"Did you really kill children?" Alisa asked.

You could hear a pin drop in the silence her question had generated.

All eyes in the room turned to her as if to say 'why, of all questions, did you open with that one?'

She shrank into her own shoulders as she mumbled, "What? He said we could ask whatever we wanted..."

"It's a fair question," Lone said. "Yes, I did. While I was imprisoned in Ranton, Sir Ardus - my warden and torturer - thought it would be fun to rape and murder demihuman children in front of me to harm me psychologically."

Everyone flinched upon hearing that. Clearly, it wasn't public knowledge.

Lone leaned further into his chair before staring at the ceiling. "I could see he was going to kill them anyway, and in probably as painfully of a way as possible. At the time, it seemed merciful to kill them instantly myself before he could do anything to them."

"At the time?" Scott asked, some anger in his tone.

Lone nodded. "Gilbert - that is, Guildmaster Elksworth - had convinced me that killing Sir Ardus would only get me in even more shit. I believed him. I had no reason not to. It's why I endured four months of torture."

He laughed sadly. "Turned out to be a fuckin' waste of patience. The king planned to execute me regardless of the fact I hadn't broken any laws, the public excuse being the deaths of those 43 innocent kids. I should've made that Ardus cuntbag's brains leak out of his face day one then just escape immediately."

"... Instead you had to go through all of that and then the guild dismantled the kingdom from the ground up anyway," Hazel commented.

"More Sloth from the Seven Deadly Sins dismantled the kingdom, but yeah, more or less. I plan to meet the princess-now-queen at some point. I need to know if Sir Ardus survived Sloth's purge. I also want reparations," Lone said with a cruel grin on his lips. "Anyway, next question. A less sombre one, if possible."

Alisa decided to follow up before anyone else could even posit their own queries. "Do you know if there's a way back home?"

Lone put his hand on his chin and tapped his lips thoughtfully. "Maybe. I don't really give a fuck about going back to Earth. I only ever missed Hazel, really, nothing else."

His sister looked both happy and saddened by that statement as her unique skill defeated his third lock, leaving him with only two more.

Alisa and Scott both almost jumped out of their seats.

"How?!"

"Really?!"

Lone raised an eyebrow. "You guys really wanna go back to that shithole? I guess you've got families. And I guess you don't have the power to live on Altros without looking over your shoulder at all times."

"It's not that bad," Emma complained.

"If I wanted to, I could kill all five of you in less than a second and I'm incredibly weak on a continental scale. There are things out there that could kill me in less than a second," Lone pointed out.

"Didn't guns exist in your world?" Emma asked. "The hero you killed... Die.... die something. I never liked him. He said that even a child could kill the strongest man in your world with a 'gun'. Children can't do that here, ergo, Altros is safer than Earth."

"That isn't how that works," Lone chuckled.

"Speaking of those!" Scott excitedly butted in. "Why haven't you made a gun with your Creation Magic?"

"One question at a time. Yes, guns existed, and yes, anyone could kill anyone with one, but you'd be punished for it pretty quickly and pretty easily, usually spending the rest of your life in prison. Try go and punish an X-ranker for wiping out a small kingdom in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. Go ahead. I'll wait," Lone challenged.

Emma scowled. "You're less handsome when you prove me wrong."

Lone chuckled. "Now, going back to Earth. I suspect I could do so instantly if I used one of my free skill slots, of which, I have two. I can use them to create a new unique skill, but the skill can't exist already. I'm not going to waste one of those potential life-savers on going back to a place that holds next-to-no meaning to me."

Lone could see Alisa and Scott wanting to interrupt him. Even Hazel appeared to have some misgivings with his words, but he ignored them and continued, "I have a feeling that some combination of Soph's Teleportation and Void Walking could lead her to Earth. There's also the possibility that a high enough mastery of summoning magic would allow you to reverse engineer the summoning process itself, but I dunno. I know fuck all about summoning magic."

He glanced at Alisa. "Hell, even your Rift Summoning could manage a return trip to Earth if you can get it under your control, learning how to direct the destination it brings you to."

That thought gave the short Polish girl some room for pause.

"Now, your question, Scott. I tried to make a gun. A few times, actually. I think it's possible, but I never had the MP for it. I knew fuck all about firearms and ammo. Hell, just making a blank book took me months of work. So yeah, doing it in one go would probably fuck me over royally like removing Soph's blindness did. I'll get back to you on that when my MP pool is much larger and I if I care to try again. A bullet wouldn't even be able to hurt an S-ranker, let alone kill them, so I see little point in wasting brain power on such an endeavour. Maybe enchanted bullets could be worth looking into," Lone said.

George nodded. "The average Vitality of an S-ranker makes most common weapons completely useless. You need the system boosts from passive skills and such at that point."

