Starting With an SSS-Rank Goddess Summon!

Chapter 187: Harper’s Failures [Bonus Chapter]

Mia slowly taught him the chant and Silas listened closely with his Gold Core instantly churning as he spoke the chant aloud.

FWOOSH.

Immediately, the solid ice cube hovering over his palm violently destabilized, melting instantly back into a sphere of swirling water.

"Excellent," Mia praised. "Practice it."

Silas had him practice the transition a few more times.

Solid Ice... Liquid water... Solid ice... Liquid water...

The speed of his transformations was terrifying, happening in fractions of a second.

Watching him completely ignore her, Harper felt a surge of desperate impatience. She couldn’t seduce him if he wouldn’t even look at her.

Harper began walking.

She stood up from the ice floor and took three slow, deliberate steps toward the threshold where Silas was sitting.

Silas didn’t even look up.

SHWK!

In a single blindingly fast motion, Silas forcefully expanded the hovering water sphere, violently elongating it into a three-foot-long razor-sharp blade of ice.

He lifted it effortlessly, pointing the lethal, jagged tip directly at Harper’s pale throat, stopping her dead in her tracks just inches from the blade.

Harper froze with her breath hitching as the freezing cold radiating from the ice blade bit into the skin of her neck.

She slowly raised both of her hands up in a gesture of complete surrender.

"Why are you acting like this?" Harper asked, her voice trembling as she looked down at him with wide, pleading purple eyes. "Why are you acting like you didn’t know me? I just wanted to come closer to ask you something."

Silas didn’t lower the blade a single millimeter. His golden-ringed eyes remained completely devoid of warmth.

"I really don’t know you, Harper," Silas explained flatly, what? She had been stalking him for a while since the first time he got to Weaver’s Spire and their sisters were in the same school.

Did that even mean they knew each other?

"And in a Secret Realm where everyone is actively slaughtering each other for loot, you could easily be here to kill me while I sleep after all. To take whatever artifacts I have on me so stay exactly where you are."

Harper stared at the ice blade with her heart hammering against her ribs as she slowly shook her head.

"I assure you, I wouldn’t kill you," Harper whispered softly, completely dropping the innocent victim act.

She slowly lowered her raised hands, looking down directly at the freezing ground.

Her cheeks flushed a violent feverish shade of red, and her purple eyes dilated.

"I actually have an incredibly big crush on you, Silas-kun..." Harper confessed, her voice trembling with twisted affection. "That’s exactly why I love stalking you through the Valoria sectors... so I can know all of your private hobbies, your routines, your secrets..."

Silas and Mia physically recoiled.

Mia’s jaw dropped, and Silas actually choked on his own saliva, almost spitting out a lungful of air in disbelief.

’Is she completely insane?’ Silas thought frantically.

Was she genuinely not aware of how absolutely, terrifyingly crazy she sounded right now?! Stalking him because she had a crush on him?

Regardless of their horrified reactions, Harper reached into the waistband of her leather armor.

"This is what I wanted you to check out," Harper said, completely ignoring the ice blade at her throat.

She quickly threw a thick sealed roll of parchment directly at Silas’s face.

Silas immediately treated the sudden movement as a lethal attack. He tensed his arm to swing the ice blade and bisect her head from her shoulders.

However, Mia reacted faster.

"Hold!" Mia commanded.

Mia’s glowing green eyes flared with arcane power as she used high-tier telekinesis to violently arrest the parchment’s momentum mid-air, holding the roll completely suspended and pinned down by invisible force two feet away from Silas’s face.

Silas stopped his swing, narrowing his eyes as he used his Lord interface to analyze the floating scroll.

The blue system tab imediately popped up, identifying the item.

[Name: Ititus’s Map To Wealth]

[Tier: 1 (Navigation Artifact)]

[Description: An ancient magically encoded topography chart of the Secret Realm’s desert layer... Bypasses standard spatial mirages.]

