Surrounded by Five Beast Lords novel Chapter 42

Chapter 42 A Fortune Out Of Nowhere

Right then, Elmer seized Dora’s arm as though he had just remembered something critical, his voice urgent. She said, “Dora. Let’s go to the Interstellar Marriage Matching Center today and get our marriage registered.”

Color crept up his face, but his eyes field steady, bright with a nervous kind of determination.

He had been thinking about this nonstop. Having it official on paper meant he could stand beside Dora without anyone questioning his place there.

What kept gnawing at him was Cassian, sharp and calculating as the man was.

‘If that guy ever figures out Dora isn’t the lost cause everyone thinks she is, that she’s actually something special, he might have a change of heart and refuse to call off the engagement, Elmer thought. The possibility alone made his stomach clench.

Dora couldn’t help but laugh at his eagerness, and she gave his hand a reassuring pat. “Easy, Elmer. We’re definitely going to the Interstellar Marriage Matching Center, but-”

She glanced over at Lioren, who was pretending not to care even though his ears were perked straight up, and then at Clive whose face gave nothing away even though his gaze had drifted their direction.

She said, “I want to wait until Lioren can shift back to his human form so we can all go together.”

Dora laid out her reasoning. “He can’t exactly fill out matching paperwork like this.”

She paused and looked at Elmer, “Besides, my twenty–second birthday is still almost two months out.

“If I don’t have five beast mates by then, I’ll need to go to the Interstellar Marriage Matching Center for a match anyway. So we might as well do it all at once.”

The second Elmer heard that he’d have to wait for Lioren, or worse, wait until Dora’s birthday, his whole face crumpled. “But who even knows when this stupid cat’s gonna shift back,” he muttered, his lower lip jutting out.

“Two whole months.” He kept grumbling under his breath.

Lioren bared his teeth at Elmer the second he heard that, his amber cat eyes glinting with smug satisfaction.

‘Stupid mutt, what’s the rush? I’ll take my sweet time recovering, he thought.

In reality, Lioren’s crystal energy reserves and his injuries had already healed enough for him to attempt shifting back to human form.

But he still needed more time, and not just to heal his wounds and rebuild his strength. What mattered far more was that” Lioren” was officially dead in the system, and that resurfacing under a new, legitimate identity required careful planning. So staying down a little longer suited him perfectly. When Dora proposed that they wait for him, it played right into his, hands.

Clive watched the whole exchange without a word, at the mention of waiting for Lioren, a barely perceptible thread of calculation wound through his expression.

He seemed to suspect that Lioren’s recovery was running ahead of what he showed on the surface, and that dragging it out served a purpose beyond rest.

“Alright, that settles it.” Dora’s voice carried the finality of a gavel. “Once Lioren’s back on his feet, we all go together. For now, priority number one is getting this house built.”

She steered the conversation back to what actually needed to be done.

Elmer still looked a little reluctant, but the words “we all go together” and the quiet, steady certainty in Dora’s eyes wore him down.

He nodded. “Fine. But Dora, you gave me your word. You and me, matched and married. No backing out”

“Relax.” Dora agreed without a second’s hesitation. In her mind, Elmer was already family

After breakfast, Dora pulled up her Optical Brain and began cross–referencing the supply manifest against the house blueprints she’d stayed up all night drafting, tallying materials and running calculations.

Clive and Elmer got straight to work assembling nearby, lending a hand wherever he could.

Successfully unlocked!

ithout being asked, while Lioren hopped around

Dora stared at the list of materials she needed to buy, and the more she ran the numbers, the deeper the crease between her brows grew.

ortune Out Of Nowhere

The basic module covered only the bare essentials, such as structural panels, connectors, and pre–embedded conduits fo the energy lines.

The stabilite fusion process she’d designed for reinforced foundations, like the upgrade components for the energy shiek the internal climate control system, and the water recycling purifier.

And the “basement hutt conversion that had been living rent–free in her head for weeks, the one that would turn the whole house into a boat during storm season, all of it required bulk orders of specialty materials, hired construction bots, and steep custom installation fees.

She pulled up the live pricing feeds and robot labor estimates on her Optical Brain, her fingers swiping fast as the number on the holoscreen kept climbing.

The final total landed like a punch to the gut.

A bare–minimum budget came out to at least 248,000 starcoin, and that didn’t even account for surprise costs, interior finishing, or furniture down the line.

Dora stared at that number, then glanced at the lonely 48,800 starcoin sitting in her account balance.

What had felt like a decent chunk of change after yesterday’s crystal core split now couldn’t even cover the rounding error That old, familiar tightness crept back in, the same kind of cash–flow anxiety one gets during the early days of a startup when every coin matters.

‘Looks like I need to hit the Training Zone a lot more, and fast, she thought.

She was still spiraling through every possible hustle, every shortcut to close that gap, when a crisp chime pinged from the Optical Brain on her wrist.

Dora tapped it open without thinking.

[Account *-7349 (Dora) transfer received 100,000.00 starcoin.]

[Sender: Lucian Golding]

[Current balance: 148,800.00 starcoin.]

‘A hundred thousand starcoin?‘ she thought, freezing mid–breath, The amount came out of nowhere.

It still fell short of the 248,000 target, but the goal no longer felt like something on the other side of the moon.

The name Lucian hit like a rusted key turning in a lock, cracking open some dusty corner of her memory she hadn’t visited in a long time.

Dora pulled up the account’s transaction history.

Sure enough, starting from when she was six, a transfer from “Lucian” had landed in her account like clockwork around her, birthday every single year.

The amounts had climbed steadily, from ten thousand starcoin in the beginning to fifty thousand, then eighty thousand last year, and now a hundred thousand this year.

The memo never said anything beyond a simple [Happy Birthdayì, never missed a single year, and never came with so much as a word of greeting or any other contact.

As Dora stared at that windfall of a hundred thousand starcoin, the kind of money that could bail her out of the hole she was in right now, it felt almost too good to be true.

“Lucian,” she murmured the name under her breath.

The “fiancé” she had picked out for herself as a little kid had actually been holding up his end of the deal all these years, quietly and without fanfare, sending money like it was just what one did.

Back when she lived with the Southwell family, her account had never run low on starcoin, so those annual deposits had slipped right past her.

And Lucian himself had all but faded from her memory.

She took a deep breath, lit the holoscreen back up, and started reworking her budget. The sharp, focused look returned to

her eyes.

The funding gap was still there, but with a hundred thousand starcoin as a foundation, a whole lot of plans could finally get off the ground.

For example, she could hire a few basic construction robots first.

And while she was at it, maybe look into the mysterious “meal ticket slash fiancé” Lucian was