Self-repairing Blueguard Sheath [A-Rank (Middle Tier)] Description

A sheath designed by the master leatherworker, Mik, of the Blueguard Empire from the planet, Midlonian.

This is a limited production as only fifteen were ever made for the fifteen strongest warriors of the Blueguard Empire known as The Azure Tempests.

Not very strong if they can't even protect their own sword sheathes, huh?

Stats Durability: 2,000 Skills Auto-morphing Weapon Repair Auto-morphing Automatically morphs to fit the shape of the weapon of the user. Is limited to physical weapons. Ranged physical weapons are included. Weapon Repair Passively repairs any weapon sheathed inside of it. Is limited to a maximum of 40% total damage, any more, and this skill will not activate. Duration of repair is doubled if the sheathed weapon is ranged in nature.

"That's really good. I never even thought about your sword's maintenance before, to be honest," Daz said as he admired the leather belt and sheath strapped around Madison's waist.

Nodded her head, she replied, "Helpful. Before, hours. Now, no time."

"Mhmm, that's true. I did think that it was a shame that your sword fusion skill didn't repair your sword like my shovel one does, so this is a perfect item for you," Daz noted as he inspected the skill that Madison had used on the Lizardman Chieftain's jagged sword.

Sword Fusion [S-Rank (Middle Tier)] Description

A skill unique to Sword Saints or Divine Swordsmen that was a gift granted to them from the Minor God, the God of Swords.

It allows the host to fuse any sword of poorer or greater quality with their chosen sword, increasing its base stats ever so slightly.

There is a small chance that the skills of absorbed swords will be transferred to the host's chosen sword.

This skill freaks me out. If a sword can eat other swords, the implications are frightening.

Level 2 Abilities Fusion [Sword Variant] Fusion [Sword Variant]

Allows the host to fuse swords into their chosen sword.

Chosen sword: Family.

Limit of times it can be used per day: 2/3.

Cannot fuse the host's sword with swords that are vastly inferior or superior to it.

There is a 2% chance that a skill of a fused sword will be transferred to the host's sword.

'That's probably the longest ability explanation I've ever read, but yeah, it certainly does seem like it's a far weaker version of my 'The One Shovel To Rule Them All Skill', huh? After all, that had no daily limit and I can forcefully fuse crap shovels into Hamson to repair him if he gets damaged," Daz noted mentally.

Of course, there were other aspects of the skills that set them apart, but regardless of that, Daz was simply happy that one of those minor differences between himself and his beloved had been made up for via this new sheath.

"Why's your sword called 'Family'? You never told me about that before," Daz asked.

He hadn't actually inspected Madison's weapon yet out of respect for her privacy, but it certainly surprised him that she named her precious weapon after the very thing that had abused and abandoned her as a child much like Daz's own family had done so to him and Rose.

A blush crept onto Madison's stoic and beautiful face as she mumbled, "Daz... Rose... Maddy... All, family. Protect..."

"Ah." Daz was shocked. Rare was it that this calculative and manipulative man was ever truly surprised, but Madison's heartfelt explanation about the origin of her sword's name made his chest feel warm and his head went blank.

Almost as if by instinct, Daz stopped walking and hugged Madison tightly.

"Daz?" Madison asked with confusion in her tone.

It wasn't rare for Daz to show Madison physical attention, but right now, he was being uncommonly tender in his embrace and he felt... warmer than usual.

"It's nothing," Daz said as he separated from Madison and returned to simply holding her hand. "You were just really cute so I had an urge to hug you."

Madison's eyes smiled as she heard this and she squeezed Daz's hand lightly. Moments like this was why she worked so hard to learn swordsmanship and self-defence while she and Daz were waiting for particular events to happen before the apocalypse had started, and it genuinely made the expressionless girl happy.

The two were now back at Fort Skip and they had gone their own ways as soon as they arrived. Daz had a chore to do involving the new plastic bag he was holding which was filled with something, while Madison wanted to train and think about how to spend her merit points tomorrow morning.

As Daz got closer to the residential district of the outer fort, he noticed that two new houses had been built in the short time that he and Madison were gone.

The young Reaper noticed Sandy and several citizens sitting around outside of Bobby's Trashy Cookhouse, so he approached them.

Many paid him no mind and simple nodded or waved in greeting as they focused on their food. Daz looked at Sandy who was happily smoking his pipe and said, "Two new cabins and an outdoor sitting area for this place? I'm impressed."

"'S'only natural, Kiddo. These guys have been helping me for almost a week now and we all got a quest to survive the attack this morning, so we had a few merit points to splash on some construction skills that made the whole process a lot faster." Sandy grinned, showing his tobacco-stained teeth.

Daz frowned lightly. "Try not to use your merit points until the start of an attack, or even better, save them up for as long as you can since you're a non-combatant. You'll get more if you let them sit in the bank and build up interest."

"Bah, it's fine, ya worrywart. We might all be dead tomorrow, so what's the point in savin' them?" Sandy scoffed as he relit his otherworldly tobacco and took a big puff.

"I guess you have a valid point... but still, don't spend them unless you absolutely have to. You never know when you might need a really expensive skill or item," Daz advised as he spoke to the entire group, not just Sandy.

Amongst them, the young dark-skinned man, Carl, who was quickly becoming Sandy's protegee, spoke, "I saved mine, Lord."

"Look at this, you old goat. A man half your age has twice your wisdom," Daz teased.

