Shovels In Spades

"Thank you, My Lord," General Retford bowed his head and had sincerity in his voice.

Standing behind him were the ten soldiers that had died in the fight against the Frost Phoenix. Each of them looked very grateful to be alive again and some couldn't even believe it.

Daz shook his head. "Don't worry about it. It only cost me two-thousand merit points. That was the last of my points, but I had nothing better to spend them on, so it's fine."

"Yes, My Lord." General Retford didn't go any further. He was simply happy to have his men returned to him.

Originally, he commanded a troop of five-hundred soldiers, not fifty, and his own strength was labelled as S-rank by the system.

This was true until he and his men were purchased by a deluded sorcerer. That man couldn't care less about General Retford and his soldiers, so even if they died, the sorcerer never bothered to pay the fee to revive them.

Since William's forces had dwindled down to a tenth of its original size by the time the selfish sorcerer had died and failed his planet's test, all of their abilities had forcefully been reduced by the system and their selling price was slashed.

At first, William thought that this would be a detriment to him and his remaining men since less powerful and less reasonable people would be able to buy them.

General Retford was a firm believer of the opinion that the sorcerer was an exception. He knew from his experiences during that man's tests that most who had advanced along the system's trials were strong-willed and responsible people, with the odd exception of lunatics who fought by themselves.

William had initially thought that Daz was a mix of the two, both a lunatic and a person who allied himself with others, however, he was glad to see that even if that was the case, his lord was still a responsible person who didn't treat his soldiers like dirt.

Shortly after that brief exchange, people slowly began to trickle out of the gates.

Crusher walked towards the enormous Rimmy and she laughed loudly as she slapped the bottom of his leg. "You got fucking huge, huh? I could see you over the wall, but it's a bit more intimidating this close-up."

Rimmy's core flew out of his main body and landed next to Crusher. "Rimmy."

"Holy shit." Crusher could almost feel her jaw hitting the floor. "Holy. shit. He can actually talk?!"

Daz frowned slightly. "He's always been able to talk."

"R-Right, of course he has," Crusher replied with a wry smile on her lips. 'It's easy to forget that the Lord has a few extra screws loose in the weirdest of places, huh?'

Dorian, who had come out of Fort Skip a few seconds after Crusher had, looked at Rimmy's core and main body with wonder in his eyes. "Amazing. To think that he's three times the size of you now, Crusher. You two were so close in height before."

"Hardly. Are your eyes crippled too, Ahab?" Crusher teased. "He was a full two feet taller than me before."

"When comparing giants, it's not much of a difference," Dorian muttered under his breath.

"Rimmy, evolved?" Madison asked Daz as she tilted her head.

Nodding, Daz replied, "Yup. He's a Jewelled Mountain Golem now."

"Big. Shiny. Cool." Madison's eyes were practically sparkling as she stared at Rimmy.

"Right? Isn't he just?" Daz couldn't be happier that his girlfriend appreciated Rimmy in the same way that he did.

Edward, watching all of this, rocked his head from side to side and sighed. 'Bunch of weirdos... I wonder if Jenna would be scared of that thing? Probably not, knowing her...'

A nostalgic look crossed Edward's eyes as a slightly darker thought filled his mind. 'Daz didn't even bother getting Sandy to say that he'd eventually resurrect those three during the funeral... I hope I'm just being paranoid. I'll find out once I get five-million points either way. Before then, I should keep my head down. Worse comes to worst, It's back to plan A with the Baetylus' corpse.'

Atop the wall, Ellie stood there with a sombre look on her face. Her father's revolver was holstered on her belt while on the other side of her waist was Sarah's nature magic grimoire, it hung there casually by a rope cord.

Ellie had decided to keep these two items with her at all times. She was incapable of using the grimoire since she knew no nature magic, and the gun was already slowly becoming useless as the average stats of the survivors was going up.

Daz had already told everyone that guns would be pointless without heavy reinforcement and modifications, both of which were things that Ellie couldn't afford to waste points on, so both the revolver and her sister's grimoire were more momentos than usable items, but to Ellie, they were far more valuable than anything else she owned.

Ellie tied her loose hair into a ponytail and wiped away the sweat from her brow. Even though she was only wearing a pair of shorts and a tank top, the heat was still insufferable.

She grabbed Mini Daz who now had a thin metal ring floating around him, a device that boosted all of his abilities and lessened the worldforce required to channel power through him. With a thought, and while using Mini Daz, Ellie ordered M Destroyer to exit Fort Skip and line-up with the others already out there.

In regards to M Destroyer, with the points that Ellie had earned yesterday, on top of Mini Daz's ring, she was able to repair a lot more of the massive robot's damage. It still wasn't as powerful as the one that had attacked Fort Skip since it had been revived via one of her skills and not through the system, also, it still hadn't been fully repaired, but it was a powerful force not to be reckoned with nonetheless.

In particular, a certain detail had appeared on its status.