""Mommy!""

Even before I could close the door when I got home, two pairs of feet stomped their way to me.

I squatted down and picked my my adorable daughters as they wrapped their arms around my neck, our cheeks rubbing against each other.

"I'm back. Were you good?"

""Yup!""

Both of them nodded, and while I was pretty tempted to just take their word for it, it wasn't responsible of me to do so. My eyes went to the last person to greet me.

"Welcome back Scarlet!"

The young foxkin trotted up to me, her eyes sparkling.

"How were they?"

Once I adjusted my grip on my girls, I stretched out a hand and patted the other girl. Her tail wagged so furiously I was a little worried that it would fly right off.

"They were good! They played well with the other kids!"

While from my perspective, Flix was also a child, I refrained from letting that distinction out.

"Alright. I presume dinner is ready? How about you go join Philia then?"

The scent of hot food was strong in the air, and I needed to feed Alicia and Fate while everyone else ate their own food.

We headed off to the dining room. As Flix jumped into her seat, I gave Philia a quick wave to confirm that she was fine before the three of us went back to our room.

"Now finish all your blood you two."

Once I sat my daughters down at the little table in our room, I pulled out a jar of blood each.

Orc blood. Nice and rich, but not so strong to turn them off of blood from monster around their level.

"But mom! I want milk!"

"Milk's the best!"

"Now now. You two can drink milk after you've finished your blood. Alright?"

After consulting with Philia, we came to the conclusion that this was likely the best way to wean the two of them off of my milk. I only really understood it as a problem two years ago when I realized that even the youngest of the dhampire babies had completely been weaned off, yet there was no indication of Alicia or Fate of showing any interest in blood at all.

""But~...!""

"No buts. Now, drink your blood, both of you."

Despite my best efforts though, it had been slow, though a lot of it was likely my own fault.

Seeing how they would tear up or complain made me cave in far too often in the beginning. It came to the point that Philia needed to enact interventions on occasion before Alicia and Fate finally accepted that they had to drink blood at least as part of their meals.

Or rather, so I could properly harden my heart for their sake.

When I thought about it, before Philia started to live with us, I almost always caved on every little thing when it came to Alicia and Fate. Sometimes

I was definitely a bad mother. Just not in a way I could recognize at the time.

*Skrrt...skrrt...*

After looking down at their meal, a little dejected, first Alicia, then Fate started to bounce in their seats, shifting it across. As their legs couldn't possibly reach the ground while they sat in their chairs.

I couldn't decide if I wanted to face palm their little act, chuckle, or just watch them fondly as they moved their seats until they were touching with my own.

Once they stopped moving and leaned their small bodies against my own, I levitated their cups over and into their hands. There was a bit of disappointment in their eyes, but they slowly brought their meals to their lips and consumed it without complaint.

My hands softly stroked their heads as their cups continued to rise up into the air, until they suddenly lowered them, letting out simultaneous gasps for air.

""Milk!""

Both of them demanded their dessert while showing me that their cups were empty.

"Yes, yes. Alright. You two did well."

Finishing off one last pat, I withdrew my hands to unbutton my robes.

Alicia and Fate on the other hand excitedly jumped onto my lap, and once I exposed myself, they rested their heads on my chest and immediately latched on.

I felt their arms wrap around me while their breaths calmed down, and I in turn wrapped my own arms around my babies.

*Sigh*

They were too old to be getting fed milk every day, even as a dessert, but feeling their little warmth on my chest brought me bliss. Maybe I was a bit of a pervert because of this. Maybe this was all my fault. But feeling my children directly against my skin brought me happiness that I couldn't deny.

When I thought about the day that we would no longer have quite times like this together, it made me start thinking that maybe it was alright to not completely wean the two.

Then I actually picture them as adults doing this and I manage to reconvince myself that it's a terrible idea.

Even at five years old, this was really starting to push things. Maybe we could get away with it at ten, but past that, not even I could consider it acceptable.

"..."

Speaking of, Alicia and Fate weren't letting go at all. I could feel how much lighter my chest was growing, yet there was no signs of either of them having enough.

(Maybe it's time to switch to bigger cups for meal time?)

I idly considered the issue before going back to enjoying the feeling of their warm breaths against my bare skin.

