Vanessa subconsciously stuck her tongue out as she felt the sparks of her metalworking bounce off of her face.

She was strong enough to avoid any damage from such things and it actually felt quite refreshing, though she still wore goggles since her eyes weren't quite as durable as her skin was.

"Shouldn't be too long now... You're really starting to come together, huh, Journey?" she asked as she leaned back and stared up at the massive airship that she'd been repairing for the past month with the help of Sandy and occasionally Daz's clones.

She hadn't told Sandy yet, but she'd taken the liberty to name the airship Journey. Vanessa really wanted to take it on a tour around the world one day with Rose and maybe a few other people. That was the hope, at least.

"Vanessa?" She turned in shock to see King Daz stood next to her on the scaffolding. He was easily distinguishable from his clones thanks to his little army of floating gems and Hamson who trailed behind him.

"Oh, hi. I, uh, didn't hear you coming up the ladder or walking over here." The teen got off of her knees and smiled warmly before rubbing the dust and debris from her legs. "You're really quiet, huh?"

Daz nodded. "It's a passive skill. It's nice to see you working so hard on your hobby."

"Ahaha, really? I only have a handful of basic skills that help. Sandy does most of the work. He's crazy good with this alien steampunky tech stuff. You'd think he was only good at building but he's a real crafter and tinkerer through and through. It's a real shame his tool is a hoe and not a, uh, wrench or something," Vanessa said with an innocent laugh.

Daz looked up at the massive machine of wood and copper. "Any more accurate estimates on when it'll be done?"

Vanessa held her chin and pursed her lips in thought. "I don't know. Sandy's, uh, been doing some modifications lately. He said he wanted it to have some weapons too instead of just being transport-focused."

"He's probably worried about what happened with the recent terrorist attack last month," Daz guessed.

Vanessa smiled sadly. "P-Probably... Anyway! You, uh, came to ask me something, right?"

"Was it that obvious?" Daz asked.

Vanessa laughed softly as she scratched the back of her head. "I, uh, I know you're busy. You wouldn't come visit little old me for no reason."

"You're still my friend. I shouldn't need a reason to visit you," he claimed. Daz then spoke again before the girl could get anymore agitated. "Rose just successfully awakened. She wants you to help her take a bath."

"Oh, uh, I'll be right there." The young German then raised her arms and sniffed herself. "I could probably use a shower myself... I smell like I just soaked in a barrel of oil."

"Some people are attracted to that," Daz said with a shrug. "Be careful with her. She's still weak after the awakening."

"Really? Attracted?" Vanessa muttered before she shook her head and smiled awkwardly. "Must be, uh, hard to be an esper."

"It has its ups and its downs," Daz replied casually. "I'll see you later then, Vanessa. As much as I'd love to chat, I'm unfortunately very busy. Lots of king stuff to do, lots of personal stuff to do. I swear, being important is more of a burden than it is a blessing."

"Haha, I'm sure." With that, Vanessa said goodbye then made her way to the keep. Once there, she was stopped by the two odd guards who were usually playing card games or just fooling about in general.

"Oh, if it isn't Young Miss Vanessa. Here to see Miss Rose again?"

"Why'd you stop her, Sten? You're wasting her time."

"Come now, Leston. It's only customary to be polite when you see a young lady."

"... She's less than a third of your age. My mum's one thing, but if you have any stray thoughts about Vanessa..."

"H-How dare you, Leston! I am an upstanding gentleman of the highest regard! I'm not one to have erroneous thoughts about a child!"

"With you, anything is possible..."

Vanessa smiled wryly. 'There they go again... Still, even they think I'm a kid, huh? Then why does the system want me to fall in love with someone? I just can't understand it or my 'goal'... At least I have 5 more months to gather up 10-million merit points to avoid it...'

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After Vanessa had left, Daz made his way to the massive school. It took some wandering around the unfamiliar structure to locate his target but locate it he did. Or more specifically, locate her.

Sneaking up behind her, Daz covered Madison's eyes with one hand as he hugged her with the other. "Guess who?" he whispered into her ear.

Madison jumped a little bit but quickly spun around and hugged him back. "Daz! Missed, you."

"We saw each other last night," he chuckled. "I missed you too."

"Miss McArthur is being lewd!"

"Miss McArthur and the king sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!"

The kids in the courtyard all started laughing while the few adults littered around smiled warmly. Most of them were actually fellow students trying to gain some extra stat point in their spare time while only a handful of the adults were teachers watching over them all to make sure none of the children hurt themselves.

Daz smiled. "We're not kissing, though we can start if you'd like. I'd rather not sit in a tree though."

Madison immediately recalled where she was and the fact that they were in an open courtyard with over 30 other people, most of whom were children. She slowly peeled herself off of Daz and tried to hide her face by grabbing Mr Barrier from her head and using him as a shield.

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"Forgot, where, was..." she mumbled.

"Hahaha! Miss McArthur's embarrassed!"

"She's all lovey-dovey with the king!"

Daz shook his head. "This is nothing. Anyway, Maddy, I'm about to buy a new important building for Fort Home. I was wondering if you'd like to come? It involves missions, which are kinda like quests. I figured we could do one together."

One of the two twins that were important figures at the cathedral, Cathy, tugged on Daz's travelling gear. "Date?"

Katy, her sister, wrapped around the reaper and tugged on his other side. "Date?"

Madison was oozing a sense of jealousy. 'Why aren't they doing that to me? Daz is so lucky...' As usual, her thoughts were perfectly coherent.

