"What do you want?" her father asked, moving closer. "Tell me your wish, Zaria. I'll be sure to grant it to the best of my ability."
"What are you, the fairy godmother?" Zaria scoffed, but upon noticing his seriousness, she decided to actually ask her question.
"Can you let me leave this place? I don't want to be here anymore."
Her father's brows twitched. "But where will you go? We have some properties overseas, so maybe—"
"None of that." Zaria shut him up. "I want to try living on my own, survive on my own. That type of deal, you know?"
And as much as her father didn't want to agree, it seemed like he had no choice.
He was practically giving his blessing so his daughter could run away.
"On one condition..." her father trailed off, staring straight into her silver eyes. "I want to know where you're going."
"Fat chance. I'm willing to tell you after a month or so though, if that works with you," Zaria replied sternly.
Her father sighed. "Okay... But you must promise, or I'll send out every single one of our personnel to go look for you, got it?"
"Yep, no problem. If I don't contact you in a month, expect to hear from me in two months or something," Zaria said, turning to Neraxis. "Can you take him back now?"
Neraxis flashed a look toward her father, who, upon meeting his gaze, weakly nodded.
He walked up to her father and then simply teleported him back into his office.
Yet Neraxis didn't linger for long, as he simply proceeded to teleport back to where he was, catching Zaria in the act of almost flying away.
"Wait a sec," he called out. "I have an offer. Wanna hear it?"
"With how much you've been pestering me for the last few hours? I don't know if I want to hear it if I'm being honest," Zaria said flatly. "But I'm willing to hear you out."
"Sure..." Neraxis sighed. "I'm looking to buy a place on the outskirts of Sordana, do you have any recommendations?"
She stared at him for a few moments and then nearly burst out laughing.
"Pfftt... you really suck at conversations, huh? I guess you don't have any friends or a girlfriend either, right?" Zaria asked, grinning.
But of course, he quickly shut that delusion of hers down.
"As a matter of fact, I'm surrounded by women. And as for the girlfriend part, you can only imagine."
"What? You sound like you're not a virgin or something... but you look like a playboy, so I guess that makes sense," Zaria nodded to herself. "Congrats, I guess. Do you really need my help with properties though? I'm sure you can just go and ask my father or something."
"He's a tech guy, not a realtor," Neraxis said with a shrug.
"Yeah, and I'm the daughter of a tech guy, not a realtor," Zaria replied with an equally obnoxious shrug. "But hey, why not. Since I won't be chased down anymore, I can help you look for something nice. In exchange, I want you to back off as well."
"Sure. Though I'd much rather prefer to get to know you better," Neraxis said with a soft smile, causing her brows to twitch.
"Don't push it. I'm emotionally unavailable right now. And by that, I mean I'm not interested," Zaria stated plainly.
"And yet you're crying about not having friends, no surprise there I guess," Neraxis said, whistling.
It seemed like she was about to lash out at him, but before she could, he swiftly grabbed her hand and then teleported them right above Sordana.
"Huh? What the fuck, are you a bird?" Zaria asked, shocked as she held onto him tight.
They were at least a couple of kilometers above the highest level of the city, so they could almost see the entirety of Sordana.
"A bird? Is that really the best you could come up with?"
Zaria tilted her head. "Why? You have some weird wings with both white and golden feathers, and a few black spots too... I don't know birds, but you seem like one... are you—"
"Alright, just zip it," Neraxis interjected. "You watched one too many cartoons, and it's showing. Anyways, look here."
With those words, Neraxis teleported them to the northern outskirts of the city.
It was the only mountainous part around, and yet, the land wasn't flat.
Obviously, that wasn't a big issue since he could just flatten it overnight. However, it seemed like she had other ideas.
"Most of the creeps gather here. It looks nice, but I doubt you'd be able to sleep from the amount of sex addicts screaming at night," Zaria commented.
"In the mountains...?" Neraxis tilted his head. "Also, how do you know this?"
"How? Well, let's just say I went there for a picnic once. Didn't really enjoy it since I couldn't even cook my food in peace," Zaria replied.
"Hahaha, yeah, I guess this area is a dud then," Neraxis said with a smile.
Obviously, he could probably isolate this area to himself and get rid of those sex addicts. However, the sheer thought of this area being tainted wasn't very amusing.
Therefore, he swiftly teleported to the west.
It was a flat grassy land, and he could definitely make use of this.
But once again, Zaria had something to say.
"Hmm... there are a bunch of underground monsters here. From what I remember, there was a town here, but the fuckers ate it."
"The fuckers... do you mean those monsters?" Neraxis asked, stunned. "How could they eat an entire city?"
"I don't know, why don't you set up your home here and fucking ask them?" Zaria replied with a scoff.
"Guess everywhere is a pain in the ass..." Neraxis trailed off with a sigh and teleported the both of them east.
To his surprise, this place seemed the most livable.
A somewhat hilly landscape, flat enough to build a giant house. And he couldn't sense any monsters either.
"Under that hill, there are around 50 corpses buried. I'd be careful if I were you. Some of them might be vengeful or something."