'Beyond disappointing.' Daz could only sigh after seeing the list of facilities for the city. 'Literally everything is broken, and with Mofolo in Hamson, the city's core is gone, so I need to replace that before anything else for it to all work at any efficiency, let alone maximum efficiency.'

His eyes wandered over to the distant illusion that he couldn't physically see but that he knew was there. 'Even that will soon collapse before long now that Mofolo's soul isn't supplying it with any power.'

Daz would have run his fingers through his hair in frustration were he not wearing a helmet. 'Well... At a minimum, a core big and powerful enough to supply such a large city with energy would cost me 100,000,000 merit points. There's no way I'm paying for that. There's just no reason.'

He glanced at Mofolo. The former king quickly noticed his gaze and smiled sadly in response. 'It is a lost cause, no? I suspect most 'mythical' cities on Frila are in similar states. Perhaps the ones ruled by the Children of Men fare better than Atlantis, but I suppose only time will tell.'

Reika puckered her lips in thought. 'So we wasted our time by coming down here? And Daz wasted his token?'

'Perhaps. While he thinks, why don't we get to know each other better? I expect we shall have to work together in the future, so knowing about the other may help with our teamwork,' Mofolo suggested.

Ignoring his spirits and their ensuing conversation, Daz continued to think. 'Maybe someone out there has found an artefact that I can use to replace the core? If I can get that, then I can start turning this place into a wondrous city. It's a hub and a research city, so I guess I could make it a highly defendable place for the greatest minds on Earth to gather and, well, research stuff?'

It was a plan that Daz wouldn't regret spending time and some resources on. Of course, he'd need to make it accessible to normal people, which meant a teleportation relay as well as some sort of airlock system separating the city from the ocean floor.

'Hmm... Well, for now, I guess I should get back to Rose. I need to figure out how to tell that admiral that only the head remains of the body they wanted too... He gave me a week to find it, so I guess I'll put that big brain of Rose's to good use in the meantime,' Daz decided before he swiftly left Atlantis' protective illusion and then used Hamson to ascend at a rate slow enough to safely allow his body to decompress properly.

"Dry me, please, system," Daz requested.

The system asked for confirmation which he happily gave.

Confirmed. The total merit balance of the host is now: 118,221,980 [-10].

With his clothes now perfectly dried, Daz used Hamson to return to his car - the Ridomochi Final Model.

Opening the door, he smiled at Rose who was happily typing away on her laptop. "Miss me much?"

She glanced him then immediately gagged. "Jesus Christ. You absolutely reek of fish. How is that possible? Were you rubbing them on your body or something?"

Daz chuckled at that reaction. "Well, there were aquatic monsters down there. Lots of aquatic monsters. I've been dried and the blood was mostly washed away, but yeah, I was covered in monster fish guts for quite a while down there."

Rose quickly rolled down the window on her side of the car and muttered, "I wish I'd lost my sense of smell and not my sense of taste now..." She then said something to the system, making a small can appear in front of her. She passed it to Daz then demanded, "Spray yourself with that. Now."

"Sure." Not really caring, Daz covered himself in whatever his sister had passed him.

Once he'd done that, Rose reluctantly nodded, allowing him into the car. "Well, find anything interesting?"

Daz shrugged. He closed the driver-side door behind him as he started up the vehicle. "Well, a few things. First, the sword. I'll give that to Maddy. Second, a giant's head. Third, a new spirit to keep Reika company. Fourth, a piece of shit run-down ancient city that's missing its core."

"The core's missing? That's not what my data told me," Rose claimed sceptically.

"The spirit was the core. The former king Mofolo... his soul was powering the illusion hiding the city. He hasn't strictly told me if he was the core in life or if the old core got destroyed by the Overgiant that attacked Earth, but regardless, it's gone now," Daz explained.

"And you couldn't keep him there?" Rose asked.

