"Thank you Brida."

Tamsin smoothly retracted the heavy chain with a sharp flick of her wrist, pulling the flaming blade back to her side.

She looked up at the dais with her face flushed with adrenaline.

Tasmin smiled and offered a deep bow.

"Thank you once more, my Lord!" Tamsin stated firmly.

She turned and walked confidently back to her designated position in the front row with her burning daggers safely extinguished and sheathed.

Silas nodded.

He didn’t waste any time.

"Rowena," Silas called out. "Come forward."

Rowena immediately stood up.

The beautiful human mage stepped gracefully out of the formation.

She had completely left her minor drunken slur behind as she hadn’t actually consumed that much of Kaelia’s moonshine, and her natural mana reserves had easily metabolized the rest of the alcohol.

Rowena approached the base of the dais, maintaining her usual composed posture.

She dropped to one knee, bowing her head deeply.

"I thank you profusely for this incredible opportunity, my Lord..." Rowena stated,

"No biggie," Silas replied casually, using modern slang that the elegant mage entirely failed to comprehend.

His right hand glowed again.

He reached directly into the spatial inventory and pulled her highly specific multi-million-credit upgrade out into the physical world.

He handed her The Sapphire-Core World Weaver.

It was Tier 3 gear and the staff was forged from an impossibly sleek pure white mythril alloy.

The metal completely wrapped around a massive, violently glowing sapphire core that actively pulsed with visible arcane geometries.

It matched the intricate high-tier aesthetic of Tamsin’s gauntlets.

Rowena gently took hold of the massive staff.

She complimented the intricate craftsmanship immediately, running her delicate fingers over the white mythril.

"This is entirely magnificent, my Lord..." Rowena praised the weapon, staring at the glowing core.

She looked up at him with her brow furrowing slightly in genuine confusion.

"But you already upgraded my standard combat staff during the attack today," Rowena pointed out. "Why expend heavy capital to procure this one as well?"

Silas offered a smile at her.

"A mage of your specific caliber can absolutely never have too many staffs..." Silas stated smoothly.

Rowena blinked.

A sudden massive blush completely conquered her elegant and usually composed face.

She tightened her grip around the white mythril shaft.

Rowena didn’t hesitate.

She actively channeled a massive surge of her internal mana directly into the sapphire core.

VWOOM!

A blinding pure wave of localized blue arcane light violently erupted from the crystal.

The magical glow cast a brilliant azure hue over the entire cavernous room, completely washing out the orange light of the torches.

"The internal matrix features a massive passive mana-retention loop..." Silas explained the tactical specs, leaning slightly over the dais. "It will perfectly reduce the cast cost of your highest-tier destructive spells."

Rowena smiled.

"I will be of use to you, my Lord... I swear it." Rowena promised fiercely, her eyes reflecting the glowing blue core.

Silas stepped down from the dais.

He didn’t just nod.

He reached out and gently patted the top of her head.

Rowena froze.

Her arcane channeling stuttered for a fraction of a second.

She was completely taken by surprise by the sudden affectionate un-warlord-like gesture.

’Again...’

Mages of her standing were meant to be respected from a distance, not casually head-patted like a favorite pet.

’But I don’t mind...’

Her heart hammered wildly against her ribs.

The blush on her cheeks deepened to a dark crimson.

"I know you will..." Silas told her warmly.

Rowena completely retreated into the neat, immaculate rows of the Vanguard formation.

Her usually pale beautiful ace was flushed a brilliant undeniable shade of crimson.

She clutched the violently glowing, multi-million-credit Sapphire-Core World Weaver tightly against her chest like it was a holy relic.

Silas stood alone on the raised stone dais.

He let out a long exhausted breath.

’Thankfully we’re almost done here... I’m tired of gifting all these.’

He rolled his broad shoulders, listening to the heavy joints pop and crack in the quiet hall.

Silas needed a small required break.