Alicia and Fate told me about their day then we spent the rest of the night playing together while everyone else slept.

In the morning, they went out again with Flix after breakfast, and I went to get my new weapon.

I was quickly let in to the smithy when I showed myself, and a tired looking titan greeted me.

"Are you sure you're alright?"

"Don't worry about it. I do this all the time."

"You're not getting younger. I think you should think more about your body."

"I'll worry about that when I'm dead."

I was worried that it really would come to that. But as Njordr wasn't the type to listen to this sort of advice in the first place, especially from someone like me, I didn't bother pushing the subject.

"Anyways, you didn't come here for that, but this."

The older titan hefted himself up and walked over where his latest masterpiece stood against the wall, covered in a thick drape cloth. The shape of the drape did a good job concealing the weapon's true form, as I couldn't figure out what it was supposed to look like. It was as if Njordr was carrying a giant triangle.

Though considering that his muscles visibly bulged as he heaved the thing up, it must have been quite heavy.

"Here."

With a strained word, the titan lowered the new weapon. The ground shook slightly from the weight, making me even more curious as to its design.

The drape was unravelled, revealing the weapon's form. I had difficulty holding back a gasp as I looked at it.

The weapon was a pole arm like my last, but the blade was significantly larger with numerous intricate fluting which seemed to be for lightening the weapon as much as possible without sacrificing its strength.

The thing which most caught my eye, though, was the fact that the blade was almost perpendicular to the shaft. Like a pick, but obviously not. The shaft was longer than I was tall by a good head or so, and the blade was half as long. It went from an extremely fine point, curving so that the a swing using most of the shaft's length would cause the blade to arc at the same rate as the perimeter of the swing.

The inside of the curved blade slowly increased in width until about three quarters of the length, where the blade quickly flared out, tripling its width in only a dozen centimetres before continuing the previous rate of expansion. The base of the blade curved inwards, merging seamlessly with the shaft.

In addition, opposite the blade, sprouted a short spike along with a pair of bladed hooks. Each was twice as long as my hand, but when compared to the massive blade, they felt more like a decoration than anything.

"You made me...a scythe?"

Strictly speaking, it wasn't exactly a scythe. The overall profile was one, but when you excluded the first half of the blade, the inner half reminded me of a type of axe from south-east Asia. The Igorot head hunting axe, I think people called it. Though the leading tip was far longer here.

"C'mon. Try it out."

I accepted the proffered weapon. Lifting it up, I could feel its weight in my hands. It was far heavier than my previous bardiche, but not so heavy that I found it cumbersome.

Most likely, I was one of the only people in the entire world that found this weapon to be like that.

But even then, a scythe? Really?

I could understand the theory, as the blade would have massively greater penetrative power against hardened defences and was far less likely to bend as long as the tip didn't deform.

But regardless of my reservations, I did as Njordr asked.

Taking a few steps back to an open area of the smithy, I held the weapon in both hands, then lightly swung it.

There was the feeling of the air parting for the weapon almost like the red sea. It didn't feel like I cut the air, but instead the air made way in an attempt to avoid its sharpness.

Swallowing my saliva, I firmed my grip, and started to swing it again and again, spinning the weapon around me, allowing the weapon to flow like an extension of my body.

There wasn't any particular discomfort. And while you couldn't say there was any real balance, considering that the blade weighed more than the adamantium the shaft, as long as I accommodated for that fact, it felt like this weapon might be usable in a practical sense.

Somehow, it seemed like one of my weapon skills worked on the scythe, even though there wasn't exactly any skills that normally seemed to work for it. Most likely it was my [spear mastery] skill. It was the only skill I had which worked on pole arms.

When I stopped, my eyes were caught on the intricate inlays on the front face of the blade.

Almost immediately I recognized the symbols as those for enchanting.

"This is...a mending enchantment?"

"Aye. I tried everything I could to make you a weapon which can withstand cutting through the hardest things you could face as many times as you want, but no matter what, you'd hit the limit and it'll break. So I asked a bud and got the enchantment added to it. As long as the thing doesn't break, you can quickly fix any dents and bends by channelling your mana."