Shaking his head, the reaper replied, "Nope. The system told me that if I wanted to claim Atlantis then I had to both remove the massive sword and destroy Mofolo's soul. Since I'm a reaper it gave me the option to bind him instead, which I did. I bound him to Hamson. Well, he did it willingly, but regardless, you get the point."

"That's a damned shame," Rose said. "Well, I kinda need the facilities down there, so what're your plans on replacing the core?"

Again, Daz shrugged. "I figured as much. You always have ulterior motives, huh?" Rose stuck out her tongue playfully in response to that. Daz just smiled and replied, "A replacement costs 100,000,000 at the minimum. I'm not paying for that. If you want Atlantis up and running again, then use that big brain of yours to find me someone or somewhere that has a core that can power a city that large. Also, one that can endure the pressure down there, ideally."

Rose narrowed her eyes and began typing away on her laptop's keyboard. "Sure. I'll get on that. By the way, if you don't intend to pay for it, why don't you make it a personal challenge to not pay for anything in regards to Atlantis? I'm sure the system'll love that and give you a quest."

"Sure. All I got out of this personally was a possible alliance with a Japanese admiral and a new pet soul, so I don't see why not." In an immediate response, a notification filled the reaper's vision.

Quest Title: The Grand Costless Development Quest Type: Ruler/Side Quest Difficulty: SS Quest Goals Acquire a new [Core] for the city of [Atlantis] without spending any currencies. Acquire a [Teleportation Relay] for the city of [Atlantis] without spending any currencies. Acquire or restore a [Research Centre] of at least [Advanced] quality for the city of [Atlantis] without spending any currencies. Acquire or restore the [Residential District] for the city of [Atlantis] without spending any currencies. Acquire a stable [Oxygen Supply] for the city of [Atlantis] without spending any currencies. Acquire an [Air Lock] device for the city of [Atlantis] without spending any currencies. Quest Rewards An [All-rank War Exemption Ticket]. 2 Random [S-Rank] Skills. The S-ranked [Gloves of a Grand Gardener]. 10,000,000 Merit Points. +500 stat points in all stats.

Daz laughed softly before he reached over and ruffled Rose's hair. "You're a real genius, you know that, right?"

"Yeah, I do," Rose replied as she lightly pushed Daz's hand away. "Got a quest, I assume?"

"Yes, I did. It's gonna be tough, but the rewards look amazing." Daz read over the information again then asked, "You don't happen to know what an All-rank War Exemption Ticket is, do you?"

Rose raised an eyebrow. "Not a clue. I'll look into it when I have the resources to spare."

"Thanks. My instincts won't tell me about trivial stuff like that," Daz admitted.

Rose rolled her eyes. "It's called 'Survivor's Instinct', not 'Let Me Guess Everything And Be Right Via The Process of Elimination Instincts'."

"And thank God for that," Daz replied teasingly. "That sounds like one hell of a mouthful, huh?"

"Right... By the way, you didn't find the dungeon, did you? The permanent one that I mentioned earlier," Rose asked with some eagerness in her voice.

Daz, once again, shook his head. "Nope. I've not got a clue where it is. Maybe the Mariana Trench?"

"That's a pity. Yeah, your guess is as good as mine. Maybe you could check the Mariana Trench for me later? Please?" Rose asked somewhat hopefully.

'This is important to her, huh? It's rare for her to say' please'...' Daz nodded his head. "When I'm stronger, sure. The pressure down in Atlantis is no joke. I don't doubt it'll be hard to even move in the Mariana Trench. That place is insanely deep."

"Yeah, you're not wrong." Rose returned to tapping away at her laptop for a few minutes before she recalled something. "Ah, right. By the way, Aila and a bunch of her people arrived at Fort Skip, like, an hour and a half ago. I sent a message to Crusher, Mu, and Maddy to not kill them or anything dumb. I figured you'd like to deal with her yourself."

"Oh? That's pretty interesting. She did say that she would come... I was kinda expecting it to be false bravado, though she certainly wasn't lying when she said it," Daz muttered.

