Szymon shook his head and bellowed in anger at the men in front of him, "This isn't even close to this week's schedule!"

His worker's cowered at his words as they glanced at the several tonnes of excavated diamonds next to them.

The man threatening them was not only a good 7-feet-tall, but he also had tattoos covering almost every inch of his body. Suffice to say, he was fairly intimidating even despite his incredibly pale skin.

Everyone present could consider himself a well-lived man with plenty of experience under his belt, but going against Szymon just seemed idiotic even for the most mentally challenged of the bunch.

"The Boss clearly said that the quota was to double from last week's from now on since we were pulling in a bit more than one-and-a-half times the quota before without really trying!" Anger flushed through the bald man's face.

"How can you all be so fucking incompetent?!" His eyes darted to and fro amongst his men. "Is it because Lady White finally reopened her brothel?! Huh?! Is that it, you mangy beggars?!"

Guilty expressions clouded many of the men's faces while an awkward silence took hold of the meeting.

"That's it. If I catch any one of you fuckers in her establishment again in the next 2-weeks then I'll kill you myself! Saves the boss the trouble. Fuckin' fill out the quota and make up for what you missed last week and I can think about letting you cock-driven losers back into that whorehouse!" Szymon yelled. "Am I clear?"

"Crystal!"

"Very clear, Leader Szymon!"

"... Wait for me, my dear sweet Clarice... I'll work extra hard to fuck you again!"

Szymon nodded. 'Stick and carrot. These fuckin' idiots better not screw up again or Alek will have my head...'

Suddenly, a voice he didn't recognise filled his ears and it seemed to be coming from, oddly enough, the sky. "They've got a whole mining facility here and everything."

"So it would seem, Brother," a second but far more curious voice stated.

Szymon looked up in a panic only to see a massive tear in the very expensive and precious Illusionary Array that they had set up around the diamond crater-turned-quarry.

Szymon fell into a pit of despair the moment he locked eyes with the men who had somehow broken in and disturbed their secret mining operation. "Daz..."

The reaper in question frowned. "It's 'King Daz' to fools like you. That or 'Your Majesty'. Now, start talking. Tell me why you lot are trying to undo my hard work to contain the massive sinkhole that threatens to destroy all of Nevada. Lie if you wish. I will get my answers one way or another."

"Uh... I-I'm sort of bound by a system contract. I can't tell you anything..." Szymon was busy praying to every god he was aware of - both pre and post-apocalypse - to save his sorry behind.

If anything could spare his hide, it'd be divine intervention.

"Mu, do you mind rounding up everyone here for me? I'm gonna head to Vegas and find whoever's got this man locked into a contract," Daz requested. "I apparently have business with them."

Mu shrugged. "We do not mind, Brother. Many of them are very afraid of you, some to the point that they may faint shortly. This is a rather optimal situation for me to train my Ember of Fear."

"Great. If anyone fights back or tries to escape, kill 15 of them," Daz said before he coldly glared at everyone who had stopped what they were doing to watch the commotion. "You all broke the law together, you shall all suffer together. Behave and no one dies. If you were forced to do this, don't be afraid. I'll be far more lenient with you in that case."

After saying that, Daz summoned his car and immediately drove off.

Mu sighed as he sat atop his Cloud of Tartarus. "Indeed, his former nature as a Justice Reaper really is stuck to him like butter to toast."

'B-Butter to toast?' Szymon thought in shock at Mu's strange analogy.

Immediately, his mind drifted to his and his men's current predicament. 'Shit! Fuck! Motherfucker! We're totally screwed! Well, at this point, I hope Alek gets what's coming to him. It's impossible to lie to Daz anyway, right? That's the rumour surrounding his clone anyway. Serves the bastard right.'

He turned towards his men and then cleared his throat. "You heard the king! Do as this man says if you want to live!"

'I'll take whatever punishment he thinks I deserve, but I ain't dying today! If these fuckers dare disobey, I swear I'll kill them and their entire families!' Szymon was afraid of few things but death was certainly on the list of things that did genuinely terrify him.

Mu smiled. "This may be easier than I had first assumed."

----------------------------------------

Alek, the former boss of one of the most influential gangs in Las Vegas before Daz's arrival, turned his nose up at the woman stood in front of him. "That's all? Nothing else to report?"

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

"Well... Amanda Willow seems to have disappeared. We kept tabs on her like you ordered us to, but after doing nothing for over a month... Well, our men got lazy. She slipped out of their surveillance and now she isn't in the city anymore from as far as we can tell," the woman answered.

Alek shrugged, making his slightly portly belly jiggle, though it was far slimmer than a month ago. He'd been working out to get in shape, after all.

"Good riddance. I'm annoyed she didn't get herself offed by trying to fight Daz after he killed and stole her lackeys, but hey, fucking off is the next best thing," Alek said as he felt some of his lingering worries escape him.

He closed his eyes and reclined in his luxury chair - a rather exquisite looking piece that was probably worth around $5,000 back before the apocalypse and the system rendered it utterly worthless.

"If that's everything, then get back to work. Oh, also, get me Szymon's weekly report, would you?" he ordered. "The bastard's not given it to me yet. He said something about work delays due to investigations from Daz's weak government, but I know a lie when I smell one."

He closed his eyes as he sunk further into the chair. "The Chinese really love the diamonds we're giving them. 100% purity and all of that bullshit. You still haven't found out why they want the useless stuff, have you?"