"What's your plan?" Hazel asked just as his fourth lock crumbled, leaving him with one. "You're technically a prisoner, aren't you? Why? Can't you just teleport away like in Milindo and go somewhere, anywhere else?"

"Well, unlike in Milindo, I actually committed a crime here," Lone explained. "I got caught. I wanted to see how the justice system of the dwarven kingdoms stacked up against Milindo's. I then earned militaristic enlistment as a punishment option instead of execution by injuring an X-ranker. Proved my strength and all that. Ended up getting sentenced to serve 27 years and change."

'Soph, come here for a sec? I can't tell the kids why I won't legally need to serve 27 years if I don't want the scripture magic on me acting up, so I'd love it if you could for me,' he requested.

Not a moment later, Soph appeared on his lap. She kissed him and said, "Sure, I don't mind. Lone can work off those 27 years. We're currently on a mission to kill a mass-murdering blood mage. If Lone succeeds, his sentence will be reduced by 50%. Each task cuts the remaining time by a percentage based on the difficulty of the task. Simple, right?"

She gave Lone another peck before teleporting away, presumably to go work on her Barrier Magic again.

"You... couldn't explain that yourself?" Hazel asked with disbelief all over her expression.

Lone smiled wryly. "Scripture magic. It's like contract magic but nastier. I told Soph through our telepathy before the scripture was placed on me so she can explain in my place. It's handy."

"I'd bet," Scott nodded. "What crime'd you commit then for execution to be the immediate go-to punishment?"

"Wait, wait, wait!" Alisa interrupted. "You injured an X-ranker? How?! You were a D-ranker until all of 30 minutes ago!"

"Again, one question at a time. Scott's first," Lone said.

Scott shot Alisa a triumphant look which only earned him a punch in the ribs.

"I learned steamforging. Both the craft and the skill for it. If you don't know what that is, it's basically technology but steam and magic-powered. It's cool as fuck." Lone reached into his Dimension Storage and retrieved the steamforged glasses Grimsley had gifted him so many months ago. "This is a steamforged artefact, as an example. Feel free to play around with them, but break 'em and you'll regret it. They mean a lot to me."

He handed the pair of spectacles to his sister who accepted them very gingerly.

As the kids started wearing and experimenting with the steamforged glasses, Lone addressed Alisa's question. "I injured an X-ranker thanks to a skill called Aura Pressure Resistance. It broke through expert rank under the X-ranker's aura and gained an effect that makes it multiply my stats based on the rank difference between me and whoever is blasting me with their aura. Using that with my racial skill, Tail Spear, I was able to leave a dent in the guy's chest."

The glasses had made their way to Hazel who returned them to Lone.

"So not all of your power comes from your unique skills?" Alisa asked.

Lone shook his head. "Not at all. Like I said, there are people out there who could squash me like a bug. My unique skills give me an edge for sure, but they don't make me invincible."

"How many skills do you have?" George questions. "I-I'm curious. You said your, uh, Growth Accelerator unique skill lets you learn skills almost instantly, right?"

Lone nodded. "I've got 113."

Something about the way the teens looked at him like he was both a monster and a god upon hearing his answer made Lone happy.

Yes, 113 was a monstrous amount of skills. He'd worked hard to earn and make those skills useful. Some appreciation was nice to see when Sophie only ever told him he was an addict.

"You really are addicted..." his sister muttered, putting a crack in his smug grin. "H-How have you even seen or heard of that many skills? The only skills I've ever seen that weren't unique are Emma's lightning magic ones."

Lone, now a bit deflated, shrugged. "To be fair, 29 of them are resistances and another 19 are weapon masteries, most of which I earned by having beings that owned said masteries attack me with their weapons or hit me with the afflictions the resistances, well, resist."

"That's such a fuckin' broken skill," Scott muttered.

"Any more questions or is it my turn now?" Lone asked.

Just as Hazel bashed against and destroyed his final lock, forcing him to boot up the mathematical second layer of thoughts, she asked, "You didn't answer me before. What're your plans after this? You told me about your sentence, but what comes after?"

"Nothing's set in stone," Lone replied. He smiled a little when he saw Hazel cringe upon hearing his second, louder layer of mathematical thoughts upon breaking his fifth mental lock. "Roughly though? I'll first head to the Crimson Foxkin Clan to return Breena to her people. After that, I dunno. I do want to go to Mystopolis at some point in my journey to study magic at The Academy. My plans are flexible and subject to change."

Scott laughed. "It's just called 'The Academy'? That's dumb."

Emma scoffed. "It's called that because it is The Academy. There are more powerful magical academies with stronger teachers, more amazing spells, and so on and so forth, but The Academy is so special because of its reputation. Every single student, of which they accept more than most magic schools do in several years combined, leaves with at least five magic skills at expert rank. That's literally unheard of anywhere else on the entire continent."

