Armor clattered loudly against the stone floor.

Cheap linen shirts were thrown into the air and leather trousers were kicked aside.

It was a sea of bare skin, heavy chests, slender waists, and completely unashamed women eagerly testing out their new magical dresses and tailored clothes.

Silas’s casual smirk vanished.

A massive blush completely conquered his face.

’Why the hell are they all getting completely nude in the middle of the room?!’ Silas shrieked in panic. ’There are literally private side rooms right down the hall! I am surrounded by seventy naked women! The hell is this!’

Even Eluned had joined the chaos.

The intoxicated Goddess was actively trying to put on her new expensive emerald-green spider-silk dress.

Because she was completely drunk, she had managed to put the elegant gown on entirely backwards...

Eluned completely ignored the wardrobe malfunction.

She waved enthusiastically at him from across the hall, her glowing eyes happily squinting.

"I love you too, my Lord!" Eluned cheered loudly, stumbling slightly. "And I love the giftssss!"

Silas desperately tried to look away, but there was nowhere safe to look.

To his immediate left, Aeliana... the usually strict meticulous Royal Elven adjutant had completely succumbed to the peer pressure.

She stripped her standard uniform completely off, revealing her flawless pale skin and her incredibly massive breasts.

They bounced heavily as she reached down to pick up her new clothes.

Silas physically couldn’t stop himself so he stared directly at her.

’They really are incredibly big...’ Silas thought. ’Aeliana wasn’t exaggerating earlier. What the hell is she wearing that’s enough to push them down...’

Aeliana immediately noticed his golden-ringed eyes locked directly onto her chest.

The Royal Elf flushed a brilliant shade of dark crimson.

Her pointed ears twitched violently.

"My Lord!" Aeliana shrieked with her strict modesty violently returning. "Stop being a pervert!"

She didn’t wait for an apology as she aggressively slammed her delicate palm directly onto the stone floorboards.

A massive condensed wall of solid blue arcane mana instantly erupted from the ground.

It shot entirely up to the ceiling, perfectly bisecting the Garrison and completely covering the seventy naked girls, leaving Silas entirely locked out on the other side of the magical barrier.

Silas stood alone on his side of the blue wall.

He let out a long sigh, crossing his arms over his chest.

"I’m really not a pervert," Silas muttered to himself, genuinely annoyed by the accusation. "I am a perfectly healthy, twenty-something male standing in a room full of naked women... I am not a generic Japanese light-novel protagonist so of course I am actually going to look... it’s not like you gave me a choice."

Before he could complain further, he felt a sharp tug on the dark fabric of his trousers.

Silas immediately looked straight down.

It was Thora.

The half-naked Dwarven blacksmith had somehow slipped to his side of the mana wall before Aeliana raised it.

She was still wearing nothing but her stained leather bra, her dark cotton panties, and her massive iron forging helmet.

She looked up at him, crossing her heavily muscled arms.

"Hey, Boss," Thora complained loudly with her abrasive voice echoing. "Where are my clothes? I didn’t receive a fancy canvas package. Are you leaving your best smith completely naked out here?"

Silas sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Didn’t you state when I asked you that you wanted your own specific territory gifts to be highly refined forging alloys?" Silas reminded her.

Thora completely froze. Her eyes glittered with sudden obsession.

"Alloys?" Thora gasped out, practically drooling. "You bought them? High-grade stuff?"

Silas didn’t answer verbally.

He simply swiped his hand through the air, accessing his Lord Inventory.

He summoned the Tier 3 Mythic-Grade Ingots.

Fifty pounds of shimmering, midnight-blue star-iron, heavily specked with glowing microscopic constellations crashed onto the stone floor.

It was immediately followed by fifty pounds of dark crimson deep-earth bars.

The heavy mythic metals hit the floorboards.

CRASH!

They didn’t just sit there like normal alloys.

These ones hummed.

The dark crimson bars physically pulsed with a heavy gravitational pull that slightly warped the air around them.