’My social battery is in the red right now...’ Silas thought, staring out at the sea of heavily armed fiercely devoted women. ’I can physically tank the crushing blow of a mutated Gore-Fiend without flinching, but dealing with the concentrated emotional weight of more than seventy blushing women is going to give me an aneurysm.’

He was a warlord.

He was supposed to be swinging heavy swords, conquering hostile borders, and bathing in the blood of his enemies.

He wasn’t supposed to be running a philanthropic charity event in his basement.

But morale was the undeniable lifeblood of any standing army and besides Silas loved it regardless.

He took exactly ten seconds to mentally recalibrate.

Silas shoved his exhaustion down, reigniting the cold gravity of his Mythic Gold Core.

"Aeliana," Silas called out with his deep voice sounding effortlessly across the Garrison. "Come forward."

In the second row, the Royal Elf flinched.

Aeliana blinked rapidly, her vibrant green eyes going entirely wide in shock.

She looked around, almost expecting there to be another girl named Aeliana hiding behind her.

She honestly did not expect her Lord to explicitly call her name for a gift.

She wasn’t a frontline combatant like Brida and though she was a mage that had done well, she had also caused trouble for him.

Beside that, she was the territory’s logistical adjutant.

Aeliana spent her days entirely buried in boring paperwork, rationing out Kaelia’s meals, cataloging the perimeter defenses, and calculating the structural integrity of their wooden walls.

She slowly stood up from the stone floorboards.

Aeliana walked forward as she completely bypassed the cheering and the chaotic banter of the frontline girls, approaching the base of the stone dais with a deeply confused expression.

She stopped perfectly in front of him.

"You called me, my Lord?" Aeliana asked respectfully, bowing her head slightly.

Silas looked down at her.

He rubbed the back of his neck with a slightly awkward smirk touching his lips.

"Yeah," Silas started casually. "Full transparency... my specific gift for you was gotten in a massive rush."

Aeliana blinked, tilting her head. "A rush?"

"Apparently, when I was exactly where I was supposed to be actively purchasing the gift I originally planned for you," Silas admitted shamelessly, abandoning his infallible Sovereign persona. "I completely forgot."

Aeliana violently sweatdropped.

A bead of sweat slid down the side of her pointed ear.

’Did he really just admit that out loud in front of the entire army?’ Aeliana thought, completely bewildered by his blunt honesty.

"You entirely didn’t need to actually say that part out loud, my Lord," Aeliana sighed, shaking her head in exasperation. "I would have happily accepted a generic gift without knowing I was an absolute afterthought."

"You aren’t an afterthought," Silas corrected her smoothly. "I just had to pivot my strategy in getting you a gift."

His right hand glowed as he reached directly into his digital Lord Inventory.

Silas didn’t pull out a glowing mythic staff, he didn’t pull out a pair of Tier 3 items either.

Instead... He extended his hand toward her, holding a thick stack of items wrapped in simple brown paper.

Aeliana tentatively reached out and accepted the bundle.

The paper fell away.

She looked down at the items resting in her hands.

It was a stack of six thick, pristine, high-quality Earth-made journals.

They were bound in rich dark leather, completely filled with hundreds of pages of perfectly crisp blank white paper.

Resting on top of the journals was a set of sleek expensive and perfectly balanced ink pens.

Aeliana completely froze.

Her breath hitched violently in her throat.

"You want to write a story, right?" Silas asked.

Aeliana’s head snapped up.

She blinked as her green eyes went wide with shock. "H-how did you..."

"I overheard you loudly complaining to Fenna earlier this week," Silas explained, crossing his arms over his chest. "You were completely miserable. You mentioned that this territory entirely lacked any places to read, and that the mind-numbing boredom of crunching logistical numbers was rotting your brain.... You said you just wanted some blank paper to write out the fantasy stories in your head."

He offered her a genuine handsome smile.

"So, I bought this," Silas finished. "It isn’t a magical weapon but it’s exactly what you asked for."