The circuit was made from orihalcum to offset the fact that adamantium was a poor conductor of mana. There was even a tiny channel that ran along the spine of the shaft so I could easily channel my mana no matter how I was holding the weapon.

"There's also another one on the other side, to make the edge as sharp as we could."

Turning the weapon over, I saw there was a different pattern on this side. And as the old titan said, it was an enchantment to make the edge both sharper and harder. Though this one was a passive that didn't require anything but ambient mana to operate.

"So, what do you think?"

"...I think...you've outdone yourself once again."

While the weapon wasn't exactly something that would normally be that easy to use, thanks to the assistance of my skills and stats, the weapon felt natural in my hands. I could probably mow through those Evocatus monsters with ease as long as I had this.

And it was a good thing as well. My backup plan was to just go through the entire floor relying entirely on [blood magic], being able to split my offence between that and a proper weapon would both make my progress faster and more reliable. And that was in addition to the fact that I wouldn't have to consume nearly as much blood to accomplish it as well, leaving less time wasted refilling my blood stores afterwards.

"But is this really alright?"

"You're the one who ordered it."

"No, I mean, from an image standpoint."

When I thought about it, I was a vampire who habitually wore black robes. That was a scary enough image, but when you added a scythe to it, it felt so edgy that even I'd start bleeding from the thought.

"Not sure what you mean. Sure, a scythe's unusual for a weapon, but it works for what you need, right?"

"Hmm... well, it does."

Maybe the image of the grim reaper didn't exist to this world. It was always hard to differentiate various preconceptions from Earth to the ones here.

"So, how much do I owe you for this?"

"Ah, go and test it out in the dungeon. If you've got no complaints, then I'll send the bill."

"Send it anyways. You deserve to be paid for you work, even if it doesn't quite meet my requirements. I doubt there's any weapon that would get as close in this country anyways."

"Hrmph! I'll only get paid when I satisfy my customer."

"I'm already satisfied. Just accept it."

Without waiting for the titan's response, I put the weapon away in my pocket dimension and strolled out, eager to test this new thing.

I immediately made my way to the first group of monsters on the 136th floor, and the moment I spotted the large armoured figure with its prominent shield, I equipped my new scythe.

As if the monster's heavy stomp being the start signal, the rest of the monsters rushed out of their hiding spots, flanking the greater monster.

Unlike before, I opted to try fighting with mostly just my new weapon for this engagement to test it out.

Kicking off the ground, I spun my pole-arm in my hands to build up momentum, then the moment I was in range, I threw out a full bodied swing. Together with a loud screech of metal scraping and deforming, the first monster crumpled backwards in half as only a thin sliver of the back armour was left to keep the upper and lower halves of the body together.

Yet to my surprise, my scythe had hardly lost any momentum during the swing, causing me to spin my body to avoid compromising my balance.

With my momentum successfully preserved, I went in with another swing, this time from below. Again, my targets armour let out a loud screech as it was impaled and torn apart.

Now that I was watching for it, I easily followed up the swing by spinning the heavy blade back behind me before it emerged from my side, already on the way to cut down another monster.

Swing, swing, swing.

With surprisingly little effort, I had managed to cut down all the monsters on the left flank, my weapon not stopping even once.

Bracing myself, I stopped my weapon and stared at its blade, amazed at the performance. Thanks to the excellent design and construction, there wasn't any traces of the crescent shaped blade being damaged either.

But having made the biggest blunder you could in the middle of battle, I was late to react to the monster thrusting out its spear at me from the shield-wielder's other side.

I narrowly dodged the sharp point by flinging my body to the side, but the act caused me to lose my balance, which my enemies didn't fail to capitalize. Two monsters swung down their own weapons together while a third circled around my flank. The large shield-bearer stomped up to follow up with anything I tried.

Unfortunately for them all, what I tried was beyond what they could respond to.

Tilting my new scythe to the side, I caught the downwards swings with the blade. While the butt of the hilt slammed into the ground from the impact, the weapon as a whole didn't falter despite the combined force of the monsters weight being pressed into it, earning a smile from me.

The flanking monster tried to thrust out its weapon to my vulnerable side, but rather than take it, I simply dropped through the floor by connecting the space under me with another further away.

