Starting With an SSS-Rank Goddess Summon!

She spun around on the balls of her soft slippers, clutching the spoon against her apron like a dagger as her eyes went wide with shock.

”L-Lord Silas!” Kaelia gasped, her face turning the exact shade of a ripe strawberry. ”Y-you can’t just pop out of thin air in the middle of a hot kitchen! What if I’d dropped the sauce?! Or worse, what if you’d scared someone carrying a whole pot of boiling stock?!”

”Then I would’ve caught the pot with one hand and you with the other,” Silas teased, stepping closer until he stood right across the counter from her.

He reached out and gently brushed his thumb across the tip of her nose to wipe away the plum sauce.

”Though you really shouldn’t save the best stuff for your own face, Kaelia... I’d rather taste it straight from the chef.”

Kaelia’s mouth moved without a sound, and her blush deepened until it burned all the way to the tips of her small delicate ears.

She hastily wiped her hands on her apron, her eyes dropping to the cutting board while her heart hammered in her throat.

”Y-y-you’re terrible, my Lord,” Kaelia stammered, though her flustered pout didn’t have any bite to it. ”Always teasing me when I’m trying to keep the kitchen in order... B-but Morwenna came by earlier, just like you told her to! She said you were taking a group through the runes to Aki’s territory, and that you’d need enough food to feed a small army!”

She turned with a proud little toss of her head and pointed at a long bench running along the far wall of the kitchen.

”I had the girls fire up all six hearths right away,” Kaelia said, a spark of fierce pride cutting through her shyness. ”I made everything myself!”

CLINK! CLINK!

Arranged neatly along the bench were twelve big insulated brass flasks, each one nearly three feet tall.

Next to them sat eight sealed wooden crates banded with iron, each one packed to the brim with fresh bread, smoked boar, and jars of spiced preserves.

Half a dozen kitchen girls scurried forward and lined the heavy flasks up neatly in front of Silas.

”The flasks have a thick marrow stew with ginseng and spirit roots,” Kaelia explained, tapping the lid of the nearest one. ”Even one cup will get a fighter’s stamina back in the middle of a battle! And the crates have roast meat that’ll stay hot for two whole days!”

”You did all of this in a couple of hours?” Silas asked, his dark blue eyes crinkling with warmth. ”Kaelia, you’re a miracle worker. What would this territory do without you?”

”W-well...” Kaelia fidgeted with the hem of her apron, her eyes darting away in shy delight. ”It’s my job to make sure our girls never go into a fight on an empty stomach... A hungry fighter’s a bad fighter!”

Silas chuckled and turned to the kitchen girls, who were standing in a tidy row with their hands folded over their aprons, watching their Lord with wide admiring eyes.

”And you girls did a fantastic job packing all of this so fast,” Silas said, giving them a charming devastating smile. ”Blessed Land has the prettiest and hardest working kitchen crew anywhere... I might have to start spending my afternoons down here just to keep you company.”

The kitchen girls gasped together, giggling and blushing furiously as they dipped into clumsy flustered curtsies and hid their red faces behind their sleeves.

”Lord Silas!” Kaelia protested with an indignant squeak, stomping her little slipper against the floor. ”Don’t distract my girls! They’ve still got dinner to make!”

”Alright, alright,” Silas laughed.

He raised his right hand toward the long bench and pulled everything into his Inventory.

VWOOMP!

All twelve brass flasks and every last crate vanished off the bench in the blink of an eye, leaving it spotless.

Silas lowered his hand and turned his full attention back to the cute chef in front of him.

He leaned his forearms on the counter and tilted his head with an inviting roguish smirk.

”The food’s packed,” Silas said smoothly. ”Now there’s just one ingredient missing.”

Kaelia blinked in innocent confusion.

”An ingredient? Did I forget the salt? I double-checked the seasoning on the stew, I swear—”

”I’m talking about you,” Silas said softly. ”How about it, Kaelia? Do you want to come with us to Aki’s Wonderland?”

Kaelia froze, her breath catching in her chest.