Mia carefully scanned the parchment for explosive runes or poison traps.

Once she verified there were completely no traps embedded in the paper, she released her telekinetic grip and brought it over to Silas.

Silas took it, unrolling the heavy scroll and holding it firmly in his calloused hand.

"Let’s see what this is about..."

It was a detailed and constantly shifting magical map of the desert layer they were currently in.

Also drawn directly in the center, completely bypassing the massive maze of dunes, was a massive glowing red X marking a specific place where the dead god explicitly kept his primary surface treasure.

Silas looked up from the map, his golden-ringed eyes locking onto Harper’s flushed face.

His paranoia was screaming at maximum volume.

"Why would you give me this?" Silas asked, his voice laced with heavy, uncompromising suspicion. "You could have easily monopolized this loot for your own self. Isn’t that why you’re here?"

Harper stood there in the freezing antechamber, the biting wind howling behind her.

She violently trembled where she stood with her hands clutching the ripped edges of her shirt as a lovesick smile stretched across her beautiful face.

She blushed so hard her skin practically glowed in the dark.

"I uh..." Harper giggled softly, a disturbing, manic sound that made Silas’s blood run completely cold. "...I just want you to love me, Silas-kun~"

"Love you?" Silas asked, his voice sounding flat, echoing within the freezing, isolated antechamber of the ice construct.

His golden-ringed eyes narrowed, lacking any sort of romantic reciprocation or warmth as he stared down at the lightning mage before him.

Harper knelt on the solid ice floor, the howling glass storm raging just inches behind her protective barrier.

Her pale, flawless skin was flushed a violently feverish red.

"Yes!" Harper blurted out, her hands flying up to nervously twiddle her thumbs together. It was a remarkably childish vulnerable gesture, completely at odds with the terrifying spellcaster she usually projected on the battlefield. "Since the very moment I laid eyes on you during when you sold those cores... I’ve wanted to learn more about you."

She shifted on her knees, the torn fabric of her ruined leather armor sliding lower, exposing the soft curve of her collarbone.

"And it’s not just about your beautiful face, Silas," Harper continued rapidly with her voice taking on a sweet and almost desperate tone that made Silas flinch. "Though I do like that very much but it’s about your kind heart, the way you lead, and you—"

"Cut the bullshit, Harper," Silas interrupted viciously.

His voice sliced through the freezing air like a physical blade.

He was a slum-born survivor who had fought, bled, and clawed his way up to a Gold Core.

He knew exactly what it looked like when someone was trying to sell him a poisoned chalice wrapped in silk.

Harper froze, her sweet nervous facade cracking slightly.

She realized standard noble courtship tactics were absolutely useless against a man this hardened so, Harper decided to completely bypass the aristocratic dance and go straight for the point.

"Uh," Harper blinked, her face flushing an even deeper darker shade of crimson as she looked him dead in the eye. "I want you to breed me?"

Cough! Cough! Cough!

Silas violently choked on his own saliva.

He lurched forward with his heavy boots scraping against the ice as he pounded his fist against his own chest, desperately trying to clear his airway.

Sitting atop his head, Mia let out a genuine snort of disbelief with her tiny hands gripping his dark hair.

Harper sat there on her knees, blinking innocently.

She truly wasn’t educated in the subtle nuances of romance or proper seduction.

She had grown up in the highest and heavily guarded echelons of Valoria City’s aristocracy though she was not a noble... Her father owned at least 4 of the 6 LA Buildings in Valoria City which made him very influential and he worked as the manager just to be able to identify talent.

Harper was quite used to her overwhelming natural beauty getting her whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted it, without having to ask twice.

After all, in the modern society, physical attractiveness was a deeply skewed metric.

In a world where unattractive or average-looking people could easily fix their physical flaws in a day or two by swallowing a low-tier alchemical Body-Refining pill, general attractiveness became the baseline.