The cosmic resonance of the Tier 3 metals filled the immediate area.

Thora dropped directly to her knees.

"By the Forge of the Ancestors," Thora babbled incoherently with her hands hovering over the glowing blue star-iron like a religious zealot worshipping a holy relic.

She completely lost her mind.

"They are perfectly refined!" Thora blabbered with tears of joy streaming down her cheeks. "The density is impossible! I will completely cherish them! I will cherish them for my entire natural life! I can build mythic plating! I can forge heavy artillery ballistas! I can craft a mechanical vibrating dild—"

"Knock yourself out," Silas cut her off quickly before she could completely finish that highly degenerate sentence.

Thora didn’t just say thank you.

The Dwarven woman violently jumped straight up from the floor, ignoring gravity.

She launched her short muscled frame into the air and forcefully kissed Silas directly on the cheek.

MWAH!

"I love you, my Lord!" Thora cheered loudly. "You are incredibly cute!"

Before Silas could react to the sudden assault, Thora dropped back down.

As she landed, she aggressively, unapologetically grabbed a massive firm handful of his right ass cheek.

She squeezed it hard.

"And you have an incredibly strong ass, too!" Thora added with a perverted wink.

Silas’s eye twitched violently.

He instantly raised his hand, fully preparing to deliver a karate chop directly to the top of her iron helmet but the Dwarf was incredibly fast.

Thora instantly scooped up the massive, hundred-pound pile of Tier 3 mythic ingots into her arms like they weighed absolutely nothing.

She violently turned and sprinted directly toward the Garrison exit at blinding speed.

"I’m going to make you something so sexy to wear, Boss!" Thora yelled cheerfully as she ran. "It’s going to highlight your glutes!"

She disappeared completely out the heavy double doors and into the rainy night.

Silas stood frozen near the dais with his hand still raised for the karate chop.

He didn’t bother giving chase.

The absurdity of the interaction completely drained his energy.

"You perverted fuck..." Silas sighed, lowering his hand.

A moment later, the massive blue wall of solid arcane mana completely dissolved into harmless blue sparks, dropping back into the floorboards.

Silas turned around.

The seventy women of his Vanguard were fully dressed in their new enchanted wear and casual clothing.

The transformation was amazing.

They no longer looked like a ragtag band of underfunded frontier mercenaries.

They looked like a true snd elite military force perfectly outfitted by a wealthy Sovereign.

The black leather, the dark canvas, and the pristine wool completely elevated their presence.

"You all look stunning," Silas told them honestly, stepping back up onto the dais.

The Garrison erupted into happy chatter.

Different girls enthusiastically called his name, offering him a little spin to explicitly show off the flawless auto-fitting magic of the fabrics.

Eluned had somehow managed to completely fix her emerald-green spider-silk dress.

It flowed perfectly around her divine curves with the protective arcane geometries glowing faintly at the hem.

Silas specifically complimented her, making the Goddess giggle happily.

He nodded to Rowena, who looked highly elegant in her new breathable linen arcanist robes.

He finally looked at Aeliana.

The Royal Elf was fully dressed in her new logistical uniform.

She stepped forward from the ranks, dropping gracefully onto both of her knees.

Aeliana bowed her head deeply with her pointed ears flushed a soft pink.

"I am very grateful, my Lord," Aeliana said sincerely. "These garments will heavily increase our operational efficiency."

"Good," Silas smiled warmly.

He raised his voice, commanding the room’s attention again.

"I need the Tailor," Silas called forth.

From the middle ranks, a young woman quickly stepped forward.

She was a standard soldier, but she possessed a highly rare dual-class designation.

She was both a spearwoman and the territory’s resident seamstress.

The woman approached the dais nervously, bowing her head.

Silas accessed his inventory.

He pulled out the heavy wooden spools of glowing mythril-laced string and the completely unbreakable steel tailoring tools he had upgraded.

Silas handed the premium materials directly to her.

