Collin didn’t look at her like a loving father looking at his precious child.

He looked at her like a highly valuable corporate asset he was about to deploy on a hostile takeover mission... because that was what this was.

"Harper. I am giving you a Class-One directive." Collin stated with his voice sounding deadly serious. "You are going to find Lord Silas Graves. You are going to ingratiate yourself into his inner circle and you are going to marry him."

Harper didn’t flinch.

She didn’t even act like a scandalized innocent maiden... Harper was quite intrigued by the plan that her Father was cooking up.

"He is currently registered as a slum-born independent, Papa," Harper noted while swiping through the files. "He has zero lineage as he is a nobody from the outer wards."

"I do not give a single damn if he crawled out of an open sewer pipe this morning!" Collin hissed as his eyes glowed in greed. "He holds the territory known as Blessed Land... As long as you secure a legally recognized marriage contract in the central courts, his assets legally become merged with ours."

Collin smiled darkly.

"The marriage only needs to last a year or two," Collin pitched, outlining the trap perfectly. "Just long enough for him to fully upgrade the territory’s infrastructure using his absurd combat capabilities. Once the estate is perfectly established and churning out massive revenue... you file for divorce in the high courts under the Corporate Dissolution Act."

Collin chuckled darkly, squeezing her shoulders.

"With my lawyers, you will completely clean him out. You will walk away with the uncontested deeds to his territory, and he will be left on the street with absolutely nothing... maybe a few scraps"

Harper listened to the plan in total silence.

It was perfect.

A tiny, almost imperceptible arrogant smirk touched the corner of Harper’s lips.

She pushed her wire-rimmed glasses up her nose one final time with the lenses catching the glare of the fluorescent lights.

"Yes, Papa," Harper agreed, her voice completely smooth. "It shall be done... The asset will be secured..."

She turned on her heel with her purple hair swishing perfectly behind her.

"I’ll go track his transport’s mana signature now. Let us see what kind of man this ’monster’ truly is."

...

Ten minutes later, the sleek black mag-cab pulled to a smooth silent halt against the curb.

"We have arrived, my Lord," the driver announced, sweating entirely through his uniform in his eagerness to get this terrifying passenger out of his backseat. "The Silverleaf commercial sector."

Silas opened the door and stepped out onto the pristine, swept cobblestones.

He looked up.

Standing directly in front of him was a sprawling, massive multi-story building constructed almost entirely from enchanted heavily reinforced glass and pristine white marble.

The massive display windows were filled with incredibly intricate, glowing silk garments, heavy tailored coats, and mannequins draped in high-end tactical wear.

The gold-leaf sign above the double doors read: [The Weaver’s Spire].

’Weaver’s spire, huh? That sounds really cool...’

Silas sighed and stepped inside, he was instantly assaulted by an overwhelming smell.

The interior of the boutique didn’t smell like blood or rot like he was used to.

It smelled aggressively of imported lavender, highly expensive floral perfumes, and the crisp, undeniable scent of freshly pressed enchanted linen.

The lighting was soft and very warm.

Soft, classical string music played from hidden magical acoustic crystals embedded in the ceiling.

Standing behind a massive, polished white marble counter near the center of the showroom were three female clerks.

They were dressed in immaculate, perfectly tailored, identical black-and-gold uniforms.

They were currently chatting quietly among themselves, meticulously organizing a stack of silk scarves.

The exact moment Silas stepped into the room, their conversation instantly died.

The suffocating weight of his presence crashed into the soft delicate aesthetic of the boutique like a dropped sledgehammer.

The three women physically froze in place.

They slowly turned their heads, staring at the man walking purposefully toward them.

The sharp lines of his face... The messy dark hair... The broad shoulders stretching the fabric of his dark shirt.

The golden sovereign ring burning within his cold blue eyes made their breath literally catch in their throats.

They were instantly smitten!

A furious blush spread rapidly across all three of their cheeks but the terrifying density of his presence kept them completely rooted to the marble floor, unable to even utter a standard corporate greeting.

Silas reached the marble counter.

He reached into his coat and dropped Aeliana’s thick, heavy leather measurement ledger directly onto the pristine marble counter.

THUD!

But before Silas could even open his mouth to issue his order, an obnoxious squeaky voice echoed from the fitting area to his left.

"Are you completely deaf, you useless peasant?!"

Silas slowly turned his head.

Standing near a three-way mirror was a classic textbook Arrogant Young Master.

The guy couldn’t have been older than nineteen.

He was dressed in gaudy completely impractical gold-trimmed silk robes that practically blinded the eyes.

He had an arrogant, punchable face, slicked-back blonde hair, and was currently screaming at a terrified junior tailor who was trembling while holding a measuring tape.

"I specifically requested the custom embroidery on the left cuff to be stitched with authentic southern-isle silver thread!" the noble brat shrieked, stamping his soft leather shoe against the floorboards like a toddler throwing a tantrum. "This stitching is off by at least two millimeters! Do you have any idea who I am?!"

Silas let out a long, deeply exhausted internal sigh.

’Ugh...’ Silas thought bitterly, rubbing the bridge of his nose. ’I seriously have to stop attracting these generic plot devices. Why is this always a thing? Is there a factory that just prints these loud useless brats solely to harass retail workers?’

Silas ignored the screaming teenager entirely. He turned his attention back to the three frozen clerks behind the counter.

"I need a massive bulk order processed immediately," Silas commanded with his deep voice easily cutting over the noble’s shrieking. "I need civilian clothing, combat-casual under-layers, and heavy sleepwear. Do you have the inventory in the back?"

The loud commanding tone of Silas’s voice instantly drew the arrogant noble’s attention.

The Young Master spun around, his face turning a furious shade of red at being interrupted.

He glared at Silas’s plain unadorned dark coat and completely misread the situation.

