"I'm sorry, care to repeat that?" Daz said to the Corporal with absolutely no emotion in his voice. Obviously, the man's sudden hostility and demands for Fiona had annoyed and perplexed Daz, forcing him to ask the Corporal to repeat himself while Daz thought up a way to deal with this new situation.

Corporal Link gulped as his forehead started to sweat. Something about Daz gave him a strange feeling. Link had been in war before. Many a time had he been in life or death situations on the front lines, and never before had he been as shaken as he was now.

He didn't understand why, but Corporal Link felt like if he went against Daz right now, he would die. It was shameful feeling this from a man as young as Daz, but Link wasn't stupid enough to ignore his instincts despite what his superiors had ordered him to do.

'I... I need to handle this carefully... if worst comes to worst... so long as we can kill the leader, Daz... I can't let them get near the Military base in case they have evil plans... fuck. This is the last thing I needed today...' Link internally said to himself.

"... I have been ordered to bring back the Mayor's daughter and to direct all other people from the skip site to return, as the military base is currently unwilling to deal with the risk involved in associating with you," Corporal Link carefully said. Subconsciously, his hands tightened their grip on the assault rifle he was holding.

Daz held his chin in thought for a moment. His attitude and relaxed atmosphere made it seem like he was dealing with children. Almost as if he didn't even register the weapons of mass killing, the assault rifles, the soldiers were holding and the pistols at their hips, as being a threat to him.

"Okay," Daz replied lightly with a nod of his head. Fiona's face lit up and she immediately skipped over towards Corporal Link whose expression had loosened considerably.

However, his face fell at Daz's next words and Fiona almost tumbled over from shock. "But you'll have to let me talk to the leader of your base via that walkie-talkie."

All of a sudden, Daz's aura changed from the prior relaxed one, and Hamson, his root-slayer shovel, appeared in his hands. "If you can't do that, then I'll force my way to the Military base. One way or another, I'm going to talk to the General, so if I were you, I would hurry up and set up the call."

Lyle's eyes lit up when he saw the looks of fear and sweat drip off from the soldiers' brows. 'Yes... this... this is my Lord... ah... how perfect. Even making trained soldiers tremble in fear at his might...'

Ger frowned. 'That was a quick transition... hmm... I don't exactly approve... but if the base is this hostile to us, then they're a threat to my daughters. Not to mention, my weapon could use an upgrade,' he thought coldly as his eyes scanned the rifles the soldiers were holding. As it happened, any gun from the system's shop was exorbitantly expensive, even to Ger, who had earned a lot of merit points recently.

Although Ger would ideally like to maintain his moral values, if it was for his daughters' well-being, Ger would even be willing to sell his soul to a Devil, let alone turn against the former Military. He wasn't stupid. Ger knew that Daz was strong, and until he saw that the Military base was in a more stable position than Fort Skip, he'd work his best to help Daz.

'Fuck... in a situation like this, what should I do? Kill them all? Impossible. That middle-aged man has his hand on his holster and he can probably shoot at least one of us before we can gun them down, not to mention this Daz kid. I feel like I'll die the second I move aggressively... fuck. Why did I have to be the one to run into this nutcase?' Corporal Link was stuck.

A deadlock of sorts had been created. Link and his soldiers weren't moving while Daz and his group were similarly staying still with their hands on, or near, their weapons, and Fiona was trapped in the middle like a rabbit.

A voice broke the awkward silence. "Big bro Daz! I got the walkie-talkie!"

Jorden, who no one had noticed disappearing, suddenly appeared next to Daz and candidly handed him a camo-coloured walkie-talkie.

"Huh?!" Corporal Link checked his waist where his walkie that connected to the base was stored only to find it missing.

Daz waved the device towards him and smirked. "Who exactly will it put me through to if I try to use this? The General? That would be great."

"You!" Corporal Link had finally lost his patience. He swiftly raised his gun, fully intent on filling Daz full with holes, however, a flash of red passed his face at an exceedingly fast pace.

He slowly raised a hand to his cheek only to realise that blood was flowing out of it and the long shovel Daz was holding was now gone. Daz's arm was stretched out as if he had just thrown something.

"You might wanna duck," Daz calmly advised with his emotionless tone having returned.

"What?" Swiftly turning his head around, Corporal Link saw a red glint in the collapsed building behind him rapidly approaching his head, so he immediately went prone to avoid it.

Like a nail being drawn to a magnet, Hamson smoothly placed itself in Daz's open palm. "Don't try anything funny like that again or I won't miss next time, got it?"

Link slowly got to his feet and he could feel his back being drenched in cold sweat. 'Before any of us would have been able to pull the trigger, he could have definitely severed one of our heads, maybe even more if he can control the trajectory of that... thing.'

Slowly nodding his head, Corporal Link raised his arm with an open palm, at which, his soldiers lowered their guns.

"Good. now, throw your guns over here slowly. Any funny movements, and someone is losing a head, understood?" Daz demanded.

Corporal Link and his men were in no position to deny him and Link valued his men's lives far more than he valued the weapons, so he immediately complied. "Do as he says."

'I'm glad he's doing as told. I really don't wanna kill people in front of Ellie and Jorden, that could affect them negatively,' Daz thought in relief.

Apparently, doing things somewhat forcefully was the right choice here. Turning to look at Jorden, the corners of Daz's lips turned up into a gentle smile. "Good job using your stealth skill to sneak up to them and steal this, it must have been nerve-wracking," he said with a gesture to the walkie-talkie.

"Not at all," Jorden shock his head in an adorable fashion before adding, "I knew it was something you wanted, big bro, so it was easy for me to get it when I put my mind to it."

"Still, good job," Daz replied. He then turned to Ger who had a stone-cold expression on his face. "Ger."

"Yes, Daz?" the bald father of two replied while his eyes remained fixed on the soldiers. They were about to shoot mere moments ago and were it not for Daz stopping them, his skill would have triggered and by now, at least one of the soldiers would have had a bullet in his skull.

"Mind giving your pistol to Ellie and use a rifle instead? I know that you've modded your revolver, but you can do more damage with a bigger gun like those and Ellie doesn't have many ways to protect herself right now. Also, everyone else, feel free to use one of the side arms that these kind gentlemen have given us, well, everyone bar Fiona, of course," Daz ordered.

Corporal Link's face twitched at what Daz said, but he stayed quiet. Fiona looked unhappy, however, she was honestly far too scared of Daz right now to contest what he had said about her.

Ger saw no problem with giving his daughter another way to protect herself and he had already taught both of his daughters the basics in gun handling for self-Defense if they ever got attacked in the house by a burglar or home invader before the apocalypse.

Heather took an M4 assault rifle, as did Ger. Surprisingly, Heather had a little bit of experience in shooting as well. She wouldn't explain how, but it wasn't the strangest thing ever, so everyone just accepted it.

Lyle and Jorden both took a single M17 which was a German semi-automatic pistol. Due to only being the standard military edition, they only held ten bullets per magazine, but it was a good weapon and means to defend one's self even with minimal training.

Daz ordered Lyle to store the remaining weapons in his inventory which greatly shocked Corporal Link. 'Where did the weapons go?! Was that magic?!'

It was a common ability in Fort Skip since the base was a storage type and it was almost forgettable since the number of inventory slots each Citizen got wasn't huge, but it was most certainly an invaluable ability that was unique to storage-type bases.

Regardless of the Corporal's shocked thoughts, now that the soldiers had been rendered almost harmless, Daz finally turned on the walkie-talkie and hoped for the best.