"Of course, Sir," the woman said. "... And no. Not yet. Our investigations are still on-going."

"Well, that's a shame," Alek responded. "The pay is beyond great, so I can't rightly complain, but it doesn't quite feel right..."

He sighed deeply. "Oh well. On your way out send a few ladies in, would you? I could do with a bit of destressin-"

"B-Boss! There's trouble- No, there's a fuckin' catastrophe!" a spindly man screamed after bursting through the room's door, startling both Alek and the woman giving him a report.

"This better be goo-"

"King Daz is here! He's storming through the casino, killing anyone that tries to stop him!" the panicked man screamed, interrupting Alek once more.

Alek's face immediately fell. "Are you auditioning as a jester? 'Cause I ain't fucking laughing!"

The screams coming from down the hallway answered his query pretty quickly.

Panic spread through Alek's entire body. "Shit! I don't have any backup plans if he finds out about the mining! He was never supposed to learn about it! How the fuck did the info leak?! Everyone who knows about it is under a system contract or on another fucking continent!"

The woman who had been placidly reporting to him not a few moments ago spoke in a clearly terrified voice as she said, "W-We should just run. I-I haven't heard about him having a tracking skill, so if we can just get away fast enough then he'll never find us. W-We can d-disappear just like Amanda did."

"You think I did not prepare for something like that when I came here?" a cold and emotionless voice asked mockingly.

Daz walked through the door and stood there like a statue as he stared at the room's 3 occupants - Alek, in particular.

"My clones as well as Rimmy - my massive building-sized friend - have this casino surrounded," Daz stated before he walked right up to Alek and clamped his hand around the man's neck, lifting him off of his feet.

"Did you or did you not spearhead an operation to mine the diamonds I created to stop Nevada collapsing? Yes or no, anything else and I pop your head clean off your shoulders," Daz demanded without emotion.

"N-No... I would never... Do that..." He was struggling to breathe. Even with his maxed out stats, his strength clearly didn't match up to those of a man who had evolved thrice.

"A lie," Daz said bluntly. "But you did as I asked."

Without saying anything further, he controlled Hamson to hook into his left foot while he stepped on the shovels' blade with his right foot.

Daz then flew out of the room and the casino itself. He made his way to the centre of the city and used some of Las Vegas' remaining tax funds and base points to purchase a special display system which would project him and his immediate surroundings to every citizen in the city via ethereal televisions.

It wasn't exactly a cheap purchase, but he hadn't really developed Las Vegas yet so it mattered very little to him. He wasn't stealing resources for some other important project or anything.

"Hello, people of Las Vegas," Daz said to the city's occupants. "I am sure many of you have already noticed the presence of the Guardian of Fort Skip, my summon and dear friend, Rimmy McShineston."

"You may be wondering why he and I are here when I usually leave Las Vegas to govern itself with the slight aid of one of my clones." Daz held out Alek, making sure that the projected televisions displayed his face to all of Las Vegas' citizens.

"Well, today I bring unfortunate news." Daz looked coldly at the still-struggling middle-aged and slightly overweight but otherwise toned man he had held in a choke grip. "This man here was, to my understanding, a leader of one of the many criminal gangs I forcefully disbanded upon legally winning the city from the former mayor."

Shame and horror filled Alek's expression as he realised what was going on. 'No! No! I can't let this happen! He's going to kill me! I only have skills built for mind control but none of them are working on him!'

Naturally, Daz was immune to such a thing as a reaper, what with his natural immunity to magics and side-effects that worked against attacks to the mind or the soul.

"Why is his neck in my hands and why am I showing this unsightly display to you, you might be wondering." Daz showed a faint smile. "Well, it's rather simple. This man deemed it appropriate to go against my wishes and laws by mining a diamond crater that I had created to save the entire state of Nevada from a cataclysmic-scale sinkhole."

Daz slowly turned to stare right into Alek's eyes.

All the middle-aged man saw looking at him was an empty chill of death which was slowly coiling around his very being.

"I am a kind and just ruler, or, more precisely, I am trying to be. People like this man make it hard to act as such all of the time," Daz said in a sad tone.

Not a moment later, he tightened his grip, snapping Alek's neck and instantly killing him. "I care not why this man wanted the diamonds. Such things are worthless now that the old pillars of society have collapsed."

Daz then used his free hand to separate Alek's soul from his body. "I hope you find peace in the afterlife, wherever or whatever that may be for you."

Dropping the lifeless and soulless corpse onto a few of his summoned gems and sending it down to the surface, Daz once again stared straight at the 'camera'.

"I intend to unite all of the planet under my banner. Fools like him who wish to hinder my work to preserve our feeble existence in the grander universe will be crushed mercilessly. People of Las Vegas, you have been warned. Do not force my hand again. Allow me to develop our city, our country, our world, with my hand in yours. I don't want to be a tyrant, so do not make me into one," Daz said very regally.

No doubt, his ancient peridot was helping boost such a feeling.

With all of that said and done, Daz was satisfied, so he used his authority to cancel the live broadcast to every inhabitant of Las Vegas.

A sombre silence fell upon the city of light and fortune. Not many of its inhabitants had ever seen Daz before, they had only heard about him and his recent development plans to revitalise the jewel of Nevada - Las Vegas.

Witnessing him so coldly and cruelly murder someone who had apparently endangered not only them but their entire state was certainly... eye-opening.