Lone accepted the quest and was given strict directions to the quest poster's residence. He quickly left the guild and started walking through the city.

'I sure do wish I could legally own a Steam-wheeler. How cool would it be to ride a steampunk bike through a dwarven city of stone, steel and copper?' he thought with a light chuckle.

Soon, however, a frown formed on his face. "Is this really the area this Four-twelve guy is staying at? Looks almost like a slum... Can a guy offering two gold for a quest really be living here?"

The two rooms he was paying for in the Rusty Sprocket only cost him a total of 20 silver a month combined and that was for premium en-suite rooms.

That being the case, why would a person offering ten times that amount for a simple quest be living out here?

Lone wondered if he'd perhaps taken a wrong turn somewhere but before long he was in front of a residential building that shared the same address as the one he'd been told to go to.

Still a bit unsure of the whole situation, Lone scanned the place visually. "Yup, definitely looks like a poorhouse of some sort... I didn't even realise a manufactured city like a krieg could have something like this in it at all."

"'At's the curse ah the unemployed, Ninetails," a gruff voice called from one of the building's windows.

Lone looked up to see a beardless dwarf staring back down at him. This dwarf's face was littered with scars and it looked like half of his nose was missing. His eyes were stern and powerful though they also lacking in a certain... liveliness normally found in people.

"Hello. Are you-"

Lone stopped talking since the dwarf left the window and soon reappeared at the poorhouse's open front door.

He eyed Lone from top to bottom scrutinisingly before saying, "Also, this city isn't manufactured, Ninetails. Well, not as much as any other topsider city. Darkness an' filth is ah tough disease for ah city to fix, no matter the wealth or technology."

"I... see..." Lone was wary but he had come here for a quest and, well, since he was already here, he figured he should at least say what he was trying to say only a few seconds ago, putting his suspicions aside for the moment. "I'm looking for a person named Four-twelve. You wouldn't happen to know them, would you?"

"Yeah, I know myself. You part ah the guild or somethin'?" the dwarf said, apparently claiming to be Four-twelve.

"Yes. I came to accept the quest on behalf of myself and my companions," Lone said, feeling a bit more relieved that while he was talking to an odd stranger, at least that odd stranger was the one he was looking for... or claimed to be.

"Companions? Details, if you wouldn't mind," Four-twelve requested with a bit of a grunt.

'Another dwarf lacking most of his accent... I wonder if he lived up top for a while like Gramps did?' Lone thought before answering, "There's myself, a D-ranked swordspear-wielder. A swordspear, by the way, is basically just two swords attached to each other at the hilt. There's Sophie, A D-ranker dual shortsword wielder who has a little bit of magic. And finally, there's Breena. Breena's only an F-ranker but she's good at avoiding attention and if nothing else, she can carry our luggage during the trip."

"Hmm..." Four-twelve scratched his naked chin a bit before he nodded. "Fine. We leave tomorrow morning then. Meet me at entrance 14 to the Farwinds at the sixth bell."

Congratulations! the host's passive skill [Persuasion] has levelled up! It is now Intermediate Level 4.

While not entirely unexpected since he was planning to use all of his social skills to negotiate Breena's involvement in the quest regardless, Lone was pleasantly surprised to get a level-up to Persuasion with far less effort then he had initially assumed he'd need to use. "Great. I'll see you then."

"See you at dinner time," Sophie said curtly to Breena who only nodded in response before entering her room in the Rusty Sprocket.

Sophie held Kyuubi softly so as to not dig into her fur with her armoured gauntlets while she thought, 'How... unusual of a girl, that Breena. It took us hundreds of years to break mentally. Granted, we were not sexually assaulted nor enslaved, but surely being locked away in a cave with nothing to keep us company bar our own mind for over 200-years is somewhat comparable to her past, no?'

She opened the door to her and Lone's room without needing to unlock it, a telltale sign of Lone's return. 'Why is she such a broken individual when it was such a small portion of her life that was ruined? Lone is trying his best to move past his trauma, both old and new, but why is Breena so keen on... simply giving up and not even trying?'

She shook her head. She was no specialist of the mind. The matter perplexed and interested her but she had no knowledge on such a subject and she felt it beneath herself to ask Lone about it either.

Sophie quickly noticed Lone sitting cross-legged on their bed with his eyes closed so she ignored him and instead chose to remove her armour. 'I really don't understand. Lone is trying so hard to move beyond his mental demons, we only broke after centuries but she... Ha-ah... Why Lone cares for her when she isn't putting in the same effort baffles us.'

"Welcome back," Lone said without opening his eyes.

"Mmm, We are back. What are you doing?" Sophie asked offhandedly as she removed her gauntlets then unclasped her cuirass.

"Meditating. I was hoping to get a skill to make dealing with my nightmares better, no luck thus far. I think I'm doing it wrong," Lone answered. "Shame I couldn't speak more to that monk back in Milindo."