The moment the monster stepped too far in after over committing its attack, I widened the area the space was bent, and the lingering weight of my enemies attacks caused my weapon to shoot through the portal, landing my weapon safely in my hands.

On the other side though, the two monsters couldn't arrest their attack in time and their weapons finished their paused swings, sundering apart the helpless monster that had over committed its thrust.

Spying an opportunity, I spun around and threw my weapon, my scythe cleaving the two remaining minions before they could get their defences up again.

And not to waste the folded space I hadn't reverted yet, I sent my shadow through it and caught my weapon, pulling it back through and palming it once more.

Now that all the smaller enemies had been taken out, it was a one on one between me and the shield-bearer.

The perfect time to test some of the limits of my new weapon.

I charged in, scythe trailing behind me.

Just as I closed into range, the huge lug swung its short sword. But while it was quick for its size, it was still big and the act had quite the obvious tell. With barely any effort at all, I ducked under the swing and dragged my weapon along while I passed my target.

The blade caught on the monster's leg, but against my hope, I was thrown off of my feet when my weapon came to an abrupt stop, being unable to cut through the armour on a flat push.

The large evocatus wasn't so stupid as to allow me to get away with that mistake scott-free, and promptly dropped his shield on top of me, relying on its weight to crush my body.

Of course I wouldn't just let him do that, and I bent space, sinking my body through the ground and appearing in front of it once again.

This time, as I rushed my enemy, I tried using the scythe more how it was designed, spinning it around between my hands. Rather than wait for the shield-bearer to attack, I threw my weight into my attack as it brought its shield to bear.

There was a mighty scream as adamantium tore and shred, my scythe was buried all the way to the shaft right through my foe's shield. And with a blade as long as it was, not only was the shield broken through, but the armour that lay behind it.

I pulled my weapon back, out of the path it had taken. The monster stood before me unmoving for a few moments before it fell to its knee, then to the ground. I could see a small hole in its back, where my scythe managed to punch through three layers of thick adamantium in a single blow.

But when my eyes landed on my weapon, I could see the consequence of the overly aggressive act.

The tip was curled to the side, and there were chips in the blade from all the abuse it had endured during this fight.

But then again, not only did I learn the limits of my new weapon, but I had the opportunity to test the last of its features.

Channelling my mana into the hilt, the weapon was enveloped with shade, the colour of my own aura. And after only a few moments, was the weapon revealed from under the opaque mana.

All traces of battle damage had disappeared, as if it hadn't been there in the first place.

(Wow.)

I had to admit it. I was quite impressed.

Everything about this weapon was incredible. The mana needed to repair it wasn't insignificant, but not prohibitive in the slightest as well.

The only problem with the weapon would be its weight. It was heavy enough that if I wasn't careful, it could cost me my balance at an inopportune time. And for anyone who didn't have superhuman strength like I did, it would be thoroughly too heavy to wield.

No, even if they did, if it wasn't for the physics defying nature of the system, the weight would simply swing the user around rather than the other way around.

But to say that I was able to get this level of performance without discovering a new material to make my weapon from was outstanding. Njordr deserved quite the pay for this job.

The weight drawback wasn't even that big of a deal, since anyone who was soloing this deep in this dungeon would either not be relying on a melee weapon or not be so worried about their weapon's ability to repeatedly punch through heavy armour.

I got that I was just brute forcing a lot of things, but it was far faster and safer compared to taking my time against such large numbers of enemies. Singular monsters were quite rare in this dungeon aside from the beginning of the floor, so taking out at least some of the monsters quickly was preferable. It didn't matter how much money I had to pay to gain that benefit. I wasn't using most of the materials I had farmed to get the levels I needed in the first place.

And while I did have the option of purely using magic against enemies like this that could damage weaker weapons, I preferred to keep as many cards on the table as I could. I never knew when something I stopped using would become important out of nowhere, so I maintained several fighting styles, from different types of magic to both weapon and unarmed fighting.

Experience had taught me that not being ready to use alternatives was a quick way to lose an unexpected fight.

Versatility and flexibility, on top of strength and wit were all things necessary to survive.

It was unfortunate that I didn't have a yard stick to measure myself with though.

But for now, this scythe would do.