"I bought these specifically for you," Silas told her.

The girl’s face flushed a deep crimson... She stared at the glowing mythril thread in awe.

"I am entrusting you with expanding our local production," Silas instructed her clearly. "I need you to start making a lot of supplementary clothes for me and the rest of the girls. Specifically, I need heavy cardigans and insulated winter wear for the upcoming cold fronts."

The girl nodded her head frantically, clutching the materials to her chest.

"I promise I will absolutely deliver, my Lord!" she vowed, scurrying quickly back into the neat military ranks.

Silas squared his broad shoulders, his golden-ringed eyes sweeping over the silent, highly attentive formation.

"Now," Silas announced with the warmth leaving his voice being replaced by the gravity of a Lord. "I will officially start gifting the special, high-tier rewards I mentioned earlier."

Every single woman in the Garrison completely bated their breaths.

The tension spiked instantly.

Silas looked directly at the front row.

"Brida," Silas called forth. "Come here."

Brida didn’t hesitate.

The heavy infantry commander stepped completely out of the formation, approaching the base of the stone dais with heavy purposeful strides.

She looked up at him with her eyes burning with fierce loyalty as Silas didn’t just hand her a wrapped package.

He extended his right hand directly over the stone floor.

’Alright come on out... you’re a simple weapon, you don’t need an epic entrance.’

A violent unstable spatial rift tore completely open in the air.

Heavy crushing dark energy violently spilled out of the void.

The weight of the weapon hidden inside physically cracked the stone floorboards beneath the rift.

It was the Tier 2 Titan’s Cleaver he had purchased from the Association Armory, but he had spent Upgrade Points forcing an evolution.

It was now entirely Tier 3.

Silas reached his hand directly into the spatial tear and firmly grasped the leather-wrapped handle.

He forcefully pulled the massive towering weapon into reality.

It was no longer a simple black battleaxe... It was The Astral-Forged Void Cleaver.

The massive double-bitted axe head was forged from impossibly dense, pitch-black metal that seemed to actively absorb the light from the surrounding torches.

Deep glowing purple runes were heavily etched into the massive blades, pulsing with a terrifying gravity enchantment that threatened to crush the air itself.

It was a weapon meant exclusively to shatter the heavy armor of mythic beasts in a single apocalyptic swing.

Silas effortlessly held the incredibly heavy weapon in one hand, presenting it directly to her.

"Here," Silas said smoothly with his golden-ringed eyes locking onto hers. "I saw this weapon in the elite armory, and I know you mentioned something in the mud yesterday about desperately wanting a heavy axe, so..."

Brida stood perfectly still on the stone floor of the Garrison, holding the heavy grip of the Tier 3 Astral-Forged Void Cleaver.

The dark sound of the mythic battleaxe resonated straight up her muscled arms, bypassing her nerves and sinking directly into her bones.

Her mind instantly flashed back.

It wasn’t a memory of blood or war.

She wasn’t standing in the muddy, ash-choked Umbral Basin anymore.

She was suddenly millions of miles away, projected back into a different lifetime on a harsh frontier world.

She was a young girl again...

Brida was sitting in the corner of a crowded, noisy, fire-lit mead hall.

The air was thick with the scent of roasted boar, stale ale, and the tang of oiled leather.

She was sitting at a long wooden table with her mother and her mother’s heavily armored shield-sisters.

They were drinking heavily, slamming wooden tankards against the table and offering the young Brida highly unsolicited life advice.

They were explaining exactly what a woman was supposed to do when a powerful man finally bought her a personal gift.

"If a man buys you something expensive, something you’ve always desperately wanted," one of the heavily scarred, blonde shield-sisters had slurred happily, wiping ale foam from her chin. "You have to claim him on the spot!"

"Claim him?" young Brida had asked eagerly with her eyes wide. "Like... what if he gives me an axe?"

The entire table of hardened mercenary women had stopped laughing.

The loud mead hall had felt remarkably quiet for a few seconds.