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Lone: The Wanderer
B1: Chapter 33: Post-talks and Ship Searching

B1: Chapter 33: Post-talks and Ship Searching

Lone stared out at the ocean while wearing nothing more than his boxers. The light of the moon shined down upon him with the stars and the expanse of space as its backdrop.

In his hand was a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice. He just stood there, silently listening to the sounds of the waves.

After a few more minutes of doing that, he pulled up his notification log.

The host has developed the passive skill [Sex Mastery].

Passive Skill: Sex Mastery

A skill earned only by those well versed in the arts of pleasure.

Makes the host passively 5% more attractive and boosts the host’s sexual prowess by 5%.

Cost: N/A Mastery: Beginner Level 1

He’d been rewarded for his efforts after his… encounter with Soph. The last thing Lone had expected, in truth, was the girl coming on to him so strongly.

‘It felt good,’ Lone thought. ‘The sex was nice, yeah, lots of passion. Being wanted though… fuck, never expected that to feel as good as it did.’

His mind then shifted back to his new skill. Would it work like most of his other skills in that it would cap out at a certain point if he stayed loyal to Soph?

Lone had no plans to betray the woman he loved but the thought of how skills worked at a finer level did intrigue him.

He honestly couldn’t care much for the new skill. It was almost insulting to him that he’d been given it, as if the system was laughing at him and saying he needed it.

Still, he did find it comforting knowing that Soph would now find him slightly more attractive and if they ever did it again, hopefully with him taking the lead, then he could please her more skilfully.

“Ah, here you are,” the cold and detached voice of Sophie’s voice stated.

Lone turned his head slightly and smiled at her. “Good evening.”

“To you too,” Sophie replied as she got up next to him.

She was wearing some pyjamas, and something about the way she looked just… glowed.

Lone didn’t know why but he felt so much more attracted to her now than he had before. It was as if she, too, had earned Sex Mastery but instead had it at an incredibly high rank.

“This isn’t the moment where you tell me you coerced Soph into seducing me, is it?” Lone asked with a worried chuckle.

Sophie scoffed. “We tried to tell her it was too soon, in truth. We may try to tempt you from time to time, yes, but we do it purely to fluster you.”

“Which never works since it’s just adorable given how bitchy you usually are,” Lone sighed.

“… We will work on that. Regardless, she made it painfully clear to us that she wanted to be physically connected to you. Your lust is plain to see when you gaze upon us as well,” she said, gesturing to her own body.

Lone smiled wryly. “Look, you’re really fuckin’ hot. You’re like a slightly shorter Lottie Moss but with a Russian accent, a nicer face, a nicer figure, and super long hair. Okay, so nothing like Lottie Moss except for the hair colour. Forgive me if my monkey brain goes ‘ooh ooh aah aah’ when you look like that.”

Sophie smirked. “Ah, no, we understand perfectly. You merely love Soph for her perfect body. How shallow of you.”

Lone rolled his eyes. “I am how I am. I do love her for her personality too though. She can be a bit immature and quick to say sorry at times but she’s really smart when she really applies herself.”

He smiled deeply. “Honestly, it’s surprising how nice she is to be around and to talk to when the only person she’s ever spoken to before is a callous and cold elderly woman who some might call heartless.”

“We will see who has their still-beating heart laying outside of their chest after insulting us with no grounds with which to stand on,” Sophie snapped.

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Lone laughed. “See? Charming, isn’t she?”

Sophie’s cheeks flushed red a bit. "We may be old when compared to someone barely out of the womb such as yourself, however, we are not elderly."

"Yet you're no longer immortal," Lone countered. "I wonder if you'll start ageing now."

"We have thought on this and concluded it is unlikely. We can die now, yes, but we think Body Manipulation will only allow us to maintain one of our three forms. Perhaps this grants immunity to ageing," Sophie explained.

Lone hadn’t considered that angle at all.

“That’s a really good point. I mean, the only real way to confirm would be to wait a few years to see if your forms grow in apparent age,” Lone suggested.

Sophie nodded. “That or if some skill exists that can inspect our vitals and then do so again in several years.”

“That or I can just regularly try to use Creation Magic on you,” Lone said.

“Indeed… Lone, how do you truly feel about Soph?” she asked suddenly.

“Why’re you asking? I mean, I love her,” Lone replied.

Sophie stared at the ocean and said, “As do we. You were her, and by extension, our first man. We have never given ourself to another and allowed such a connection to form before. Some have tried, but we pushed them away.”

“Want to talk about it?” Lone asked.

He could only assume that she was talking about the time before she had been captured. It made total sense to him that people would be attracted to her.

