic guilt-inducing face for three agonizing seconds with her eye twitching violently.

”Gah! Fine! Take it!” Morwenna snapped with an exasperated Mmph, aggressively shoving one of the golden apples into Eluned’s waiting palms.

Eluned’s tearful sorrow vanished in a microsecond as she took the apple, cradled it against her cheek, and offered Morwenna a sugary venomous smile.

”Thank you, dear,” Eluned purred softly, her voice dripping with mockery. ”I expected as much from an uncultured virgin.”

Morwenna froze.

Her vision turned red with her knuckles turned white around the remaining apple and her teeth grinding together so hard they sounded like millstones.

She looked genuinely on the verge of ripping out handfuls of her own dark hair in pure rage.

’Don’t fall for the bait,’ Morwenna chanted violently in her head, closing her eyes and taking three deep furious breaths through her nose. ’Don’t strangle the Goddess... She’s doing it on purpose... She’s trying to throw you off your game so Silas thinks you’re a savage... Stay calm and be graceful.’

Forcing her features into a stiff aggressive smile, Morwenna marched around Eluned and planted herself firmly at Silas’s other side.

She held the last golden apple out toward Aki first.

”Here... You worked hard on that troll. Eat up.”

”Thank you, Morwenna!” Aki beamed, taking the fruit with both hands and immediately taking a happy, enthusiastic bite.

Then, Morwenna turned to Silas.

She didn’t hand the apple to him.

Instead, her stormy gray eyes softened with a sudden delicious flutter of nervousness seizing her chest as she held the freshly bitten half of her own fruit directly toward his lips.

”Here,” she muttered, her raspy voice dropping into a quiet breathless hush. ”Take a bite.”

Silas blinked, but didn’t hesitate.

He leaned down with his lips brushing lightly against her calloused fingers as his teeth sank into the crisp sweet flesh of the golden apple.

The brief warm contact of his mouth against her skin sent a violent electric jolt shooting straight from Morwenna’s fingertips down into her stomach.

A furious radiant shade of crimson detonated across her sun-kissed cheeks, racing all the way to the tips of her ears.

”They taste good...”

She pulled her hand back as if she had touched an open flame, hastily biting into the other side of the apple to hide her flustered expression with her heart hammering against her ribs like a war drum.

’He... he ate it right out of my hand...’ she squealed silently, her toes curling inside her leather boots. ’And his lips touched my fingers! Gods above, he’s so damn smooth without even trying!’

Behind them, Aeliana had been watching the apple go by with the patient interest of a cat watching a bird.

She stepped up beside Silas the instant Morwenna pulled her hand away and laid a fingertip against the corner of his mouth.

”You missed a drop, Lord Sy,” she said sweetly.

She drew the fingertip slowly along his lower lip, touched it to the tip of her own tongue, and never once looked away from his eyes. ”Mm. Eluned does grow a fine orchard.”

Silas forgot how to blink while Morwenna choked on her apple and two paces away, Eluned’s smile froze as well.

’The elf, AGAIN?!’ Ther’Abella shrieked silently, her fingers strangling the strap of her cuirass. ’Is there anyone in this keep he hasn’t—!’

As they approached the pastel pink Keep, Aki wiped a drop of apple juice from the corner of her mouth with her expression shifting from relaxed enjoyment to business-like contemplation.

”Silas,” Aki began, glancing around the half-finished courtyards, ”I’m running a bit low on raw construction materials. The territory is stable, but my personal inventory reserves are almost completely dry... I need heavy stone, mythril rebar, and refined lumber for the residential blocks... and most importantly, I need high-tier supplies for a central forge so do you think you can borrow me some building materials?”

She let out a small frustrated sigh, kicking a tiny pebble with the toe of her boot.

”I haven’t even pulled a single dwarf from the summoning pool yet! All of my summons were warriors and scouts... Not a single craftsman or blacksmith in the entire batch!”

Silas couldn’t help but chuckle, nodding in deep shared misery.

”Tell me about it,” Silas sighed, running a hand through his dark hair. ”I’ve been dealing with the exact same issue back in Blessed Land... I only ever pulled one dwarf out of my own tickets, Thora, and every other smith I have came out of the Lord War with Evelyn. Are dwarves some kind of critically endangered species in the sovereign realm? You can pull fifty spearwomen before you see a single dwarf with a hammer... It’s ridiculous.”

He patted her shoulder reassuringly.

”Don’t stress about it too much. That’s actually one of the main reasons I came over to check on you right now... I’m heading to Central City in the Sovereign Realm after this, so I won’t be able to stay long today, I’m leaving momentarily.”

The atmosphere in the group dropped like an anchor.

”What?!” Eluned gasped, her hands instantly flying to her chest, her emerald eyes wide with immediate devastation. ”You’re leaving already?! But you only just arrived, my heart! You haven’t even rested your head in our garden!”

”Are you serious, Captain?!” Morwenna snapped, her brows furrowing into an angry disappointed scowl. ”You just got back from the mortal world, and now you’re running off to some pompous metropolis?! We haven’t even had a single round of sparring!”

Beside them, Thor took another massive swig of her flagon, wiping her mouth with the back of her forearm as she watched the two women spiral into despair.

’Why the hell are they whining so much?’ Thor thought, rolling her eyes in mild amusement. ’The boy’s a Lord... He has lands to manage, markets to plunder, and treaties to forge, Sitting around an orchard smelling flowers all day isn’t how you build an empire so let him go buy his damn steel.’

Silas held his hands up in a placating gesture, chuckling dryly at the barrage of complaints.

”Relax, both of you. It’s not a permanent deployment,” Silas explained. ”I’m going to Central City to secure the construction materials, look into defense turrets for our walls, and browse the artisan markets and... after I finish the primary business, I’m planning to hang out for a bit with one of my friends from the human world. Aeliana is coming along with me as well.”

The complaints cut off instantly.

A heavy suffocating silence descended over the courtyard.

Morwenna’s stormy gray eyes narrowed into lethal slits while Eluned’s serene expression froze completely with her lips curving into a tight eerily still smile that made the grass beneath her slippers faintly frost over.

Even Aki paused, her head tilting with sharp unblinking focus.

”A friend...?” Morwenna growled, her voice dropping into a low dangerous tone. ”What friend?”

”And what...” Eluned whispered with terrifying sweetness, ”...might be the gender of this ’friend’ from the human world, my darling?”