Lone woke up roughly six hours later. It was now about eight o'clock in the morning, and Sophie and Kyuubi were both still asleep which didn't surprise Lone. The two girls were both very avid lovers of sleep. Lone decided to go to the kitchen in his temporary home that he had created. Once there, Lone created the necessary tools and several eggs before he started cooking.

Lone's left hand was held underneath a frying pan, and a light blue glow was being emitted from it. Lone had discovered during his week of training that he could harness the power of pure mana ever so slightly. Unfortunately, it had very little battle capabilities, so Lone had decided to train it by using it in menial ways like how he was heating the frying pan right now.

After Lone had felt that the base of the pan was at an acceptable level of heat, he took some Tusk Hog fat out from his dimension and smeared the pan with it. After leaving that for thirty seconds or so, he then cracked the eggs he had created before he put them in the pan as well. Several spices and herbs later, an incredibly amorous smell filled the entire house, waking Sophie.

Sophie groggily got out of bed while still cuddling the sleeping Kyuubi. She was wearing a nearly see-through nightgown that only extended to just below her hips. It was obviously created by Lone. Sophie soon found herself to be sitting on a stool with her head resting lazily on a counter.

"You are definitely not a morning person," Lone said to her with a warm smile on his face. He then placed a plate in front of her. This plate was obviously full of the scrambled eggs that Lone had just made. Lone had recently gained a passion for cooking, so much so that he had even gained a skill.

Skill: Basic Cooking Effect 1: Grants the host with several basic recipes and enhances the flavour of all dishes created by the host Mastery: Beginner Level 4 Enhanced flavour of Dishes Created: 8%

Sophie's head immediately perked up upon smelling the food in front of her. She then grabbed a nearby fork and dug into the meal with delight. Lone smiled at this scene before he left Sophie and the still sleeping Kyuubi and went to Breena's room. He knocked on her door and told her that breakfast was ready.

After the three had eaten and gotten properly dressed for travel, Lone destroyed the house he had created with nature magic and resumed his journey to the Crimson Foxkin clan.

"Lone... who are our new enemies?" Sophie asked Lone while they were taking a quick break in a forest. Sophie could clearly remember what Lone had said when she had woken up in the early hours of the morning before she had fallen asleep again.

"Hmm? Oh, right. The entire Kingdom of Milindo, the Church of Light who seem to be followers of Astera and my old students from back on Earth. Nothing to worry about really," Lone explained in a nonchalant manner. Breena was left speechless by this and just decided to hum and collect twigs to distract herself from what Lone had just claimed. Sophie noticeably shook upon Lone mentioning his students.

"S-Students? From when you were a Teacher?" Sophie asked with a clear tremble in her voice. Lone's left eyebrow perked up at this.

"Yes, or so Gilbert told me," Lone simply answered. He was confused about Sophie's reaction to his previous students becoming his enemies. Lone didn't care particularily who wanted to harm him since they would all die in the end.

"D-Do any of them... m-mean anything to you?" Sophie timidly asked. Obviously, she was worried that Lone might have had lingering feelings for his students. Even if they were roughly ten years younger than Lone and common sense would tell most people that such a thing was impossible, due to Sophie's age, she didn't view one's age to be a large factor when it came to complex emotions. Not to mention that during the time of her mortality, relationships could happen at exceedingly young ages.

"What?" Lone blankly replied. Shortly afterwards, a look of realisation flashed through his eyes before he bopped Sophie on the head.

"Ow!" Sophie exclaimed. The last thing she was expecting was for Lone to playfully hit her. Was what she had said really that stupid?

"I know that look. Yes, yes it was stupid. Sophie, first things first. I love you. That will most likely never change, and I'm not the two-timing type. Secondly, I've already told you that I've never had feelings of thoughts about relationships before. You were the first, and hopefully the last," Lone said in an almost disappointed tone. He was disappointed at how little Sophie trusted him in this regard.

"It's-it's not that! I'm just worried that there's a girl who's better than me-" Sophie's words were cut off by yet another bop on the head. She held her head while tears grew at the corners of her eyes and she looked at Lone for pity.

"You're so stupid. Look, if a girl better than you exists, then she has a man who's better than me already. I don't care about anyone else really, least of all my students. True, I have lingering emotions from my time as a Teacher, but nothing to worry about, so again, stop being stupid," Lone said with a smile. Sophie nodded in response, and she suddenly felt like a knot had been loosened from within her heart. It still existed, but it was certainly less of a worry to Sophie now after Lone's words.

"Breena! Stop playing with those sticks. Break time's over. Time to continue onwards," Lone said which broke Breena out from her self-induced trance. As it turns out, sticks can be rather fascinating if stared at for extended periods of times.

The trio then marched forwards towards the Crimson Foxkin clan. Lone could quite clearly tell that they were still quite a few days travel away from their destination even if they were going at full speed, which they weren't. This obviously led Lone to be extremely bored along with Sophie. Breena was used to such travels due to her time with the previous Hero. In order to pass the time, Lone was regularly training in something or the other, and if not, he was playing with his glasses or flirting with Sophie which left Breena to feel awkward most of the time.

Their time continued like that for several days. At the end of each day, Lone would create a house for the four of them. Nothing of interest happened except Lone had noticed that Kyuubi was growing ever so slighting which only helped in affirming his suspicions of her age. However, aside from this, nothing had happened beyond the odd fight with weaker monsters like goblins or Direwolfs which Lone used as a method to help train Sophie in her swordsmanship. She was only using two very simple iron swords because she didn't have the strength to hold heavier ones for the meantime.

"Hmm? Hey, Sophie," Lone said with ample amount of curiosity in his voice. It would seem that something had caught his eye.

"What's wrong Lone?" Sophie had apparently assumed something to be amiss due to her slightly pessimistic personality. However, she was pleasantly surprised when Lone suddenly pointed at a clearing just past a set of bushes to their left.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but that looks like a ruin to me, no?" Lone said with excitement evident in his voice. Due to being a Teacher of history, things like ruins had naturally interested Lone for a long time, and now he was merely a hundred feet or so away from one.

"I think you're right, but what are we going to do about it?" Sophie asked in a childish fashion after she had spotted the mentioned ruins via heavily squinting her eyes. She was happy to see Lone so pleased for a change since most of the time a change to their circumstances upset him which in turn saddened her.

"Do you even have to ask? We're going to explore it of course!" Lone said as his own childish nature exploded from within him. Lone may be passive and cold at most times, but even he had points where immaturity would take hold of the reins and steer his decisions.

Breena merely sighed when she witnessed the attitude of her saviour. She couldn't stand the pink atmosphere that surrounded her companions most of the time so she honestly just wanted to return to her clan as soon as possible to regain some of her quickly waning sanity.