"Sophie Vladimirovich," was Sophie’s answer to the man's question before she shrugged her right shoulder at Lone, "and this is Lone," she added.

Daisuke frowned. "A family name? Are you a noble, or just a rich merchant?" She didn't answer him, giving the man a moment to think. "Well?" he asked with some impatience in his tone.

Sophie frowned beneath her helmet. "Do you think any normal merchant would be found wandering around in a Manasilk Spider infested forest in full-plate armour and with a beastkin? We think not."

"'We'?" Daisuke had a regretful look on his face. "Tch. A noble, and a high-ranking one too to be talking in plurals like an idiot... And here I was hoping I'd make you Harem Member Four." He scratched his head as his face soured. "You're definitely pretty with a voice like that... A bit old for my tastes but I’m a universal man… Oh well, later. I only have an hour to hunt before I need to return."

Suppressing his anger at that final comment of the hero's, Lone found something to be odd in what Daisuke had said. 'Harem Member Four? Not Three? If that wasn't a mistake, then where's Harem Member Three?'

Ignorant of his thoughts, the summoned hero of Milindo turned around and walked further into the forest with his lifeless slaves following closely behind him.

Sophie lowered her voice and whispered to Lone. "Do we kill him? We want to kill him. How dare he lust after us after only hearing our voice. Regardless, we have pledged ourselves to you already."

Lone was just as pissed but he shook his head. "That makes two of us, but no, we can't."

Sophie raised an eyebrow beneath her helmet. "Why not?"

Lone just shook his head then held the girl's gauntlet. "I'll tell you later. I'm almost out of mana anyway, so let's go back for now, 'kay?"

"Four spiders are rushing towards us, so yes, we shall do just that," Sophie happily complied.

Slumping down onto the sofa after helping Sophie out of her armour, Lone leaned his head back and closed his eyes before sighing.

Sophie seated herself next to him and started polishing and sharpening her swords as she asked, "So, why can we not kill that lecherous excuse of a hero?"

Lone stayed silent for a moment before he unconsciously put one of his hands into his trouser pocket and gently stroked the black orb within. For some reason, doing that calmed him. "You just said why."

He used his free hand to create a chocolate milkshake with his Creation Magic. An expensive treat, for sure, but he had recovered just enough magic to afford it.

After taking a few big mouthfuls of the sugar and fat-filled treat, Lone added, "He's a hero. I hate him just as much as you do for treating kids like that and for looking at you like a piece of meat, but if I'd killed him there with Mental Destruction, or if you'd teleported him to his death, we'd be suspects number one when he doesn't go back to Ranton when he's supposed to."

Sophie frowned deeply. “We do not like how much sense you are making. Why is life so complicated…”

“It just is,” Lone answered as he stopped rubbing the orb before he scratched the back of his neck. "There's also those slaves to deal with. I honestly wanted to kill him right then and there just for 'owning' and obviously mistreating those girls, but slavery is a custom of this land. Besides, we hardly have the means to support two demi children. Sure, we could feed and clothe them, but people would recognise them immediately as the hero's slaves and start asking us questions. The guy clearly enjoys parading them around."

He sighed deeply. "And those questions would reveal us to have been the hero's murderers, and I don't know about you, but I'd rather not have a powerful and overly patriotic duke sniffing up my ass trying to cuff me and toss me in jail. The stuff I read about Duke Malik is downright horrifying."

"So what do we do?" Sophie asked as she finished working on one of her swords and began maintaining the other one.

Lone shrugged. "We keep hunting. My mana matters more. We can't just leave the spiders when they're such good game. If you sense people enter your Mana Sensing’s range again, just bring us behind a tree then teleport us away. The more I see him and that disgusting look on his face, the more inclined I'll be to kill him."

Sophie frowned. "And what if he is killed by a spider?"