Everyone with a handful of silver coins was beautiful. Therefore, what truly mattered... what truly held astronomical social, political, and genetic weight were the exceptionally rare people who were born flawlessly beautiful without the aid of magic or alchemy.

Harper was one of those people.

She possessed perfect unblemished genetics.

Her entire life, high-tier Lords and wealthy merchants had fallen to their knees the moment she smiled, offering her entire fortunes just for a fraction of her attention but for some incredibly frustrating, mind-bending reason, that stuff didn’t work on Silas Graves.

He didn’t fawn over her.

He didn’t stare at her ripped shirt.

He didn’t grovel and he looked at her like she was a liability so in Harper’s twisted mind, the fact that he was actively ignoring her natural perfection only made him so much hotter.

It drove her absolutely crazy.

"Are you completely out of your mind?!" Silas gasped, finally catching his breath and glaring at her.

Harper bit her lower lip, a dangerous blush spreading across her neck as she suggested the next step without missing a beat.

"I’m serious," Harper whispered, leaning forward and resting her hands on the ice near his boots. "Let’s go for it. Right now. While the others are sleeping."

Silas completely stiffened.

He slowly looked over his shoulder.

Deep inside the dimly lit interior of the main ice cavern, Aeliana was fast asleep with her chest rising and falling peacefully in her white robes.

On the opposite side of the room, Valerius was completely out cold, snoring softly with his head resting against his mythril shield.

Silas turned his golden-ringed eyes back to Harper.

On a normal, civilian occasion back in the slums, if a gorgeous noblewoman threw herself at him in the middle of the night, he would have absolutely taken the opportunity without a second thought.

He was a healthy male, and her proposition was incredibly blunt and highly appealing but he honestly didn’t trust Harper even a fraction of an inch.

"No," Silas denied her flatly, his voice echoing with unyielding Lordly discipline.

Harper’s jaw dropped slightly.

She was quite surprised as her purple eyes widened in genuine shock. "What? Why not? I’m literally offering myself to you!"

"Because I am supposed to keep watch, Harper," Silas stated, crossing his arms over his heavy trench coat. "When the others are awake to take the next shift, who knows what kind of traps, curses, or roaming monsters are out there? I need my core focused. I need my mind clear and I am not burning my stamina to sleep with someone I don’t trust."

Harper sat back on her heels, staring at him in genuine awe.

Her purple eyes softened with the look in her eyes momentarily replaced by profound respect.

She was quite surprised at his cool-headedness.

Any other Lord in this place especially Julian would have instantly taken the bait, dropping their guard for a moment of pleasure but Silas prioritized the survival of his faction over his own desires.

"You are incredible," Harper commended him softly, a genuine smile touching her lips. "You really are a good friend, Silas. Anyone else in this situation would have taken it."

Silas just rolled his eyes, resting the back of his head against the ice wall and dismissing the conversation entirely. "Just sit quietly until the storm passes."

The howling wind outside violently whipped against the ice barrier, sending a chilling draft through the small opening near the ceiling.

Harper shivered violently, her teeth audibly chattering in the freezing air.

"Silas..." Harper requested softly, wrapping her arms around her shoulders. "Could I... could I at least lay my head on your lap? Just for a little bit?"

"Absolutely not," Silas dismissed it instantly, waving his hand. "Sleep on the floor."

But Harper didn’t give up. S

he went down on her knees, shuffling forward across the frost until she was right in front of him. She looked up, pleading with wide teary purple eyes.

"Please," Harper pleaded with her voice cracking. "I usually need physical contact like this when I am quite stressed out. It grounds my lightning mana so it doesn’t short-circuit my nervous system and it has been an incredibly long, traumatic day today after all..."

Silas stared at her, completely unmoved by the emotional performance.

Seeing that pity wasn’t working, Harper decided to do some extra convincing, instantly switching to a negotiation.

"I will compensate you!" Harper offered quickly, leaning closer. "I will transfer one hundred thousand Spirit Credits directly into your bank account the moment we extract from this realm! Just let me rest my head."