Starting With an SSS-Rank Goddess Summon!

Chapter 851: House Hunting In Valoria City [IV / Bonus Chapter]

Silas didn’t blink.

He simply lifted his gaze back to the house, taking in the sweeping terraces of pale limestone, the walls of glass catching the afternoon sun, and the four private acres of evergreen forest rolling down the ridge behind it.

’Isn’t that a bit too small for something like this...?’

Honestly, he’d expected the number to be worse.

A property at the very summit of Celestine Heights, with reinforced Lord-grade combat facilities, Class-A ward arrays and its own emergency leylines, could easily have gone for double that on the open market...

Whoever had priced it had either been in a hurry to sell or had never stood on this lawn and looked down at the city.

The price didn’t bother him in the slightest.

The sheer size of the place, on the other hand, gave him a moment’s pause.

Twenty-six bedroom suites... Two pools, a sauna, a cinema with thirty recliners, a two-story library, and a kitchen big enough to run a restaurant out of...

He tried to picture just the three of them living in it, himself, Martha and Lia, and for a second, all he could see was a long row of quiet empty hallways stretching off in every direction.

’Fuck...’

He slid one hand into his pocket and rubbed the back of his neck with the other as a crooked smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

”It’s incredible, Rosalind,” he said, his voice calm and thoughtful as he looked out over the sprawling lawns. ”It really is but I have to ask the obvious question. Twenty-six bedrooms for a household of three people? We’d need a map just to find each other at breakfast... Lia would get lost on her way to the bathroom, and Martha would wear a hole in her shoes trying to dust all of it.”

Rosalind opened her mouth to answer, but Harper beat her to it.

She stepped directly into his line of sight, took his free hand between both of hers and held it firmly against her chest.

Behind her wire-rimmed glasses, her violet eyes were bright and stubborn and absolutely certain.

”Then you fill it, Silas,” she said, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. ”Lia’s going to have Kaede and Penelope over every single weekend, and the three of them are going to scream into the karaoke microphones until midnight and fall asleep in a pile in the cinema... Martha’s going to take one look at that kitchen, cry for a solid minute, and then start cooking for twenty people out of pure habit and I’m going to be over here so often that you’ll forget I don’t actually live here.”

’So you’ve admitted that you want to move in, hm?’

She squeezed his fingers, and her voice dropped a little softer.

”Besides, you’re a Lord. You’re going to have people coming and going for the rest of your life, friends and allies and whoever else you end up dragging home with you... You might as well have somewhere to put them all. This house isn’t too big for you but you just haven’t grown into it yet.”

On his shoulder, Nitocris shifted her velvety paws, and her tail flicked impatiently against the side of his neck.

”Listen to the girl, you stubborn desert ox,” she scoffed, her rich voice dripping with royal exasperation. ”You’re behaving like an emperor who refuses to claim a conquered city because he’s worried the palace has too many silk cushions... Twenty-six rooms? My royal leopards had an entire limestone courtyard dedicated to nothing but their afternoon naps Nyaa~”

She stood straight up on his shoulder and arched her back with dignity.

”A Per-aa’s household requires at least this much space to maintain proper celestial order,” she declared, her violet eyes flashing in the sunlight. ”Do you seriously expect a monarch of the ancient world to sleep in some cramped little cupboard where her whiskers brush the doorframe? I have already claimed the sunny room for my afternoon basking... It’s done and it’s decreed so stop dithering like a camel driver haggling over a blanket and take the palace, Nyaa~.”

Silas looked at the small black cat puffed up on his shoulder, then down at Harper, who was still holding his hand and watching him with her whole heart sitting right there in her eyes.

He laughed.

”Alright,” he said, and a slow grin spread across his face. ”Alright, you two win... I’m not going to stand here and argue with a billionaire and an empress at the same time. It’s a dream house and I’d be an idiot to walk away from it.”

Harper’s face lit up like the sun breaking through clouds.

She bounced once on the toes of her heels before she could stop herself, then caught herself mid-bounce and tried very hard to look calm and dignified about it.

”Good,” she said, clearing her throat and smoothing down the lapels of her blazer. ”That’s an excellent decision, Silas... Very wise and very mature of you.”

”You just bounced...? That was a bit cute.”

”I most certainly did not bounce and I’m not cute, but mature!”

”You bounced,” Nitocris confirmed from his shoulder. ”Like a happy little goat in a spring meadow, Nyaa~”

Harper glared at the cat and the cat glared right back at her, truly even with all of their differences... These two were related.

Silas chuckled and turned toward Rosalind, already running the numbers in his head.

...One hundred and fifty million Spirit Credits.

His regular account held a little over seventy million, which left him roughly eighty million short under his own name.

The money existed, of course.

His Vespera account held several billion Spirit Credits, sitting there quietly doing nothing, and he could have bought this entire ridge three times over without feeling it however the problem was moving it.

Silas Graves was a fresh Academy graduate with a known, registered bank balance.

If eighty million credits suddenly appeared in his account out of thin air, every auditor in Valoria would want to know where it came from, and if anyone started pulling on that particular thread, it might lead all the way back to a certain one-armed Lord.

’I can’t just transfer it straight across,’ he thought, narrowing his eyes slightly as he worked through it. ’I’ll have to go see Jax...’

Jax was Evelyn’s underground broker, the man who’d layered her stream money through a dozen shell accounts so cleanly that nobody had ever found the seams.

It would cost some hours of quiet transfers, but Silas could probably have the full amount sitting in his regular account by tomorrow morning.

It was simple enough.

He turned to Rosalind with a firm decisive nod.

”Alright,” he said. ”I’ll take it. I’ll need a day to arrange the rest of the payment through my bank, but you can go ahead and consider the house sold...”