After all, she was absolutely gorgeous now, so she must have looked like a goddess to the commonfolk of the middle ages.

“No,” Sophie replied. “We hardly remember those encounters. Half we suspect were simply consumed by lust and the other half we think were trying to discreetly capture us and turn us over to the crusades, supposed witch that we were.”

She shook her head. “Regardless, our intent with bringing this up is that you have taken up responsibility for her. I will not allow another man to sully our body just as we will ensure you shall not sully another woman’s. You belong to Soph and only Soph.”

“And you,” Lone pointed out. “You’re two sides of the same coin. I belong to Sofia, which encompasses the two of you.”

Sophie smiled faintly. “Perhaps with time, we will come to love you as well. As it stands, we do not share Soph’s feelings. We do deeply cherish them and wish to protect them, but we have no desire to mimic them.”

She got up and walked around him before stopping in front of him.

Sophie then looked up into his golden eyes and powerfully proclaimed, “If you betray her or make her regret giving her and our purity to you, we will kill you. We know not how, but we will find a way.”

Lone pulled her in for a hug. “All I can say is that I plan to treat my relationship with both you and Soph as seriously as I possibly can. Don’t forget that I, too, lost my virginity tonight.”

Sophie teleported out of his arms. He noticed her face was reddening further as she said, “Not the both of us. Only Soph.”

And with that being said, the feeling around her shifted to that of the one Soph exuded.

She scratched her cheek bashfully and smiled sweetly. “Um… s-sorry about her. She really cares about me.”

“I’m glad she does,” Lone said as he walked over to her and put her hand in his. “I just hope she can come to care about me too eventually. I’m pretty sure I love all of you so I want all of you to love me back, haha.”

“I… I would like that,” Soph admitted. “Um, back to bed?”

Lone nodded. “Yeah, we could use some sleep before we go looking for that monster’s supposed ship.”

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“So it really isn’t here?” Lone asked Soph while the two of them walked around the ancient elven temple.

When they came here yesterday their entire objective was to kill every goblin they could find.

Hell, Sophie had done most of the work since she could quickly flick between walls and kill entire units by herself.

She had only left the Mage Goblins and hobgoblins to him for the stats and levels. Wiping out the goblins quickly mattered more to them than letting Lone kill every single one.

Because of that, they hadn’t really explored the place thoroughly.

Soph nodded. “Yeah. I’ve checked as well as my Mana Sensing will allow. There’s no ship here.”

Lone frowned. “Do you think Lal’roh lied to us?”

Soph replied, “No, I don’t think so. He really didn’t want Sophie to kill the the High Elf. Maybe it just isn’t here, or it’s been used for firewood or something? The goblins aren’t very smart.”

Lone nodded. “You’re right. Well, I’d really rather not make a ship from scratch. That could take me weeks even with my Creation Magic.”

“Should we just look around the whole island?” Soph suggested. “If it’s here, I bet it’s in a cove or something.”

Lone shrugged. “I don’t see why not. We could also use the time to clear out any straggler goblins we find. I’m happy leaving the fort to the women we rescued but if the goblins just catch them again… Yeah, I’d rather not think about that.”

Soph’s expression hardened. “Mmm, I agree.”

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It took them four days to find the ship. Thankfully, it still existed and was actually in decent shape.

The Goblin King clearly had enough IQ to see the value in keeping such a thing.

‘Shame it didn’t help him. I wonder what his plans for it were? Spread to another island or something when this place ran out of food?’ Lone thought.

Right now, he was alone working on repairing the ship while Sophie was busy training the Wood Elves at the fort to defend themselves.

They hadn’t run across a single goblin during their travels across the island but that didn’t mean that some hadn’t escaped their eyes.

There was also the threat of the elven camp. Even with the Goblin King’s demise, Lone didn’t feel comfortable returning the women to the people who had betrayed them and gave them up to such a monster just to save their own skins.

In better news though, his Cartography skill had levelled up.

Congratulations! The host’s passive skill [Cartography] has levelled up! It is now Beginner Level 4.

Congratulations! The host’s passive skill [Cartography] has levelled up! It is now Beginner Level 5.

Small improvements but improvements, nonetheless.

Lone wiped the sweat from his brow as he smiled. The ship was coming along nicely. His current plan with it was to do as much as he could with just his hands and then fix all of his mistakes with Creation Magic.

It would likely take a few days, but he felt it would be more worthwhile to do it this way rather than fix the entire thing right away with his unique skill.

After all, he could train Woodworking this way. Sophie needed time to finish up the elves’ crash course in sword handling too. He also had a feeling he may earn a new skill by doing it manually.

Only the coming days would prove if he was right or wrong.