”M-me?!” Kaelia squeaked, pointing a trembling flour-dusted finger at her own nose. ”To another territory? On a raid?! But my Lord, I’m not a fighter! I don’t swing a hammer or shoot lightning! What could I even do out there?!”

”You could teach them some of that incredible cooking of yours,” Silas said with an encouraging smile. ”Aki’s girls are probably living on burnt food over there... You could show their cooks how Blessed Land does it and give them a proper lesson while we’re clearing out the nests. Besides...”

His eyes gleamed with wicked amusement as he thought about the snapping vines and squirming plants waiting outside Aki’s walls.

”...I think you’d look adorable out in the wild.”

Kaelia’s face went crimson all over again, and her fingers twisted the fabric of her apron into tight knots.

”I-I guess, if my Lord really wants me to, and if those poor girls really are eating that badly...” Kaelia stammered, her eyes darting between his face and the floor as a shy adventurous flutter stirred in her chest. ”I-I’d like to go...”

”That’s all I needed to hear,” Silas smiled.

Before Kaelia could untie her apron or take a single step around the counter, Silas stepped in.

WHOOSH!

He reached down with easy strength, slid one arm under her knees and the other around her slender back, and scooped the petite chef clean off her feet and against his broad chest.

”Kyaaaah!” Kaelia shrieked in total panic with her arms flying up to wrap tightly around his neck while her flour-dusted cheek pressed right into the dark fur of his collar. ”L-Lord Silas! Put me down! Everyone’s watching!”

All around the kitchen, the girls gasped and clapped their hands over their mouths, squealing with delight at the sight of their Lord carrying their chef like a bride.

Silas didn’t give her a chance to struggle as he teleported again.

POP!

The cold crisp air hit them like a splash of fresh water as they appeared on the snowy paving stones outside the Keep.

Silas stood in the middle of the courtyard, still holding Kaelia, who was hiding her face completely in his fur mantle and whimpering with embarrassment.

Standing around the edge of the circle of travel runes were the other five girls, Lupina, Morrighan, Rowenna, Aurelia and Solenne.

Lupina’s ears perked straight up, and her amber eyes narrowed into cheeky slits as soon as she saw Kaelia bundled up in Silas’s arms.

”Well, well, look what Lord Silas hunted down!” Lupina howled with a loud laugh, nudging Morrighan with her elbow. ”He went to grab lunch and brought back the chef as a snack!”

Beside her, Solenne’s nine tails swished in a wide elegant fan, and a light chuckle slipped out of her.

”My, my, Lord Silas... You certainly know how to recruit.”

Aurelia’s face flushed pink as she looked away with a gentle flustered smile, while Rowenna hugged her notebook and ducked her head, her cheeks warming at the sight.

Morrighan just stood still, her molten gold eyes on Silas, though the spade of her tail gave an amused little twitch against the stones.

Silas chuckled and slowly set Kaelia down on her feet.

The poor chef wobbled a little, her knees feeling like warm dough, and frantically tugged her apron straight while her face burned hot enough to melt the snow around her.

”Now everyone’s here,” Silas announced, adjusting the fur on his collar with a satisfied grin.

He walked over to the circle of travel runes carved into the stone beside the Keep, its lines dormant and dusted with white powder.

”Alright, girls,” Silas called, waving them over. ”Step into the circle. Aki’s been waiting for this all morning, and it’s time we went and helped her out.”

Lupina hopped in first, eager and bouncing, and the others followed, with Kaelia clutching Silas’s sleeve like a lifeline.

Morrighan took her place on Silas’s left with her posture straight and deadly.

Silas sent a smooth stream of golden mana down into the runes.

HUMMMMM!

The carved lines flared to life, and the air inside the circle began to spin, lifting loose flakes of snow into a swirling vortex as the world around them blurred into streaking bands of light.

VWOOOOSH!

With a blinding flash that lit up the whole front of the Keep, the seven of them vanished from Blessed Land.

The pressure popped against their ears as the light snapped shut behind them.

FWOOMP!