"Monk?" Sophie didn't recall Lone ever interacting with a monk.

"One of the guys who forfeited immediately during the tournament. Good guy. He apologised and wished me luck and everything," Lone said as he slowly opened his eyes. "Anyway, the quest is all set up and we leave early tomorrow morning."

"Great. We already asked for five days leave just after you departed. How long will the quest take, exactly? We wish to stretch our legs, yes, but we would rather not be away from a comfortable bed and decent hygiene for too long," Sophie asked just as she had finished removing her armour.

"Guy we're escorting said it'd take four days there and back," Lone replied dismissively. "If things go tits-up though, Soph or you can just 'port us out of there."

"Fair enough," Sophie said as she cracked her back and wrists. Standing in place all day in full-armour wasn't hard but boy was it stiff work.

"Would you mind showing me how good you are with your Barrier Magic now?" Lone asked.

Sophie raised an eyebrow. "Is that relevant?"

"Sure is. I'm hoping you and Soph can use it to help us during the quest somehow. Deflect an attack here, trip over a far away monster there. That kinda shit," Lone said.

"Shouldn't we be avoiding exposing our unique skills? I thought that was the mindset you possessed, one which we agreed with," Sophie expressed her concerns.

She felt the two of them were far too weak to be openly appearing even more unique than they already were. A human travelling with a beastkin was odd enough, let alone a rare race of foxkin that was thought to be extinct.

Lone smiled. "You see, that only goes for skills that aren't obviously magic. I've thought about this a lot and I'm very confident that you can pass off your Barrier Magic as a new set of subskills birthed from the enchanting magic tree. I could do the same for my Dimensional Storage with space magic if I'm careful but space magic is notoriously difficult to learn so it's wiser for me to not even try since I'd garner a similar level of attention if it's made public that I 'know' space magic. Enchanting magic is far more common."

Sophie rubbed her chin in thought. "Well, wise as we may be, you are the knowledgable one among us, Mister Scholar. That was what you called yourself during the test to enter the krieg, no?"

"An adventurer and historian too, and don't you forget it," Lone laughed back.

Sophie frowned. "Why is it so easy for you to tease us but less so for us to tease you?"

The matter truly perplexed her. Lone seemed to enjoy it so much when he managed to fluster her but she was never able to revel in the same joy. She... felt jealous.

Lone smirked. "It's a matter of skill."

Sophie rolled her eyes. "If you say so. Well, goodbye. We shall swap with Soph so she can demonstrate her abilities for you."

"Right, seeya later, Sophie. Love you," Lone said.

Sophie's cheeks flushed red. "We... l-love you too."

'He is far too good at doing that...' Her expression then lightened and her eyes opened a bit while her body shrunk to its child form. "Hi, Lone!"

"Hey, Soph. I assume you heard all of that?" Lone asked as he opened his arms when Soph jumped at him for a hug.

"Yup! I, uh, can't do anything special with the barriers yet but they're really tough!" Soph said. 'Why doesn't he tease me too like he does to Sophie? It looks nice...'

"Here," While still hugging him, Soph used her unique skill and created a shimmering jade-green semi-transparent shield-like plate a short distance away from herself and Lone.

She had no idea how useful the skill would be since, honestly, in her opinion, it seemed like nothing more than a party trick. 'If anyone can figure out a use for it though, it's Lone. He's smart. He still thinks Body Manipulation is good for things other than... uh... adult stuff...'

The barrier floated in the air without moving as if someone had nailed it to the open space in the middle of their bedroom.

It was fully circular but it was also curved, meaning that if it got struck on the correct side the blow would be more efficiently deflected.

"Ahh, cool," Lone said in admiration. "Mind unwrapping yourself from me while I test its strength?"

'No! It's so warm here... Ah! His tails are moving away from me...' she thought with sadness.

A pout formed on her expression before she ultimately nodded. "Okay. But once you're done I demand more cuddles! And... and maybe more than just cuddles... At least until dinnertime. We don't get enough time together anymore since I'm always at work now or you're reading some book or another when we get home. How do you even have books, by the way? I thought they were hard for you to make before your Creation Magic got sealed."

Lone smiled wryly. "I may or may not have stolen a good portion of books from Ranton's library. Before I was, y'know, imprisoned."

'It's hard to tell you off when you bring that up...' she looked into his eyes deeply and decided to simply say, "Stealing is bad..."

"It is, but I was so frustrated at how difficult it was to make them myself. Plus, those speciesist scum don't deserve the knowledge books have to offer," Lone said in a harsh tone.

'But knowledge is how people move away from their prejudices... You taught me that,' Soph said. it made her heart ache seeing how much lasting pain he had from his experiences in Milindo.

"... The common people and the nobles are different, Lone," Soph said in worry. "I, uh, I hate them as much as you for what they did but most people in Milindo were ordinary people just living the days as they came."