"Then so will those girls be, meaning we shouldn't be implicated. Besides, I bet he has people watching him via magic or something. Kerny said that the human kingdoms highly value their summoned heroes as flexing tools, so I doubt they'd let him quest on his own without putting in some protective efforts. Hell, he might even have a magical artefact or something to ensure he can't die, assuming something like that exists," Lone said in a far calmer voice and with more thought behind his words than earlier.

Sophie slowly nodded. "That makes sense. Speaking of magic, how were today's gains? You killed twice as many spiders as you did yesterday, so we imagine you gained a lot of Magical Power."

"I haven't checked yet," Lone casually replied as he pulled up his status.

Status

Name: Lone Immortus Sex: Male Age: 24 Level: 74 Species: Foxkin Rank: G Race: Golden Foxkin HP: 9,580/9,580 [+480] SP: 9,120/17,260 [+1,310] MP: 2,673/24,440 [+8,430] Basic Stats Strength: 907 [+40] Vigour: 1,726 [+131] Dexterity: 825 [+230] Agility: 919 [+329] Vitality: 958 [+48] Luck: 79 [+7] Bonus Stats Charm: 77 Charisma: 46 Magic Power: 2,444 [+843]

"Good progress. My Magic Power went up by just over 800, so my MP is now sitting at a little over 24,400 at its max capacity," Lone answered.

Sophie nodded slowly while she finished working on her swords and leaned them against the sofa's armrest. "A lot less than us, but still enough to seriously gain progress on your magic skills. Good."

Lone raised an eyebrow. "I know you've got fuckloads of Luck, but how much Magic Power've you got now?"

"Hmm?" Sophie cocked her head and smiled a bit smugly. "We have a little over 40,000. It was 20,000 before you ranked up recently. Honestly, our level and rank being tied to yours is very frustrating."

Lone closed his eyes, held his forehead, and simply shook his head in defeat. "So you have over 400,000 MP... Does Teleportation use up a lot of mana or something? If it didn't, I'm sure you could spam it like there's no tomorrow with that much MP."

Sophie shrugged as she stood up then sat herself on Lone's lap with her body facing his. coiling her arms around his neck, she said, "Yes, it does. Anyway, moving on from this boring drivel, take good care of Soph, yes? We are going to sleep."

Without letting Lone respond, the sharp look in Sophie's eyes faded only to be replaced by the warm and innocent eyes of Soph.

Pressing his temple against hers, Lone said, "Ever the wilful soul, huh? Anyway, it's your turn in your fancy new 'rotation', isn't it?"

Soph blushed from ear to ear before she kissed Lone courageously. "Mmm..."

"To think that she fell asleep so quickly... To be fair, we went at it for a while, so no doubt she was tired from that on top of her body's physical strain after Sophie's and my hunt," Lone mumbled as he sat on a bench in their fort's garden.

He remained sitting there for some time just going over how to handle the hero should they reach a do-or-die impasse with him in the future. Perhaps two hours passed while he simply remained there as he contemplated.

His mana had recovered to the point that he could afford to cast Crude Waterball, Crude Wind Blade and Crude Boulder once each, so he pulled himself out of his thoughts and stood up to practice some magic.

Naturally, he made sure to strip first. He didn't exactly want to tear his clothes to shreds nor soak them. As simple as it was to make a new set, that would be wasting MP - MP which he honestly didn't want to use if he could avoid it.

Lone, now a bit damp and dusty, retreated to the fort's bathroom. Once there, he immediately filled the tub with hot water via his Creation Magic then clambered on in.

Sinking down so that only his neck and up could be seen, Lone sighed in joy. "Man, Growth Accelerator may be my most useful skill practically, but Creation Magic sure as hell makes living in this magical medieval world less of a chore than it rightly should be."

He started humming happily as he grabbed the bottle of shower gel sitting on the bathtub's rim. "Display skills; Crude Waterball, Crude Wind Blade, Crude Boulder, Water Magic Resistance, Air Magic Resistance, and Earth Magic Resistance."

As he treated his shoulder-length hair and fluffy ears, he looked at all of the skills since each one had now reached intermediate rank. He was, of course, hopeful for a new effect, as unlikely as that was.