Daz rested his hands on the girls' heads and smiled. "Yeah, I guess it will be a date, huh? That is unless you two were asking me out. In that case, I'd have to unfortunately decline. I belong only to Maddy, I'm afraid."

The twins blushed.

"Bully."

"Teaser."

Daz laughed and then said goodbye to everyone since Madison was growing more and more irate as time passed. She seemed ready to jump on the girls at any moment, so the reaper quickly left the school hand in hand with his lover.

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Now at an open area near the centre of what was once Waterford and was now known as Fort Home, Madison cocked her head to the side and asked, "Here?"

Daz nodded. The location he had chosen for the new building was an open area of flattened land at the heart of Fort Home not too far from the teleportation station. His reason being that the other important buildings he'd bought from the system also lived at the city's heart along with the newly constructed cathedral.

Fort Home had developed a lot over the last month. There were enough homes to house 100,000 people and each little community of homes all lined the large walls that protected the city from the wild monsters roaming the nearby plains.

Daz had to thank his instincts for getting those walls earlier rather than later. Had he avoided doing so perhaps many lives would have been lost as a result.

More and more houses were being built every day and even more people were flooding to the city, but, thankfully, there was a dedicated building in Fort Home that Daz had bought to counteract this issue.

It was a simple building called the spatial dormitory. What it did was allow the residence of up to 1,000,000 citizens despite only being as large as your average school or town hall. Being a resident gave you a key and upon opening one of the building's many entrances you would be teleported to your designated room.

Each room came equipped with a shower and toilet and a small room with only enough space for a bed. There was a massive shared kitchen, but the food was subpar.

The idea was that while it put a roof over your head, it wasn't ideal. You'd want to work hard for the right to own a personal home, resulting in fewer entitled and lazy citizens who didn't contribute to the evolved society of New Earth.

Daz had initially desired to make every home equal, but quite a few citizens were actually rather wealthy and had acquired no small amount of merit points with their own methods even if they weren't overly strong.

These people had banded together and made a petition to Daz to create several higher class homes for them to purchase to skip over the need to live in a cramped room for an extended period of time.

Daz saw no real issue with this. They weren't gaining power over the other people, they were just providing funding to get moved from the spatial dormitory to a real home in a more timely manner. They still had to follow the laws just the same as every other citizen.

"We're kind of running out of room, huh? Before long, there'll be houses everywhere," Daz casually said. "I might have to expand Fort Home soon. I've been thinking about buying a castle for it too and moving our base of operations to the city, though I'm undecided."

Madison held her chin and narrowed her eyes carefully in thought. "Make, Fort, Skip, Castle. Move, citizens, to, city?"

"Hmm... Just directly turn the base into the castle, huh? No, maybe a castle district? Royal district, even? Could make a few estates for foreign guests there... It's a good idea. I need to talk to Lyle and Crosius about it though," Daz said.

Madison nodded. "Okay. Curious. Said, missions. Adventurer's, Guild, already, have. Why?"

"Well, that place only monitors and regulates access to the dungeon it's linked to. I could upgrade it to deal out missions, but it's a different system. The possibility for that place is to let people assign missions and directly pay for it with their own merit points, promises, or items. What I want is a building that gets the system to curate the missions. Think of it like our current quest system but you get to choose the quests," Daz explained.

Madison didn't speak much but she was a smart woman. She instantly understood Daz's meaning. "Okay, thank."

"No problem," Daz answered kindly.

The reaper then pulled up the relevant information for the building he desired.

Physical City Upgrade [Average] The System's Mercenary Guild Description The merc guild, eh? Suits a brute like you to want something so unrefined. Upgrade Allows all hosts to take on system-generated missions to earn rewards. Limited to Mark-4 Highest Class Missions. Price 16,000,000(4,000,000) Merit Points. 200,000 City Points.

It was pricy, yes, but Daz could see the hidden potential within.

This granted access to the mercenary system, after all. The very same system that the Overgiant Arthphodas was a part of.

'This won't help me with the Truthians since they can seal access to the system, but it'll be a huge boon to the city and to me in all other regards. The system might even use this building to warn me of upcoming dangers via related missions since it favours me apparently,' Daz thought in excitement before he nodded. "Purchase it, please, system. I confirm the purchase as well."

Confirmed. The total merit balance of [Fort Home] is now 0 [-3,424,340].

The total city balance of [Fort Home] is now 1,800,000 [-200,000].

The total merit balance of the host is now: 243,295,987 [-575,660].

It was impossible at this point for Daz to feel the pinch of such a purchase anymore. Being rich truly was a blessing.

With a familiar earthquake-like rumble, the new building split the ground and grew out of the resulting crevice like a plant desperately searching for the sunlight it sorely needed.

The building was perfectly cuboid in shape and had 10-floors, each of which had slightly better curtains hidden behind their respective floor's windows.

A massive plaque was hanging above the wooden double-doored entrance which read 'The System's Mercenary Guild' in what seemed to be English, but Daz could tell that it actually wasn't made up of any letters he instinctively understood.

'Does an Ember of Comprehension exist or something similar to it? If it does, those letters were absolutely written by someone proficient in that area. So the system is collaborating with the creator of Embers this much, huh?' Daz wondered.

Just as he and Madison were about to enter the building to have a look around and see exactly how it worked, the two heard hurried footsteps behind them coming from a distance.

'The sound of these feet... Someone short but heavy and wearing expensive formal shoes?' Daz guessed as he turned around and was surprised to see Master Merit rushing over. "Well, I wonder what he wants... It's been a while since I last spoke to him."