Starting With an SSS-Rank Goddess Summon!

Chapter 214: Picking Lia Up

Elora’s smirk widened into a genuine smile of victory.

’Good... Now I need to get him to go on a date or something with me and we’ll be good.’ Elora thought.

She needed them to start dating as soon as possible or instead be very close to each other, enough for him to spill his secrets to her.

’But for now, I need to focus.’

She tapped a rapid series of commands into the glowing holographic interface on the passenger-side dashboard.

She was wirelessly connecting her personal encrypted financial account directly to the dealership’s secure mainframe.

DING!

[Payment Authorized.]

[Deduction: -8,300,000 Spirit Credits.]

[Transaction Complete. Transfer of Ownership Finalized.]

"The vehicle is now yours, Silas..." Elora announced smoothly, unbuckling her safety harness with a soft click.

Silas flinched slightly at the casual, instant deletion of nearly nine million credits but he didn’t argue this time.

He knew he had thoroughly lost this specific battle of wills, and he wasn’t going to look a gift-supercar in the mouth.

Elora pushed the heavy passenger door open.

It hissed upward on its hydraulic hinges, and she gracefully stepped out of the idling vehicle with her expensive heels landing perfectly on the polished concrete of the testing track.

She turned back, leaning into the sleek cabin to look at him one last time.

"Do not bother worrying about the cost, Silas," Elora told him softly, her icy blue eyes locking onto his with intense affection, at least that was how Silas sore it... It was the same look in Harper’s eyes after all. "It is an investment in your safety so I fully expect to see this transport parked proudly in the Valoria central district the next time you visit the city."

She offered him a final intimate smile.

"Goodbye, Silas Graves," Elora whispered into the cabin. "Sleep well. I will contact you soon."

With that, Elora turned around and walked briskly toward the VIP freight elevator at the far end of the track.

She was heading back upstairs to the main showroom to retrieve her own parked vehicle.

The heavy steel elevator doors hissed shut behind her, leaving Silas completely alone in the testing facility.

Silas sat in the driver’s seat of his brand-new supercar as the heavy mana-engine hummed aggressively around him.

He leaned back in the comfortable leather seat, letting out a long exhausted sigh.

He was finally alone.

The dead god was gone and the Secret Realm had collapsed.

The chaotic noblewomen had officially departed and not only that but he had a massive mountain of Upgrade Points, a fat bank account from selling his dungeon loot, and an indestructible supercar.

It was time to go home.

It was time to drive back to his estate in Silverleaf, check on his house and territory, and begin plotting his massive power-leveling training arc so he could finally master eight elements.

Silas grabbed the heavy shifter, preparing to throw the vehicle back into drive then, he paused.

He blinked his golden-ringed eyes, looking out the reinforced dragon-glass windshield.

He was currently parked dead center in the middle of a fortified subterranean testing track located several floors beneath the actual street level of the city.

The only exit he could see was the massive freight elevator Elora had just used which was explicitly designed for walking passengers, not low-slung hyper-advanced supercars.

Silas slowly rolled down the armored driver’s side window.

He leaned his head out of the sleek cabin, looking up toward a glowing security camera mounted high on the concrete wall.

"Hey," Silas called out, his deep voice echoing loudly in the massive empty underground bunker.

He waited for a few seconds, listening until the sales associate finally clicked on the intercom overhead.

"Yes, Lord Graves?" the associate’s nervous voice crackled through the speaker. "Is there an issue with the vehicle?"

"So..." Silas asked the camera, feeling completely stupid for the very first time in his career as a Lord. "...how exactly do I get this thing to the surface?"

...

Lia Graves sat on the polished white marble bench outside the towering iron gates of Valoria Academy.

She let out a soft bored sigh.

"Haah~"

She kicked her small feet back and forth with her pristine academy loafers lightly tapping against the stone base of the bench.

In her right hand, she absentmindedly spun a sleek silver fountain pen through her fingers.

It was a nervous habit she had picked up over the last few days.

She missed her brother.

It had been exactly five days since Silas had left the estate.

Five long, agonizing days since he had packed his heavy mythril longsword, put on that dark trench coat, and walked out the door to raid an unmapped Secret Realm in the middle of a blazing desert.

For a normal sibling, five days was just a business trip but in the Sovereign world, five days inside an unmapped dungeon was an eternity.

Secret Realms were meat grinders.

Lords went in and simply never came out. They were swallowed by abyssal monsters, crushed by tectonic traps or murdered by rival nobles over a chest of glowing rocks.

Lia tried not to think about that since Silas was strong and he promised that he would always come back.

’Maybe I should have not searched the mortality rates of a Secret Realm raid...’

It was because of that reason that anxiety still gnawed at the back of her mind, Secret Realms had a 50-60% mortality rate!

"Is your brother always this late, Lia-chan?" a soft polite voice asked beside her.

Lia stopped spinning the pen and turned her head.

Sitting right next to her on the marble bench was a girl named Kaede.

She was a new friend Lia had made on Tuesday during their basic mana-theory class.

Kaede was an exchange student from the Shogunate Isles... this world’s exact cultural equivalent of Japan.

She had straight immaculate black hair cut into a perfect hime-style fringe, and she carried herself with the quiet discipline of an eastern noble clan.

"He’s not usually late," Lia defended him quickly, puffing out her cheeks. "He’s just... working. He’s a Lord and he has territory stuff to do."

Kaede nodded thoughtfully, adjusting the strap of her expensive leather school bag.

"I understand," Kaede said softly. "My elder brother is also a Lord. He operates a Level 10 territory near the coast of the Sovereign Realm. He is always very busy with maritime subjugation quests but he promised to pick me up today."

They sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes, watching the bustling courtyard of Valoria Academy.

It was Friday afternoon. The sprawling impeccably manicured campus was currently flooding with students from the lower cohorts.

The sons and daughters of wealthy merchants, corporate executives, and established Lords were all chatting loudly, comparing their weekly allowances, and showing off their low-tier magical trinkets.

Lia felt entirely out of place here.

She had only started at the Academy on Monday.

For her entire life, she had grown up in the filthiest slums of Sector 4.

She was used to dodging gang violence and rationing nutrient paste. Now, she was wearing a tailored uniform that cost more than her old apartment, sitting on a marble bench, and waiting for her brother to pick her up.

The whiplash was real.

HONK!

A sleek silver corporate sedan pulled up to the designated loading zone directly in front of the academy gates.

Kaede’s dark eyes instantly lit up.

The driver’s side door opened, and a tall, respectable-looking young man in a tailored suit stepped out.

He had a glowing blue core Lord insignia pinned to his lapel, indicating his status as a Lord.

"That is my brother!" Kaede said happily, standing up and smoothing her uniform skirt.

She turned back to Lia, offering a polite perfectly executed bow.

"It was very nice speaking with you today, Lia-chan," Kaede smiled. "I hope your brother arrives safely. Have a wonderful weekend."

"You too, Kaede," Lia smiled back, waving her hand. "See you on Monday."

Kaede trotted over to the silver sedan, hugging her brother before sliding into the passenger seat.

The car smoothly pulled away, merging into the bustling afternoon traffic of Valoria City.

Lia watched them go.

She slumped back against the marble bench, letting out another long sigh.

She was completely alone again. The courtyard was slowly emptying out.

The sun was beginning to dip lower in the amber sky, casting long dark shadows across the pristine academy grounds.

’Where are you, Big Brother?’ Lia thought, looking down at her silver pen. ’You promised you’d be back by Friday.’

Ten minutes passed and then, the atmosphere of the academy courtyard changed instantly.

It didn’t happen quietly though.

VROOOOOOOOOOOOM!

A roar violently echoed through the city streets as it sounded like an ancient dragon clearing its throat.

Every single remaining student, instructor, and private security guard loitering in the courtyard instantly stopped talking.

Heads whipped around, eyes wide, desperately searching for the source of the noise.

Turning the corner and gliding smoothly into the academy’s loading zone was a monster.

It was the Zenith IVR.

The multi-million-credit armored Supercar looked amazing.

The hyper-advanced supercar sat mere inches off the ground, its impossibly deep black finish absorbing the afternoon sunlight like a localized black hole.

It didn’t look like a vehicle meant for picking up a school student... It looked like it was designed to ram through a reinforced bank vault and survive a direct orbital strike!

The massive wide-track tires rolled to a flawless halt directly in front of the iron gates as the heavy anti-gravity mana-engine idled with a deep aggressive purr that made the air itself thrum with tension.

Lia completely froze, her pen dropping from her fingers.

The wealthy aristocratic girls standing a few yards away began furiously whispering to each other, their eyes wide as they stared at the matte-black beast.

"What class of transport is that?!" one of the senior girls gasped, clutching her designer bag. "Is that a...?!"

"Look at the plating," another girl whispered frantically, pointing a manicured finger at the undercarriage. "Those are active kinetic-redirection runes! That car costs more than my father’s entire corporate building!"

Then, the armored driver’s side door hissed.

With a pressurized release, the massive gull-wing door smoothly glided upward on completely silent hydraulic hinges.

A combat boot stepped out onto the pristine academy pavement as Silas Graves emerged from the vehicle.

He hadn’t stopped at the estate to change his clothes as he had driven straight from the dealership to the academy.

He was still wearing his black shirt with the thick fabric was visibly scuffed, torn at the hem, and splattered a bit with the dried blood of subterranean monsters.

The hilt of his mythril longsword was strapped openly to his hip, resting casually against his thigh but it wasn’t just his clothes that commanded attention.

It was his aura.

Silas had no idea he was doing it.

He had just spent the last five days completely immersed in a brutal, kill-or-be-killed Secret Realm.

He had slaughtered Dire Wolves, butchered a veteran Sand General, survived a tectonic collapse, and stood mere inches away from a Norse deity who had just atomized a god... after facing against the god too.

So he was passively leaking out his presence... his very presence made most of the people there swoon as Silas simply looked like a devastatingly handsome serial killer.

The girls standing nearby completely lost their minds.

A collective, highly audible gasp rippled through the female student body.

Several of them physically took a step back, intimidated by the bloodlust, but completely captivated by the rugged aesthetic.

"Oh my god," one of the senior girls breathed out with her face flushing completely red as she stared at Silas’s broad shoulders. "Who is that?!"

Another girl, a classmate of Lia’s, frantically turned around and grabbed Lia’s shoulder.

"Lia!" the girl squeaked, pointing a shaking finger at the towering Warlord standing beside the stealth supercar. "Lia, is that... is that really your big brother?!"

Lia didn’t answer her and she didn’t care about the terrifying aura.

She didn’t care about the dried monster blood or the intimidating mythril sword.

She only saw Silas.

"BIG BROTHER!" Lia screamed at the top of her lungs.

She abandoned her silver pen entirely.

She grabbed the strap of her school bag, vaulted completely over the marble bench, and sprinted across the courtyard as fast as her legs could carry her.

Silas heard his name.

His glowing golden eyes softened completely as the terrifying aura of violence violently retracted back into his chest.

Silas let out a long exhausted sigh of genuine relief with a small soft smile touching his bruised lips as he saw his little sister running toward him.

He opened his arms.

"Oof!"