Aeliana stared at the leather-bound journals.

She almost completely broke down.

Hot tears of joy instantly flooded her vision.

She clutched the stack of books and pens tightly against her chest with both of her delicate hands, holding them like they were the most precious valuable artifacts in the entire Sovereign Realm.

Because to her, they were.

"Thank you," Aeliana gasped out, her strict facade completely shattering into a million pieces. "Thank you so profusely, my Lord!"

She bowed so deeply her pointed ears nearly brushed her kneecaps.

"You’re welcome," Silas smiled warmly, genuinely happy to see the stressed elf finally relax.

He leaned slightly over the dais. "Take your time with them. And when you’re finished... I would love to actively read a story you wrote."

Aeliana physically jolted.

Her face flushed an impossible shade of dark burning crimson.

The thought of her terrifying handsome Sovereign actively reading her personal romanticized and deeply embarrassing fictional stories completely overloaded her elven brain.

She couldn’t form a coherent sentence.

She just nodded her head frantically with her silver hair bouncing wildly.

Aeliana turned around and literally ran away.

She was back into the formation, clutching the books to her chest, desperate to hide her nuclear-level blush from the rest of the army.

Silas watched her go, amused by the reaction.

He turned his gaze toward the heavy iron double doors of the Garrison.

He looked over to check on Eluned, fully expecting the SSS-Rank Goddess to demand her gift next.

Eluned was entirely out of it.

The Goddess was currently sitting cross-legged on the cold stone floor near the entrance.

She had the empty moonshine bottle resting on her head like a glass hat, and she was actively trying to hold a serious slurred conversation with a completely inanimate stone brick in the wall.

’Right. She’s completely useless right now,’ Silas thought, writing her off for the moment.

He shifted his golden-ringed gaze back to the formation.

"Kaelia," Silas commanded, his voice ringing with absolute authority. "Come forward."

In the center of the formation, the petite, black-haired chef violently flinched.

Kaelia nervously stood up.

Her face was still incredibly red from their humiliating encounter in the master bedroom just a bit ago.

She kept her eyes glued firmly to the stone floor, terrified of making direct eye contact with the man she had just been moaning over.

She scurried forward with her pristine white apron swishing around her knees.

She stopped in front of the dais, wringing her hands together in panic.

"M-my Lord?" Kaelia stuttered out.

Silas looked down at her.

"You are actively being rewarded tonight," Silas announced loudly, making sure the entire Garrison heard him. "You are receiving territorial commendations because you are the one successfully cooking the best food that any of us have ever eaten in our entire lives."

The effect was instantaneous.

"DAMN RIGHT SHE IS!" Brida roared from the front row, entirely endorsing the statement.

"The roasted boar last night was completely flawless!" Fenna cheered from the back.

"Kaelia is the true backbone of this army!" Tamsin agreed firmly.

The girls erupted into loud enthusiastic cheers, aggressively supporting their chef.

The overwhelming wave of positive reinforcement completely caught Kaelia off guard.

She shrank back slightly with her shoulders hiking up as she blushed fiercely... feeling shy under the intense positive spotlight.

"Hold your arms out," Silas instructed her.

Kaelia nervously extended her slender arms, creating a small cradle against her chest.

Silas didn’t hold back.

His hands glowed with a blue light as usual.

He had spent some of his Upgrade Points reinforcing the mundane Earth kitchenware into Tier 3 culinary artifacts.

He triggered his inventory.

The items didn’t just appear gently... They aggressively dropped into reality.

CLANG!

The first set of massive, heavy-duty, solid-steel meat cleavers... forged from completely unbreakable and high-carbon dungeon alloy dropped directly into her open arms.

"Umph!"

Kaelia grunted under the sudden massive weight, desperately holding onto the hilts.

"These are specifically designed to easily slice entirely through the bone marrow of Tier 4 spirit beasts at most without dulling the edge..." Silas explained casually.