Laughter rang out through the group of workers as Sandy began grumbling in embarrassment. Daz was watching the loyalty stat increase by the second amongst the present citizens and it reinforced his new mentality that being nicer was better than being entirely neutral. 'I wish I knew this a few days ago. I could have saved myself a lot of trouble.'

"Anyway, whatcha want, you little troublemaker? Surely ya didn't come here just to make fun of me, did ya?" Sandy snapped as he took a big drag of his pipe.

"No, I didn't, as entertaining as that is," Daz replied with a loose grin. "We're going to need a lot more cabins. At least thirty more."

Sandy nearly fell off of his chair from the shock while the surrounding volunteers and workers almost choked on their food and drinks. "Thirty?! Did I mishear ya, Kiddo?!"

"Don't worry, you'll be getting a bunch more healthy and strong volunteers along with the workload," Daz lightly explained.

"Details, now," Sandy demanded as he replaced his pipe's tobacco with something a little bit stronger.

Daz took a seat and ordered a cup of coffee from the waiter that was serving the group of workers. Thankfully, the cookhouse wasn't that busy since it was still a while before dinner time.

"The several hundred people from Camp Waterford will probably be moving here and coming under my protection by this evening. The soldiers have been tasked with helping you in the construction efforts during the time between attacks. It's one of the conditions I set to allow them to join us," Daz said.

Several voices of praise and joy rang through the group while a few of them grumbled about the extra workload.

As it so happened, some of the citizens of Fort Skip had family that was living in Camp Waterford. They had never been able to leave Fort Skip since coming here because they were too busy or afraid of being caught in a wild event, so they had secretly been hoping that Daz would somehow bring their families back to Fort Skip, even if that was a somewhat selfish desire considering all of the circumstances.

Now that they knew the reason behind the need for the houses, several of the more hot-headed people in the group stood up and were ready to start the building immediately.

Daz calmed them by saying, "No need to rush. We have the dungeon that can house a thousand people in emergencies. Take your time on the construction and make sure you don't cut any corners. I'm sure the new citizens can wait a bit."

Sandy smiled lightly as he asked, "Ye'r sure they're gonna come?"

"Ninety-percent sure," Daz replied as he took the coffee from the waiter and stood up.

"Good enough for me. Come on ladies and gents, break's over! We've got some planning and some building to do!" Sandy shouted.

"Yeah!" the group yelled back in response.

Daz got up and left everyone after saying goodbye. He quickly made his way back to his cabin and gave a light greeting to Sten and Leston, the guards stationed in front of his cabin, before he went inside.

In the living room, Daz saw a rare sight. Rose was out of her wheelchair and was lazily lying down on the three-person sofa with her laptop placed on her belly. She moved her head slightly to look at the room's intruder.

"Huh, only you?" Rose asked rhetorically as she returned her attention to the very boring game of chess which she was playing against the computer's A.I.

Daz walked up to her and gently lifted her upper body without disturbing her game as much as possible. After doing that, he sat down beneath her and let her back press against his legs as her head returned to the armrest.

Daz placed the plastic bag on the small drawer next to them and he then placed a hand on Rose's head and gently stroked her hair.

"What's up with you?" Rose asked as she shifted slightly to get more comfortable. She was honestly surprised at how soft and nice Daz's astral leg felt to lay on. "It's been a long time since we sat like this."

"Nothing in particular. Can't a big brother show his baby sister that he still loves her?" Daz teased as he watched Rose corner the computer's king piece over and over again.

"Should Maddy be worried? Don't give in to the devil's temptation, Daz. I believe in you," Rose joked as she checkmated her virtual opponent. With the game now over, the young girl let out a loud sigh of relief and shut down her laptop before she closed her eyes and relaxed.

"Of course not," Daz replied as he flicked Rose's head gently.

A false grunt of pain echoed out from Rose's mouth as she frowned lightly. "So, what's in the bag?"

"Guess," Daz responded.

"My money's on puppies," Rose sarcastically replied. "If I wanted to guess, I would have guessed. What's in the bag, Daz?"

"Video games," Daz said as he grabbed the plastic carrier bag and gently placed it on Rose's chest.

With excited and childish movements, Rose opened the bag, almost tearing it, and took out the games from within.

"Hmm... RPG... Mystery game... A simulator? A shooter... Another RPG... Well, this'll do for now. If I wasn't saving my points, I'd just buy a fancy alien computer and play VR games or something," Rose mumbled. She looked up at her brother and asked him, "Do you really need to pet me for so long? I'm not a cat, you know."

Daz smiled and scratched Rose's head a bit roughly, making her wince. "I got your games for you, so let me indulge a bit."

"Yes, yes," Rose replied as she rolled her eyes and turned her laptop on again. "I hope it doesn't take too long to install these..."

Daz was genuinely enjoying himself as he watched his seemingly upset little sister eagerly move the laptop's mousepad as she put an RPG's disc into the cd-drive. 'Puberty is such a weird thing. One second she was sweet and cute, the next, she was a sarcastic little brat... Still, VR, huh? I wonder how much that would cost? Her birthday is coming up soon... Maybe an early present? Hmm...'

Daz could hear a small voice in his head telling him that it wanted this moment to last just a little bit longer. It wanted him to forget about his stresses and worries and simply enjoy this heartfelt moment with his little sister.

Perhaps the Daz of a few days ago would have dismissed this voice and left to go train, but now, the young Reaper let it creep into his mind and consume him temporarily.

This peace... it was nice.