Lone laughed a little. "I know. However, those common people also couldn't really afford entry into the library and I only stole very specific books, nothing important." He patted her on the head then asked, "Who made you so wise all of a sudden, eh? Where'd my cute little meatball go?"

"I'm not a meatball! Hurry up and test the barrier, you big dummy," Soph answered with her pout returning in full force. 'At least he can joke about it... That's, uh, good, I think...'

"Your cheeks sure look like meatballs when you blush and pout," he laughed before freeing himself from her grip. He then approached the floating barrier she was maintaining.

"It's incredible how you can make it just... ignore gravity like this. Can you move it?" Lone asked.

Soph nodded and flicked her wrist left. The barrier followed suit and also moved left.

"Fascinating. Does moving it use MP?" Lone asked.

Soph shook her head. "Nope."

"Unique skills sure are OP, huh? Can you make more than one?" Lone questioned.

'OP means overpowered, right? I'm slowly learning his weird language quirks. It's hard since not everything translates well... I wanna learn English so this stops being a thing.' Soph nodded again. "Yup. They cost 5,000 MP to make in the basic form like that so I can create up to 25 at a time if I'm full on MP but, em, yeah, that would give me an immediate migraine. They take mental processing power to move or make bigger or smaller too."

"Mental processing power? Your vocabulary has grown," Lone said with pride.

"Hehe, I do listen to you when you ramble about boring stuff from time to time," Soph giggled. 'Still don't know any of your words, though. How do I bring up learning English though without sounding annoying? He's already so busy...'

"Oi, less sass. I get enough of that from your older personality," Lone said with a roll of the eyes. "Anyway, 25? So you have over 125,000 MP? That's an insane number."

"Um, each time I rank up - so each time you rank up - I get more and more. I guess I'm just really talented with magic? That's what Sophie says anyway. She's not a fan since my physical stats don't grow much," Soph said as she scratched her cheek.

"Makes sense since she's a warrior at heart," Lone commented before returning his focus to the barrier. "Alright, I'm gonna punch it as hard as I can. I don't know what rank my strength accurately represents but let's assume it's one above my own, so C-rank. Let's see what happens."

"Mmm," Soph answered with a cute bob of the head.

Lone reeled back his arm and put his everything behind his fist before he sent it flying toward the barrier.

A low hum echoed out from her barrier when Lone's fist made contact with it before it slowly cracked, though it didn't shatter and successfully rebounded Lone's attack.

Soph watched him pull back his hand again after steadying his feet and he then punched once more. This time, the barrier broke entirely and she winced a bit as a result.

"Ouch. The backlash of my magic being destroyed hurts," she claimed.

"That's to be expected somewhat. The same thing happens if a chant is stopped midway through from what I've researched. I've yet to test that since I don't need chants really except for crude magic. I should really find a way to experiment with that, shouldn't I?" Lone said to himself before smiling and approaching her.

"Still, that was amazing. It's still beginner rank, right?" he asked.

"Yup. It's Beginner Level 3 though! I've gained two whole levels from my practising," Soph declared proudly.

She knew she couldn't hold a candle to Lone's speed of levelling but for her, this was a lot of growth and she was more than pleased with it.

"So, uh..." Soph looked down and shyness clouded her face as she said, "W-With that done, c-could we maybe do something more... fun now? L-Like cuddling or..."

Lone immediately realised what she was implying. "Sure."

Soph smiled coyly and was ready to undress and change into her adult form but a proverbial bucket of cold water hit her right in the face not a moment later.

"But first, let me try a few more experiments with your Barrier Magic, 'kay? It's got to have more uses than just a floating shield. You also said you can make it smaller or bigger. I want to play around with that concept," Lone said, his skill addiction showing on full display.

Soph's expression fell. "... No sex?"

Lone looked at Soph then closed his eyes and imagined the possibilities of the Barrier Magic. He was about to confirm her question before a thought struck him.

He went silent for a while and it genuinely terrified Soph. She had never asked for intimacy so directly before and she was worried doing so had displeased him somehow.

"Okay, you win," Lone said. "Sex it is."

She exhaled deeply in relief. 'Stop worrying about little thing, you dummy,' she told herself.

"Yay! Sex!" Soph exclaimed in joy before stripping and used her Body Manipulation to change to her 20-year-old self.

In her mind, a heavy sigh could be heard. Sophie had decided to comment on this interaction after watching it all in silence. 'We cannot believe you. First, you somehow convince him to stop being in his super passionate learning mode, second, you say 'Yay! Sex!'. Who says that?'

Soph ignored her colder self as she eagerly began undressing her lover. Who needed the judging words of their original personality? Not Soph, that's for sure.

Thankfully for the poor and innocent Kyuubi, she had already somehow crawled onto a chair and fallen asleep, Soph noticed.