Hi. My name's Vincent Malone. Sounds like a gangster's name from the 20s, right? I think it's pretty cool.

Ah, I should probably explain that I'm writing this journal since I was caught stealing weapons from the barracks. They aren't even compatible with my class, but, y'know, it was just one of those things.

Like, you're playing a game and you're like 'I wonder if I can grab that without anyone noticing', except real life doesn't have save and load points. Well, maybe it actually does, but something like that would cost more merit points than I could ever afford.

King Daz did good by me though. I was a bit worried since the other fellow in the slammer was done for terrorism and'll be behind bars for a solid 20-years, but thankfully the king can see through all lies.

Scary power, that, to be honest. I'm pretty sure no one likes that he's got it, but I'll be damned if it isn't helpful.

... Now that I think about it, couldn't he be the one to lie? Without another person of his race, it's his word against everyone else's...

Scary thought, that. Best leave it alone, me. That's the kind of thinking that leads to a revolution and seeing how stupidly strong he is, well, let's just say that I'd rather not lose my head to a garden tool, thank you very much.

But yeah, good guy, really. I only got a month of community service, though I do have to live in the new prison to serve as an example that all prisoners are treated equally on some level.

Fair enough, really. I don't have a problem with it if I'm being truthful. My house hasn't been built yet, so while the bed is less comfy and the food is worse since I ain't spending my points on food, it's still better than being in those cribs down in the dungeon.

... Man, Mother Heather is smokin' hot though... I kinda miss her. That's another weird thing too. Why is everyone calling her 'Mother Heather'? Sure, she looks after new-comers and makes sure they all have a bed to sleep in, but she ain't religious as far as I can tell, so the 'mother' bit seems a bit misguided.

No one should rightly be religious anymore if you ask me. Like, a magical set of boxes came and bent Earth over backwards and gave everyone superpowers. Crazy shit.

Hell, if you ask the thing if God or Allah or Buddha or whoever is real, it just replies with 'the only gods are the ones serving under the system' or some bullshit.

Hell, if that makes people happy worshipping some God of Shovels or God of Information or whatever, then power to them, just seems a bit dumb to me.

Worshipping Rimmy I can get behind though. Fuckin' thing is huge and scary, but boy is he a godsend if ever there were one. Fixed my busted up knee in no time.

Ah, shit. The guards are banging on my cell door. My shift must be starting. System, stop writing my journal now, thanks.

"Welcome to Fort Home's Cathedral," a man dressed in deep red robes said.

These robes had an image of Hamson stitched onto both of its sleeves while on its back could be seen an image of Rimmy, though stylised to look like a piece of glass pane artwork. On the front was a glorious sun in a similar design as Rimmy's image.

"Ah, uh, hi. It's called Fort Home Cathedral? Not Waterford Cathedral?" the visitor asked.

The priest shook his head. "King Daz changed the city's name to be more theme-fitting once he had purchased a wall and a central castle for it. It seems he's fond of forts, haha."

"Right... Well, at least he doesn't hate technology. I don't know if I could live without the Flower Network," the visitor admitted as he allowed the priest to guide him further into the massive holy building.

"Indeed. Young Miss Rose is incredibly talented, isn't she? Creating her own mini-version of the internet in a little under 3-weeks is quite the achievement," the priest commented before he chuckled and said, "Ah, I forgot to ask. Who are you here to worship today, Sir?"

"Right, uh, well, I figured I'd worship the Goddess of Luck today. I'm thinking about asking my crush out. That's uh, my semester goal. Fingers crossed, right?" the man asked with a nervous laugh.

"Ah, young love. You have my best wishes, Sir," the priest happily said.

A lot of things had happened in the kingdom of New Earth over the past 3-weeks.

A handful of the remaining powers still ruling within California's borders had risen to politically challenge Daz's dominion.

None had the stones to challenge him with their might, so, instead, they chose to fight with their words. They all lost unequivocally.

Expecting to beat a man like Daz in a conversation where the opposing party had no tangible nor political power was equivalent to asking for the moon.

Not only could he tell lies from truth, but he also owned the Legendary Gift of The Gab skill. There was no fighting that in a war of words.

With all of California now under his sole governance, Daz only needed to claim three more states.

