Daz and Ellie made their way down the ramparts, and before long, the two were stood in front of the small cabin that was partially destroyed by the final Automaton boss.

Ten men and woman were busily moving as Sandy directed them. "I noticed in the afternoon, but I'm glad Sandy jumped on this immediately. If he can get it fixed by hand, then I don't need to waste merit and base points on repairing or replacing it," Daz commented.

Ellie smiled from his side and added, "There was a giant hole in it yesterday. Sandy worked through the night by himself and a few people decided to help him this morning."

"If Fort Skip was a nation, I'd argue that the stupid old goat would be one of its national treasures," Daz joked.

Suddenly, Sandy turned around and glared at Daz. "I still have ears, you little shit! If yer not gonna help, then get lost! I'm busy here!" Sandy roared in Daz's direction.

"Can I trust the rebuilding to you? I'm not sure... after all, you couldn't even open a little puzzle box, how can I expect you to build a house?" Daz smirked menacingly.

"I see someone wasn't happy just getting burnt to a crisp," Sandy grinned before he picked up a wooden beam that, without the help of his stats, he'd have never been able to hold by himself, "Want to add splinters and a smashed up face to the list of disabilities you have, Kiddo?" he added as he gestured to the beam in his arms.

"Okay, okay, I get it. We'll go. See, Ellie? The elderly are really bad at picking up on jokes. Damned codger threatens my life just because I made fun of him," Daz shrugged dismissively.

Putting the wooden beam down, Sandy called out to the leaving Daz and Ellie. "Hey, Kid. It's good to see you up and on yer feet again. It was depressing just lookin' at ya this morning."

Daz simply smiled and continued onwards with Ellie. Their next destination was the opening in the inner wall that had been created by the Mark V Automaton's final attack.

"I guess I need to use the system to fill in this hole and the one in the outer wall. Hmm, what do you think, Ellie?" Daz asked as he placed his ethereal hand on his half-burnt chin and looked at the gaping tunnel in the ramparts with a thinking expression on his face.

"I actually talked to the others about this and Mave had a really good idea," Ellie replied as she pushed her glasses up and adjusted them a bit.

"Oh really?" Daz replied nonchalantly as he browsed through the repair options to see if there was a cheaper way to fix the wall than just getting the system to do it all.

"Yeah," Ellie said before she walked up to the wall and gently laid a hand on it. "Mave thought that we could take that giant robot and use its metal plating as a kind of shield on the outer wall."

Ellie turned around to look at Daz who was clearly far more invested in this new idea than he was a few seconds ago. "Go on," he encouraged.

"Well, Sandy said that he might be able to work something out after he'd finished rebuilding the cabin, so we wouldn't have to spend any points on it, and we all saw how tough that plating was. The only problem is that we'd need your... Your girlfriend's help. She's the only one that can cut into the metal." Ellie clearly hesitated when she mentioned Madison and bitterness was in her voice, but Daz ignored that.

"It's a great idea. Where's the body, by the way? I'd like to see it," Daz asked. 'If possible, I might be able to absorb its soul and get some more stat points, though the soul could have dissipated by now. I should really buy a book about souls from the system. Making guesses about all of this shit is hardly the most efficient thing I could be doing if the knowledge is readily available.'

"Lyle got a few men to drag it into the base. It's on the eastern corner where the outer wall and inner wall connects," Ellie replied enthusiastically. 'He really isn't upset at me... This is great! Now I just need to figure out what to do about his girlfriend...'

"So this is the thing that nearly killed me the other day?" Daz looked at the spherical robot that was split in half with interest on his face.

It was almost as if the events of two days ago hadn't affected him at all despite how emotional he was early that morning. Ellie had a peculiar smile on her face. 'Daz is so good at getting over things... It'd be hard to tell that this thing was the reason for his arm and leg...'

"Ellie, I just had a thought," Daz as he turned around and looked right at her.

Ellie got momentarily flustered by Daz's grey and piercing eyes gazing at her face, but she somehow managed to utter out a response. "W-What would that be?"

"Why don't you use that 'Mechanical Life' skill of yours to get this thing under your control? If I remember correctly, you can still do that two more times, can't you?" Daz asked with a quizzical expression.

"Ah... Right... I could do that, couldn't I?" Ellie said a bit sheepishly.

"Wait, you forgot that you had such a powerful skill?" Daz had an expression on his face that said that he clearly didn't believe her.

"Whoopsie." Once again, Daz found himself coming to the conclusion that Ellie was really adorable in a different way than Madison was, almost like a little sister.

After that, Daz used his Absolute Harvest skill on the Automaton's ginormous body and it used up his daily greater soul absorption chance. By doing this, he gained a total of fifteen stat points to all of his stats which was astronomical in value. 'Thankfully, my speculation was wrong and the soul hadn't disappeared yet. I'll still buy a book on this stuff though. It's better to be safe rather than sorry.'

Daz took a moment to inspect his updated status screen since he hadn't looked at it all day yet.

Host's Status Basic Information Name: Daz Species: Reaper (Beginning stages of evolving) Age: 20 Sex: Male Class: Shovel Knight Affinity: Neutral Energies Lifeforce: 3300/2000(3300) Death Energy: 5,350/5,750 Stats Strength: 215(268) Dexterity: 165(198) Constitution: 215(268) Agility: 215 Charisma: 145 Ingenuity: 525 Defense: 125(3125) Immunity: 27 Soul Power: 0 Luck: 16(21)

'So my base heath is now only two-thousand? Guess that makes sense since this arm and leg aren't real. I'm evolving again, huh? I wonder what options I'll be given when I go through my second evolution? Maybe a Necromancer of some sort like the guy that created this Death Manipulation skill? Some magic wouldn't hurt my arsenal of abilities,' Daz thought.

He also had high hopes for his increased luck. Fifteen whole points in that stat were worth two-hundred and twenty-five thousand merit points, which was not a number to laugh at. Not to mention the fact that he had an extra five thanks to his earring of calm mind that he was now wearing thanks to the help of Madison who had assisted him in putting it on safely.

Daz watched as Ellie approached the soulless and broken robot. She gently placed a palm on it, and much like with Mini-Daz, she breathed life into the monstrosity. It slowly hummed and began levitating with both of its halves.

'Heh... So it's still considered a single entity even though Maddy split it in half? That's pretty interesting. Even its crumpled up and destroyed arms are floating with it. If we can fix those somehow... Fort Skip will be unbeatable for a long time. Well, that puts Ellie at number three on my list of people to pay attention to just below Maddy and Crusher,' Daz thought to himself.

Ellie staggered backwards and fell into Daz's arms. "Are you okay, Ellie?" he asked with concern in his voice.

Blushing rather heavily, Ellie didn't struggle in his embrace and simply breathed heavily. She was sweating profusely and looked exhausted. "For... For some reason... Giving this Automaton life completely drained me..."

"I see. Shall we return to your cabin?" Daz asked, assuming that would be the best course of action.

Ellie looked hesitant and decided to reply with, "Can we stay like this for a bit?" in a meek and almost desperate voice. For some reason, Ellie didn't want to part with Daz. The physical contact the two were sharing comforted her and she didn't want that feeling to disappear.

Daz could feel a headache coming on. 'Well, this is a problem. I wonder how Maddy would feel if she could see this right now? At some point, I have to set things straight with Ellie, but not now. She's too mentally unstable.'