"I believe it's safe to assume that I somehow absorbed the stone," Tom said after a moment of thinking. While this was the simplest and most obvious explanation for the disappearance of the stone, Tom didn't want to fall for this kind of fallacy.

'After all, the most obvious and straightforward explanation is often the pitfall of truth,' Tom thought. 'Once you fall into it and take it for the actual truth, you will never be able to figure out what the truth really is,' he recalled the saying he once saw in one of the old-style games he used to play.

"How did you do it?" Claudia asked while opening her eyes wide. The shock that this message caused her made even her blush go away as if she forgot just how alluring her current outfit was for a man's eye. "Wait, I didn't pay any attention to it either, but does it have something to do with you hitting your head?" she suggested randomly.

"Beats me," Tom said as he shook his head before rising from the floor and looking towards the rest of the stones shining in the wall. "Well, thankfully, we are free to test it with the other stones. This time, once I loosen it, you will have to pull it yourself," Tom ordered as he moved back to his feet before picking his tool and approaching the wall.

Once again, his hands started to swing. As his body started to heat up, Tom could feel the familiar breeze airing both his naked back and chest but also his family jewels. But given how he already knew what was causing it, there was no longer any point in bothering with it. '

Bit by bit, Tom's attacks chipped away the stone that held the precious stones in place. 'I really need to figure out a better way to extract them,' he thought as he continued to swing his pick. Back when it still was just a game for him, Tom didn't feel the load of picking the wall on his muscles.

A load that had to be compensated for with food and nutrients, something they severely lacked right now.

"Okay, it should be loose enough for you to pull it out now," Tom announced after several more moments before wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.

"Hey, are you listening?" Puzzled by the lack of reaction, Tom turned around.

Only to see Claudia sucking on her thumb as she glued her eyes to his naked and sweaty back.

"AH!" She shouted as soon as she noticed Tom's eyes. "I'm sorry, I was thinking about something," she dodged the obvious question of what she was doing and shook her head. "What did you say again?"

"The stone should be loose enough for you to pull it," Tom repeated himself as he squinted his eyes. A strange warmth appeared in his abdomen. 'She was clearly staring at my back... But why does it make me feel good?' he asked himself but didn't dare to reach out for the most obvious answer.

Not because he was worried about falling into the easy truth fallacy, but because he was scared of the long-reaching meaning of the obvious answer.

"Okay," Claudia nodded her head as she moved towards the wall. But as she moved her hand up, causing her shirt to ride up as well, she suddenly froze before lowering her hand back to a natural position. "Hey, look away!" she ordered as she turned her head around to send a killer stare at Tom.

"For God's sake," Tom muttered before obediently turning around. In fact, he didn't really need her to raise her hand or make any other mistake to see everything he wanted about her. The only reason why her naked body wasn't imprinted on his memory yet, was just his own moral approach to the matter.

"Dang, it's so hard," Claudia muttered, either too busy trying to pull the stone out to realize what other meaning her words could have or clearly trying to give Tom a raise in his lower body. "Just let me... PLUCK YOU!"

'That was a quick bucket of cold water on my horniness,' Tom thought when a shrug shook his entire body. If his imagination was running wild a moment earlier, then it now made his entire body froze with just a picture created according to Claudia's last words.

"YES!" Claudia shouted with joy, almost prompting Tom to turn around. "You can look now," she added in a clearly amused voice a moment later.

Tom turned his face around just in time to see the stone flash up before melting down in a flurry of light. The light which seemingly penetrated the skin of Claudia's hand before merging into her flesh.

"How do you feel?" Tom asked, approaching the girl with caution. While there didn't seem to be any negative effects to absorbing those stones, it was better to be safe than sorry.

"I don't really feel any difference?" Claudia replied in a questioning tone, clearly unsure what she was supposed to expect. She stared at her hand as if she expected something to appear on it, only to move her eyes up at Tom's face a moment later. "How about you? Did you feel anything?"

"Honest answer or diplomatic one?" Tom asked while putting a smirk on his lips before moving his eyes on the wall. His hand tightened around the pick's axe before he shook his head.

"Honest answer," Claudia surprisingly answered. Looking at her, Tom could not fail to notice the blush on her cheeks. 'What's wrong with her?' he asked himself, but no silent whisper of the world dared to reveal the answer to him.

"As much as I don't want to make you feel uncomfortable when I came to be, I couldn't really think about much else but your tits that you shoved right in my face," Tom replied, deciding to take a leap of faith of sorts.

"I see..." Claudia muttered as her blush intensified. Her cheeks were no longer healthy pink, but they took the color of vivid red instead.

'I need to change the topic right now,' Tom thought, but his usually quick wits were now unable to procure any topic to dawdle on. In the end, rather than allowing the awkward atmosphere to linger, he simply walked towards the wall before starting to swing his pick again.

"Hey," roughly mid-way through Tom's attempt to unlock the third of the four stones, Claudia approached him and placed both of her hands on his back. She then pushed her entire body forward, resting it on Tom's broad shoulders. "If we keep this atmosphere up, we won't be able to focus on exploring the dungeon at all," she whispered, clearly embarrassed by what she was saying.

Tom lowered his pick while releasing a deep sigh. But he didn't turn around, giving the girl at least this little privacy. "What do you suggest then? I won't be able to procure any clothes before getting those stones out," he said, only to tighten his jaws and to raise his pick again.

But rather than letting him do as he wished, Claudia slid her hands through his sweaty sides before locking them on his chest. At the same time, Tom could no longer pretend not to feel the two soft mounds on his back any longer.

"Do I really need to spell it out?" Claudia muttered in a soft voice while slowly running her hands all over Tom's sweaty chest.

"If you don't stop it now, I won't be able to hold back," Tom warned the girl. 'As much as I want to deny it, she might be actually right,' he thought. 'After all, it's not like we can just pop out of the portal to ask for some clothes,' he added in his thoughts, already imagining all sorts of problems that such idiotic action would create.

"Do you really want to hold back, though?" Claudia asked before pressing her face against Tom's back. "You know, it's not like I hate you or anything... So you don't really need to mind my feelings here," she added, finally breaching Tom's defenses.

He turned around. But rather than instantly assaulting the girl, Tom looked Claudia deep in the eyes. "You are trembling," he noted in a monotone voice. "Do you think that I would be interested in fucking a girl that's scared of the act?" he asked as a hurricane of thoughts swept through his thoughts.

'It's clear that she just wants the awkwardness to go away. It would be wrong to use this situation against her like that.' Tom continued to find more and more excuses not to make this deciding step.

In the end, he didn't go to the dungeon to pick up the girls in it. No matter how one looked at it, it was just plain wrong. He was here to uncover the secrets of the dungeon, the secrets that the online hub was so keen on keeping under the blanket.

"You coward," Claudia said in a low voice as she averted her eyes. But before Tom could do anything, she moved her eyes back on his face. "We are both adults. Even if it's only because of the chance, we are both in heat right now," she summed up the situation, bravely keeping up the eye contact.

"You don't need to worry about it," Tom countered, still shackled by his morality. "My brain is up here," he said while tapping himself in the side of the head, "not down there," he added as he nodded his head towards his crotch.

"Isn't this my job to change that?" Claudia tightened her hold over Tom's back as she asked. She then climbed on the tips of her toes and went for his lips.