Active Water Magic Skill: Crude Waterball

An incredibly rudimentary application of the common [Waterball] Water Magic skill.

Due to its crudeness, 75 [-25] lines of Ancient Magic Speech must be chanted either verbally or mentally to invoke this skill. These lines will automatically be spoken or thought by the host when the host intends to use this skill.

The MP cost to invoke this skill is greatly [down from substantially] increased due to its inherent flaws.

Cost: 3,750 MP [-1,250 MP] Mastery: Intermediate Level 4 [+13 levels] Passive Skill: Water Magic Resistance

A skill that allows the host to resist all forms of Water Magic.

Water Magic used on the host will be weakened by 15% [+10%].

Cost: N/A

Mastery: Intermediate Level 1 [+10 levels]

Lone enjoyed this one the most out of the three magics he had used on himself. For a start, while the pressure and weight of the water balls was a bit annoying, it was miles better than having his skin cut up or enduring literal boulders breaking against his body.

Active Air Magic Skill: Crude Wind Blade

An incredibly rudimentary application of the common [Wind blade] Air Magic skill.

Due to its crudeness, 75 [-25] lines of Ancient Magic Speech must be chanted either verbally or mentally to invoke this skill. These lines will automatically be spoken or thought by the host when the host intends to use this skill.

The MP cost to invoke this skill is greatly [down from substantially] increased due to its inherent flaws.

Cost: 3,750 MP [-1,250 MP] Mastery: Intermediate Level 4 [+13 levels] Passive Skill: Air Magic Resistance

A skill that allows the host to resist all forms of Air Magic.

Air Magic used on the host will be weakened by 15% [+10%].

Cost: N/A

Mastery: Intermediate Level 1 [+10 levels]

Honestly, were it not for the resistance counterpart, Lone likely wouldn’t have even bothered with Crude Wind Blade. The pain it gave him when he hit himself with it was just too sharp.

Not enough to level Pain Resistance but enough to make him grit his teeth and force him to hold back a scream. Acute pain was the worst.

Active Earth Magic Skill: Crude Boulder

An incredibly rudimentary application of the common [Boulder] Earth Magic skill.

Due to its crudeness, 75 [-25] lines of Ancient Magic Speech must be chanted either verbally or mentally to invoke this skill. These lines will automatically be spoken or thought by the host when the host intends to use this skill.

The MP cost to invoke this skill is greatly [down from substantially] increased due to its inherent flaws.

Cost: 3,750 MP [-1,250 MP] Mastery: Intermediate Level 4 [+13 levels] Passive Skill: Earth Magic Resistance

A skill that allows the host to resist all forms of Earth Magic.

Earth Magic used on the host will be weakened by 15% [+10%].

Cost: N/A

Mastery: Intermediate Level 1 [+10 levels]

Crude Boulder was fine. It was messy, but the rocks themselves slowly disappeared as the MP used to form them returned to Altros.

Speaking of MP, Lone was only able to rank up all three of these skills in a single night thanks to his new capacity.

He suspected that as one gained more Magic Power, they simultaneously gained a higher regeneration rate of the resource. This was proven to be true tonight. ‘If that wasn’t the case, it would take Soph weeks to get her full capacity back, wouldn’t it?’

He nodded before speaking aloud, "It's a shame those weak spells didn't level up my Physical Pain Resistance or Basic Regen... But yeah, as I expected."

At that moment, the door to the bathroom opened. A weary-eyed Soph stumbled in and began she began taking off her pyjamas. "Expected what?" she asked with a yawn.

"You woke up?" Lone asked before he said, "Nothing, I was just muttering about how I had expected my magic shit to not have any new effects after ranking up, resistances too."

"Huh..." Soph mumbled before she finished undressing, she then got into the bath alongside Lone and sat between his legs.

She carefully took the tail that he was busy cleaning away from him and then hugged it to her chest. "I'll clean your tails for you..."

Lone grinned and rested his chin on the girl's head. "Sure, just be gentle."

She pouted. "I'm always gentle..."