"Hey! You filthy slum-rat!" the noble barked, marching aggressively toward the marble counter with his silk robes swishing. "Are you blind? I am currently conducting business here! Wait your turn in the alley like the rest of the commoners!"

Silas didn’t even blink as he kept his cold blue eyes locked on the lead clerk.

"I also need ten bolts of your strongest raw silk and two crates of heavy sewing materials..." Silas continued smoothly, completely treating the screaming noble like background ambient noise.

The disrespectful dismissal broke the Young Master’s fragile ego entirely.

"HOW DARE YOU IGNORE ME!" the brat shrieked.

The noble lunged forward. He raised his right hand, channeling a weak pathetic spark of rudimentary fire magic into his palm, fully intending to grab Silas by the shoulder and forcibly spin him around to demand respect.

It was an amateur mistake.

Silas just let his drilled combat survival instincts handle the nuisance.

A fraction of a second before the noble’s hand touched his coat, Silas shifted his weight with flawless precision.

He pivoted his hips slightly, generating a burst of momentum from the floorboards up through his abdominal core.

He raised his right hand and delivered a fully committed backhand slap directly across the Young Master’s pristine, pampered face.

PAH!

The sound wasn’t a magical explosion like what he was usually capable of.

Instead it was the loud violent crack of high-velocity flesh impacting flesh. It echoed across the quiet boutique like a high-caliber sniper rifle discharging indoors and the pure physical force of the blow was astronomical.

The slap physically lifted the teenager entirely off his feet.

The Young Master spun a full 720 degrees in mid-air with a bright spray of saliva and a single perfectly white molar flying from his lips in slow motion.

CRASH!

The noble slammed violently into a nearby display rack of expensive silk scarves, collapsing into a pathetic tangled heap of gold trim and bruised ego on the floor.

The entire boutique went dead silent.

The junior tailor dropped her measuring tape. The three clerks behind the counter stared at the collapsed noble with wide, terrified eyes.

The Young Master slowly pushed himself up onto his elbows. The entire right side of his face was already swelling into a massive purple bruise shaped exactly like a human hand.

Tears... genuine, pathetic, toddler-like tears welled up in his eyes.

"Y-you hit me!" the noble sobbed, clutching his rapidly swelling cheek as he completely lost all his bravado. "You actually hit me! I am the second son of the Blackwood Consortium! My older brother is an Elite Purple Core! He’s going to kill you! He’s going to slaughter your entire family!"

’I really don’t have a family for your brother to slaughter though...’ Silas thought, at least that was one of the good things about being an orphan in these kind of walls.

Silas stood perfectly still with his hand resting casually on the marble counter.

He looked down at the crying teenager as his expression completely lacked empathy.

"Go call your brother, kid," Silas stated flatly. "Tell him Iorno Lelli is waiting... I could use the exercise."

The killing intent behind the name made the noble freeze.

The brat didn’t say another word.

He scrambled to his feet, slipping on a silk scarf, and literally bolted out the front doors of the boutique, crying hysterically as he ran down the street.

Silas watched him go, shaking his head.

’Seriously,’ Silas thought. ’Did I transmigrate into a translated cultivation manhua? What is wrong with these people? I literally just wanted to buy pants... Besides the group he comes from is really big, I hope his brother doesn’t show up while I’m here.’

He turned his attention entirely back to the three stunned clerks behind the counter.

He tapped his finger heavily against the leather ledger.

"Now," Silas said smoothly, acting as if he hadn’t just assaulted a high-ranking noble. "About my bulk order..."

The lead clerk, a woman with perfectly styled blonde hair, swallowed incredibly hard.

She desperately tried to regain her professional composure with her hands shaking visibly as she reached out and pulled the heavy leather ledger toward her.

"O-of course, sir..." she stammered, flipping the heavy cover open. "Are... are you outfitting a personal guard? How many individuals are we tailoring for today?"

"Seventy-two women," Silas answered flatly, his voice echoing in the quiet room. "I want three complete, durable outfits for every single name in that book. That is two hundred and sixteen outfits total. I have my own tailor back at my place, so I just need the bulk fabrics and the baseline fits."

The three clerks stared at him with their minds entirely failed to process the sheer volume of the request.

He wasn’t buying clothes for the dwarf, well because of what she and told him...

"I’d rather die than take clothes! If you want to get me clothes from the Tailor my Lord, just use that time to find good alloys!"

The blonde clerk looked down at the open ledger.

Her eyes rapidly scanned the meticulously handwritten pages.

She saw the exact, highly detailed physical measurements... chest circumferences, hip ratios, exact waistlines, and thigh lengths for seventy-two different distinct women.

She slowly looked back up at Silas.

Her mind immediately, instinctively jumped to the most logical, horrifying conclusion the wealthy elites of Valoria City were infamous for.

This ridiculously handsome man who just slapped a noble wasn’t a military commander organizing a team...

He was an unimaginably wealthy, deeply eccentric, incredibly dangerous pervert running some massive bizarre kidnapped harem out in an isolated mansion, and he was here to dress his massive collection of women!

The other two clerks leaned over the counter to look at the ledger with their eyes widening to the size of dinner plates.

They exchanged frantic, highly judgmental, deeply terrified glances.

Their blushes instantly deepened, shifting from infatuation to horror as they realized exactly what kind of degenerate man they were dealing with.

Silas saw the immediate judgment in their eyes.

"Well, I’m actually a Lord and these are for my Soldiers... All of the people I pulled were women you see?" Silas said with a small smile as the infatuation returned instantly.

"A Lord? An actual Newbie Lord?" The woman stiffened, she needed to treat him with more respect!

"Yes, now can you show me what we’re going to be working with..." Silas said while rubbing the back of his head.

He cared about his PR!