Silas and the girls appeared in the middle of a circle of rose-tinted marble, surrounded by the quiet pretty heart of Aki’s Wonderland.

Tall birch trees with silver bark stood all around the circle, their thin branches swaying gently overhead.

Paths of pale gravel wound away between the trunks, and just beyond them, a plaza of pink and white cobblestones spread out around a pearl-white summoning altar.

Further off, past the rooftops, the cream and blush pink walls of Aki’s Keep rose up under its sea-green tiled spires.

Standing at the edge of the marble circle were two figures.

On the left stood Elowynn, her ember-red hair tied in a loose braid that hung over her shoulder and her twin cutlasses resting at her hips.

Her amethyst eyes lit up the second she saw Silas, and a deep blush washed over her cheeks around the little mole under her left eye.

Right beside her stood Ther’Abella.

The elf’s silver hair was tied back in a warrior’s knot, and the silver constellation marks across her cheekbones were burning with fierce unstable starlight.

Her cold blue eyes locked onto Silas the instant his boots touched the marble.

”USURPER!” Ther’Abella shrieked, her voice ringing out like a cracked silver bell.

”Wait! Ther’Abella, stop!” Elowynn shouted in panic, reaching out to grab the back of her cloak. ”He’s here to help us with the raid—”

Ther’Abella completely ignored her.

WHOOSH!

She shot forward, her boots cracking the marble under her feet as she crossed the distance to Silas in a blinding silver blur.

Twin blades of solid starlight formed in the empty air around her hands, hissing with sharp radiant fury.

She leaped into the air, her slender body twisting with deadly acrobatic grace as she brought the right blade down in a vicious straight thrust aimed right at Silas’s face.

Silas didn’t even flinch... He stood there with one hand resting on Kaelia’s trembling shoulder and let out an amused long-suffering sigh.

Before the starlight blade could get within three feet of his nose, a dark blur whipped through the air.

SNAP!

A long muscular spade-tipped tail coiled tight around Ther’Abella’s right wrist and locked onto it like an iron clamp.

Ther’Abella’s momentum was stopped dead in midair.

JRRK!

The starlight blade in her hand sputtered and scattered faint silver sparks as she hung there, dangling just above the marble.

Standing half a pace to Silas’s left, Morrighan hadn’t moved her feet at all, and her arms were still hanging loose at her sides.

Morrighan slowly turned her head with her horns catching the light... Her molten gold eyes locked onto Ther’Abella’s face with a flat terrifying stillness, like a predator looking down at a bug that had crawled onto her master’s table.

Ther’Abella’s cold blue eyes went wide with sudden panic.

She pulled with all her strength and tried to twist her body to bring her left blade around, but she couldn’t move.

The demon’s tail was like an iron band welded around her wrist, squeezing so hard that her starlight sputtered out into gray smoke, and an icy dread gripped her spine and left her hanging there like a rabbit caught in a snare.

Morrighan didn’t say a single word, she just raised her right fist and activated [Brimstone Punch].

FWOOOOOOSH!

A sulfurous roar burst from her knuckles as churning black flames and bubbling brimstone poured out around her fist, wrapping it in a burning infernal glow that stank of scorched rock and volcanic ash.

She drove it straight into Ther’Abella’s stomach.

Morrighan didn’t wind up at all, and with her tail holding the elf perfectly still, the force had nowhere to go but straight through her.

BOOOOOOOM!

The blast tore through the plaza like a falling meteor.

A blinding shockwave of black fire burst outward and smashed the edge of the marble circle into glittering chips.

The ground under them heaved as a huge round crater ripped open in the earth, blasting gravel, birch leaves and tons of pulverized dirt fifty feet into the air in an expanding ring of destruction.

Morrighan stood at the edge of the smoking crater with sulfurous smoke curling lazily off her blackened knuckles while her spade-shaped tail flicked away the scattered sparks.

Her molten gold eyes glowed with bottomless demonic heat as she looked down into the smoking hole.

’What the hell...? What kind of idiot was trying to harm my Lord?’