Nevada fell with little-to-no effort due to Alpha's presence in New Vegas. The clone had quickly assumed superiority over the casino owners and he then used Daz's free right to claim a Nevadan city on Henderson.

Not a week later, all of the remaining communities in the state had been gathered to either one of the massive cities, uniting Nevada and making it the second state to completely join New Earth.

Progress in Arizona was slow, but Daz trusted Rocky, Adam, and the people of Gem Kingdom to get the state to fall under his greater rule.

He didn't want to overstep and push his weight around, risking his relationship with the ruby-eyed man who was one of his earliest friends and one of the few people that had an admirable amount of loyalty towards him.

Since he was already halfway done with his goal without even a month having passed, Daz felt it was wise to build up his foundations and properly solidify his leadership of California and Nevada by investing in improving the quality of living.

Once he'd renamed Waterford to Fort Home and had purchased the new walls for the city along with its king's castle, he felt it was wise to invest in roads and modes of transportation.

Before long, his people would start going stir-crazy if they weren't allowed to leave the major cities of California or Nevada, so that was his immediate goal - making transport easy within the two states.

Of course, he had the teleportation relays. As it stood right now, there was one in Fort Home, Fort Sky, Gem Kingdom, Las Vegas, Henderson, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, and, lastly, one in Atlantis.

The one at the bottom of the pacific wasn't active yet since Emma Cromwell hadn't delivered on her promise to give Daz a specialised airlock device. He'd have to follow up on that at some point, for sure.

However, even with these magical teleportation devices, only very specific people were allowed to use them.

Daz couldn't risk allowing any old fool to utilise the tools and just march a hydrogen bomb into the heart of one of his cities, as an example.

Almost no one could buy a bomb, which was a relief. From among his many citizens, Madison alone had passed all of the system's requirements to buy, own, and use a nuclear bomb.

While as relieving as that was, the fact she was able to do it at all alluded to the possibility of others also possessing that ability.

Caution was a strong trait of Daz's, so he would likely never lighten the restrictions on the teleportation relays without any major insurances first being put into place.

Due to that, reestablishing the road networks was critical if he wanted his lands to be - and to stay - connected.

A big hurdle to overcome in this personal goal was the new monster problem.

By now, Daz was certain that a fellow sovereign-candidate had used their chance to change Earth to allow monsters of myths and legends to spawn on the surface of the planet.

It was actually becoming a bit of a hazard. Lyle had confidently said that he would come up with a localised solution, and, oddly enough, Crusher had volunteered to help.

On the topic of the Russian Titan, she had managed to successfully force all of her Evil followers to become Neutral, sparing them execution, so she claimed that helping someone snakey like Lyle would aid her in building her personality now that she was free.

Daz figured that she was secretly worried about her semester goal to naturally evolve, and stepping outside of her comfort zone seemed like a good first step towards accomplishing that lofty task, so the reaper wholeheartedly supported her choice.

The only other major thing of note which had happened was that Emperor Nishikawa had followed through on their deal, unlike Emma Cromwell.

20,000 willing volunteers had been sent over to San Diego's naval port along with the promised ten battleships, including the sole flagship-class and the four destroyer-classes.

It would seem that Admiral Fudo had been brought along with them as a show of goodwill, though there were concerns that he was a spy from Crosius and Lyle.

Daz didn't care. He was happy to have a skilled admiral working under him now, but he had made sure to warn the man to not indiscriminately shoot down flying cars that happened to stop over the fleet in the future.

Regardless, New Earth had gained a lot of militaristic strength now outside of the incredibly powerful individuals that called the kingdom their home.

Daz stepped out of the bank in Fort Skip with a satisfied look on his face. "My points are growing more than I'm using them, which is fantastic," he muttered to himself as he looked at his personal merit points and his stored merit points one final time.

The total merit balance of the host is now: 193,351,373. The total balance of the host's [Midechhe Travelling Bank] account is now: 10 merit stars. The total balance of the host's [Midechhe Travelling Bank] savings account is now: 269,376,308 merit points.

"I have a lot more in my savings now than I do for personal use, huh?" Daz noted as his phone began to ring.

Pretty much every citizen in Fort Home - formerly Waterford - owned a special type of smartphone developed by Rose and designed by Vanessa.

It was connected to the grumpy girl's internet system which also doubled as a phone service.