Beside him, Harper had gone very quiet.

Silas glanced over at her.

She was staring down at the gravel with her lips pressed tightly together, and her shoulders were shaking ever so slightly... It took him a second to realize she was trying very hard not to laugh.

”What?” he asked, narrowing his eyes at her.

”Nothing,” Harper squeaked, her voice squeaking a bit too high. ”Nothing at all. Please, go on... Tell her all about your bank.”

Rosalind didn’t reach for a payment schedule.

Instead, she offered him a warm and conspiratorial smile as she lowered her tablet to her side.

”There’s no need to arrange anything, Master Graves,” she said pleasantly. ”The purchase has already been completed in full. Miss Whitmore finalized the transfer and signed for the title about forty-five minutes ago...”

On Silas’s shoulder, Nitocris’s whiskers twitched.

”Ah,” she murmured thoughtfully. ”So that’s who she was texting under the table at the ice cream shop. I thought she was just being terribly rude, Nyaa~”

Silas went still then he turned his head, slowly, and looked at the girl standing beside him.

Harper didn’t look away, and she didn’t blush.

She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose with one manicured finger, and her violet eyes gleamed with victorious smugness.

A wide grin spread across her face as she looked like a cat that had not only eaten the canary, but bought the entire pet store and the building it was in.

”Hohoho~” she laughed, high and musical and dripping with billionaire satisfaction. ”Surprise, Silas-kun~!”

Silas looked at her for a long moment.

”You planned this,” he said. ”The whole day... The tiny house, the gold house, the badger...”

”The badger was absolutely not planned,” Harper said firmly. ”Nobody on this earth could plan the badger but the rest of it? Yes...”

Her smile softened for just a moment. ”I found this place a week ago and I’ve just been waiting for you to finally ask me.”

She reached into her blazer, pulled out a heavy leather folder bound with silk cords, and flipped it open right in front of his nose with a dramatic flick of her wrists.

Glowing on the page was the official holographic deed.

The property name was embossed across the top in shimmering silver script, and on the ownership line, in bold unmistakable letters, was a single name.

[Primary Title Holder: Silas Graves.]

Silas read it once, then a second time, then lifted his eyes back to Harper’s smug, glowing beautiful face, and found he couldn’t quite stop himself from smiling.

”A hundred and fifty million credits,” he said. ”While we were sitting there eating ice cream... huh?”

”A hundred and forty-eight and a half, actually,” Harper corrected him cheerfully, tapping her chin with the corner of the folder. ”I negotiated a one percent discount for paying in cash... A proper heiress always protects her margins, you know.”

Rosalind, sensing the weather turning, took three graceful steps back toward the front stairs and suddenly became very interested in a nearby flowerbed.

Silas folded his arms across his chest and gave Harper a long level look.

”Harper,” he said patiently. ”I told you on the phone, I’m paying for my own house at the very least”

”And I told you on the phone that I wanted to spoil you rotten,” Harper shot right back, planting her fists on her hips without an inch of retreat. ”Do you have any idea how fast places like this disappear up here? If I’d waited for you to go running off to see some shady broker about your mysterious money, somebody else would have swooped in and snapped this place up by tonight... Do you think you’re the only Lord in this city who wants a fortress with Class-A wards and a view like that?”

Silas raised an eyebrow. ”And how exactly do you know about the broker?”

”Because you were muttering about it,” Harper said. ”Out loud... You always do that when you’re doing math in your head.”

He glanced over at Rosalind. Rosalind gave him a small professional nod of confirmation and went straight back to admiring the flowerbed as Silas let out a short laugh and shook his head.

”You know, most people would at least wait until after the housewarming party to start bossing me around...” he said.

”I’m not most people,” Harper said primly. ”I’m your girlfriend... Bossing you around is part of the package. It says so in the fine print, which you’d know if you ever read anything I send you.”

”I read everything you send me.”

Was he sure about that...? Well not exactly but how was that his fault... Harper had recently started sending him Lordgram reels, how was he supposed to watch them if he didn’t have Lordgram installed on his main phone?

”Hmph!”

”Fine,” Silas said, unbothered. ”Then I’ll just pay you back tomorrow morning...”

”Oh, please try it,” Harper said sweetly. ”Every single credit you send me, I’ll send straight back to you with interest... We can keep doing it all week until the banks get bored and give up.”

On his shoulder, Nitocris’s head swiveled back and forth between the two of them like she was watching a championship match.

”Magnificent,” she breathed, her violet eyes wide with delight. ”This is better than the gladiator pits of Iunu. Please, keep going, Nyaa~”

”Stay out of this, Nito,” they both said at exactly the same time as the cat simply settled down even more comfortably on his shoulder, looking deeply satisfied.

Silas looked down at Harper.

She was standing her ground with her chin lifted and her eyes blazing, but for all her smugness, he could see exactly how badly she wanted him to say yes.

”You’ve got more money than you know what to do with,” He said with his voice gentler now. ”I understand that but this is my family’s home, Harper... I want it to be mine at least.”

”It is yours. Your name is the only one on that deed.” Harper stepped right into his space, close enough that he could smell the white tea and vanilla on her skin, and her voice cracked just a little at the edges.

”I have billions of credits sitting in accounts doing absolutely nothing, Silas... What on earth is the point of having all that money if I can’t use it to give the man I love a safe, beautiful home for his family?”

The words hung in the air between them on the quiet driveway.

...The man I love.

[Author’s Note]

Thank you for giving Magic castles and Golden tickets! I appreciate all of the support hehe, now I do want to ask for more of your golden tickets for more mass releasing tomorrow heh.