"Expert isn't that impressive," Scott countered, earning him a collective look. "Okay, maybe it is, but it's not master rank-"

"The point she was making was that every student leaves with that. Other schools are lucky to have students earn advanced skills after many years, even if they do have more master ranks popping up than The Academy on a purely statistical scale," Lone said. "Given my ability to level and rank up skills with ease, more is better in my books."

"Right... Fuck. Growth Accelerator is sooo broken," Scott grumbled.

"Now, my turn?" None of the kids shook their heads or asked him anything else, so it was finally time to get some answers. "Lovely. First, who summoned you?"

Alisa, Scott, and Hazel, all shared a look of uncertainty between themselves. After a few seconds, Hazel said, "We think it was the queen of Milindo."

"What?" Both George and Emma said at the same time.

"I thought she died in Sloth's purge," Emma said.

"You never told us you suspected her," George added.

"We didn't know you when we first met," Hazel said. "Would you have trusted us if we walked up to you guys and said 'hi, we think we got summoned by your queen, who's dead now, by the way. Help us look for this guy who has the same face as my brother, please'?"

Alisa nodded. "And it never came up during our journey, so, you know..."

Emma and George sighed but they ultimately agreed, deciding it wasn't too important right now, though Lone reckoned they'd talk more about this in private after he left.

"Why do you think and not know? And what do you mean she's dead? How'd she die?" Lone asked.

"She was dead when we appeared," Hazel explained. "She was clutching a knife and had four stab wounds in her chest. Four of us were summoned, so one wound per person. I have no idea how magic that can rip people from worlds apart works."

"Neither do I, sadly. Hopefully, that will change with time," Lone commented. "So who was the fourth?"

"Ben," Scott said. "Weasly little bastard left as soon as we reached Krieg Moor's gate. Guy seemed pretty keen on getting stronger, ranking up, eternal life, yadda yadda."

"Understandable," Lone replied as he closed his eyes to recall the boy being described. "I don't have a good impression of him. He was one of the ones that openly made fun of me if I'm remembering correctly. I suspect he was behind the slashing of my bike's tires too that one time. Never did get proof though."

"Small city with minimal security cameras," Scott shrugged. "Would you kill him if you ran into him again?"

Lone shook his head. "Nah. I don't give a fuck about him or what he did in the past. Darren and his problems are back on Earth, where he belonged. My problems are Lone's problems. When I said I wasn't Darren McCullen anymore, I meant it. At most, I care about the kid's unique skill. What was it, by the way?"

"It was just called Growth," Hazel explained. "It let him grow food for us when we were in the wasteland west of here."

Lone stroked his chin. "With such a simple name, I bet it could let him do way more than just grow some carrots and spuds. Oh well. Back to your summoning. You have any idea why the queen summoned you, assuming it was her?"

"None," Hazel said. "There was no note, no one to receive us, nothing. We just appeared, got our unique skills, then that was that."

Lone frowned. "Where were you summoned, exactly?"

Hazel cocked her head in confusion, not understanding the point of his question. She replied, "In an unused wing of the royal castle. Why?"

"Did no one stop you when you arrived? You weren't apprehended by any of the guards that lived through Sloth's purge? Nothing like that?" Lone asked.

"No," Alisa answered. "We should have, shouldn't we?" she questioned, realisation dawning on her face.

Lone nodded. "Four kids wearing clothes from Earth walking through the castle and then down into the city itself? For sure you should've been questioned."

"What're you gettin' at?" Scott asked. "You think us being here was, what, orchestrated or something?"

"Billions of humans on Earth and of the few the queen manages to summon, you all happen to be related to me in some way?" Lone asked rhetorically. "Needless to mention she somehow manages to summon not one hero, but four at once? Yeah, it's certainly possible it wasn't random."

George shuddered. "Who would have the power to do something like that?"

"Mess with how summoning heroes works on an intrinsic level?" Lone pondered aloud. "No clue. Could have been a demigod, a real god, maybe a divine-ranked being - not overly sure how capable those people are."

He didn't really believe any of that. One name came to his mind. 'Clicker. Too many weird things have happened when that guy... thing? Regardless, when he's been involved, dodgy shit has gone down. Sophie felt like he was significantly more powerful than Xer'rava the X-ranker, and he, it, whatever, claimed to have interfered before, so it's the best lead I've got right now.'

Lone sighed. He put his hands on his knees and propped himself up. "Well, that's my curiosity sated. Come. Let's have lunch then train. I'll help you all pick out your ideal weapons and armour. You're weak enough for that to be useful to you and not just a distraction."