Surprisingly, Vanessa could be quite artistic when she wanted to be. She'd come third in the competition to decide New Earth's flag. Madison came second while Fiona had won by a bit of a landslide.

Picking it up and putting the phone to his ear, Daz asked, "Hello?"

"You can see it's me. My name should have popped up when I called you, so don't give me that 'who's this' tone," Rose demanded from the other end.

"Ah, I still haven't done that yet. You know I don't care too much for tech. Anyway, what's up? Finally found one?" he asked with some excitement in his voice.

"Yeah, I did. Sorry it took me so long to set up the internet and make the phones, otherwise, I would have found this immediately. It's practically at our doorstep," Rose admitted in a slightly apologetic tone. "I thought it'd take me, like, a week to find like Atlantis did."

"Right at our doorstep?" Daz asked sceptically.

He wasn't the most well-versed in myths and legends, but he had taken some time to research mythical cities - even the more obscure ones - after his interest in the topic had spiked. As far as he knew, there were no such locations in California.

"Well, by 'at our doorstep', I actually mean about 3,500-miles away, but it's closer than Atlantis and it's actually on land this time. Yay for no fish smell," Rose explained casually.

Daz shook his head softly then said, "So, where am I going, exactly?"

"Lake Parime," Rose answered a bit excitedly.

Daz was drawing a blank. "... Where? That doesn't sound familiar."

"Ha-aaaah..." the girl intentionally dragged out her sigh before replying with, "It's the fabled lake that's supposed to be the home of the city of gold. Sheesh, did you really research this stuff or not?"

"Ah, El Dorado. You could have just said so," Daz spoke plainly, not rising to his sister's mocking tone. He was beyond getting upset at her for that now.

"Sure, but then I wouldn't have been able to make fun of you," Rose answered in a chipper tone. "By the way, South America has a lot of cities classified as mythical cities. I guess the Aztecan pantheon was pretty powerful when it existed, huh? Wonder why it suddenly disappeared when it did. Earth would be really powerful with both espers and servants of the tribal gods working together."

"As if that would happen. For a start, the esper families would have to not be filled with selfish jackasses." Daz didn't care for a discussion related to gods, least of all dead ones, so he ignored that part. "Anyway, want to give me some coordinates or something? Also, give Maddy a text, would you? I promised her I'd bring her with me next time since I took you with me to Atlantis."

The reaper could practically hear his sister shrug before she answered, "Sure. I can do that since you're as slow at typing as a turtle is at moving. By the way, you've still got that death box you got from that fat loser in Vegas, right?"

"Ometeotl's Seal?" Daz asked. He recalled the item quite well, actually, since he had discovered that he could use it to recover Death Energy.

It was a great tool to use for training himself, his clones, and Mu - whenever the fellow reaper visited Fort Skip.

"Right, well, you'll need to open it up and use Acamapichtli's Eye - the item sealed inside - to unlock the gate to El Dorado. I have no idea why Aston had it. I burned out my guesses trying to figure it out, but my best bet is that he stole it from a group of survivors - who I know are there - that are still trying to enter the city of gold," Rose explained.

"Competition?" Daz asked.

"Nah. Not to you, at least. Potential recruits though. They found El Dorado all on their own before the system came to Earth, after all. Skills like that could be useful," Rose suggested.

"Right, anyway, you said I need to open it? Do you know the phrase then? I recall Aston saying a certain phrase needed to be spoken to access the contents," Daz said as he curiously fiddled with the small golden crate-sized box that was oozing a black miasma of sorts.

Both Mofolo and Reika interacted with the fog as well. It was apparently rather delicious according to the former king of Atlantis.

"Dunno," Rose answered dismissively.

"What? Then how am I meant to open it? I can't break the thing, that's for sure. It's too valuable as a power source," Daz claimed.

'And as our lunch!' Reika added with stuffed cheeks.

"I don't know, but the people still trying to enter El Dorado probably do," Rose said. Daz could already picture the big grin strewn across her lips.

"Ah, of course. Well then, say no more, I suppose," Daz replied as he put his phone away, returned the seal to his Industrial Item Box, then cracked his neck and made for the inner fort's keep.

While Fort Home owned a castle, Fort Skip's keep would always be his command centre.