"Right. And also, there's someone there that you'll be over the moon to meet," Rose said sarcastically.

"Hmm? Who?" Daz didn't have many acquaintances, so no one sprung to mind immediately. Well, not unless Rose was referring to his father, but he felt it was incredibly unlikely for that man to be here in the states. Of course, it wasn't impossible.

"Just wait and see," Rose replied with a smile on her face that said that she was looking forward to this a great deal.

"Okay, Little Miss Cryptic," Daz joked.

Rose didn't respond to that. A few seconds later, however, she spat out, "Your helmet looks really stupid."

"Called it," Daz replied for his own benefit as he smiled weakly.

"This is more boring than I thought it'd be," Crusher complained as she moved her body around while desperately trying to avoid allowing her sledgehammer that was balanced on her index finger from falling.

Mu nodded. "I did not expect them to so readily accept that Daz is not present. Are they really okay with not moving and simply sitting in their trucks for hours?"

Ellie who had come to the edge of Waterford after hearing the news of Aila's arrival shrugged. She stroked her late father's revolver and said, "If even one of them has some sort of ability that lets them sense other people's strengths, then it makes all of the sense in the world that they'd be bricking it in front of you three monsters."

Madison frowned. "Not, monster."

"I'm not weak, but any one of you could kill me in less than a second if I didn't immediately use my telekinesis on your bodies," Ellie claimed.

Mu looked at Ellie's now improved M Destroyer robot as well as her floating cubic robot, Mini Daz. "Those companions of yours are powerful. We should fight sometime. I am interested in them."

"No thanks," Ellie immediately rejected the man's offer. "I saw what you did to Daz. I'm perfectly happy with my limbs being attached to my body."

It was at that moment that Crusher suddenly moved her hand and grabbed the shaft of her hammer. "Daz is back." She looked up into the sky and in the far distance, she could see an incredibly fast-moving object. "That's one hell of a car."

Everyone stopped what they were doing, soldiers and Crusher's gang of bandits included. All eyes pointed towards the bright blue sky.

With grace and elegance, the Ridomochi Final Model slowly descended before it came to a peaceful stop just above the concrete.

With a single fluid motion, the driver-side door opened, revealing Daz, though he was now wearing a menacing and somewhat odd-looking helmet.

He walked around the floating car, and once he had reached its trunk, he took out Rose's wheelchair then helped the girl out of the passenger-side seat.

Daz looked back at his gathered friends then smiled. "I got you a gift, Maddy. It's really big though, so you'll have to wait until we're done here before I give it to you, 'kay?"

Blushing bashfully and smiling with her eyes, the young woman nodded. "Mmm. Missed, you."

"I missed you too." Daz looked down at Rose and asked, "Wanna go next to your new buddy?"

Rose moved her head to glance at the champion of quarterstaves who was waving at her in a friendly fashion. Sighing, she replied, "I can't leave Vanessa alone for long before she gets lonely, huh?"

"Haha, seeya later then," Daz said before he leaned over and kissed his sister on the top of her head.

"Sure. Later," the 10-year-old responded before she willed her chair to roll away.

Looking back at his strongest citizens and allies, Daz said, "Well, Maddy, Mu, Crusher, Ellie, come with me. Men, keep my sister and Vanessa safe, would you?" he ordered after he used his special key to unsummon his Ridomochi.

Daz's clone, Beta - who was standing at the forefront with General Retford - nodded. The general himself slammed his armoured fist against his breastplate and declared, "As you will it, My King."

Crusher glanced over her shoulder at her goons as said, "You lot, with us. Stand, like, 10-feet behind or something. Look tough an' intimidating."

Daz agreed with this command of hers. He'd feel more comfortable having such 'former' criminals and morally bankrupt people near himself and his strong allies instead of anywhere near his sister even despite the fact that his powerful clone would be near her as well.

With who was going where now decided, Daz turned his back to face his companions and he then made for convoy of trucks. With confident strides, he marched forward to meet them.