Lone held the blue mana orb curiously as he asked himself, "So, do I just will it like with the communication orb?"

Filling his mind with thoughts of triggering the sphere and funnelling its stored power into himself, Lone was pleasantly surprised to see that he was right. He was then immediately regretful of his very vague thoughts.

Energy flowed into him like a flood. His veins turned bright blue and glowed under his skin as they bulged, threatening to burst. His entire body cramped up and it took all of his strength to uncoil his fingers from the ball in his palm, saving himself from pulling even more MP into his body.

The mana orb clattered to the floor, startling Soph who was napping at his side on their bed. "What's happening?!" She jumped up in fear and looked around before noticing Lone's condition. "Lone! Are you okay?! I, uh, don't think veins are meant to be th-that blue! Why is there mana in them?!"

"I tried to use the mana orb," Lone explained briefly as his eyes unfocused. A blue screen had appeared before them.

Warning! The host has tried to force MP into their mana organs while their MP has been sealed by the Unique skill [Creation Magic]. The host is now able to use MP temporarily (for 4-minutes and 58-seconds) but doing so will greatly lengthen the seal duration. (Extension on seal duration will vary depending on how much MP the host uses and depending on what tier of spells the host casts.)

Lone scratched his head in mild frustration. "I guess bypassing unique skill restrictions isn't as easy of a thing to do as I'd hoped."

"Hmm?" Soph tilted her head to the side in confusion as she snuggled up to a few of Lone's black and blue-tipped tails. Hearing him speaking so calmly worked wonders on reducing her panic.

He smiled wryly and explained, "I can forcefully use MP but it'll lengthen the seal. Pretty pointless, really. I mean, I could use that to heal myself if I'm on death's doorstep but otherwise, waiting for the timer to expire would make more sense than forcing the issue."

Speaking of the seal duration timer, Lone summoned it since he wasn't quite sure how much longer he needed to wait until he could use magic once more.

Remaining duration of MP seal: 7,105 hours, 42-minutes and 29-seconds.

"So it's been almost 4-months already..." Lone muttered. He leaned down, resting his back on the bed and he then pulled Soph in for a hug. "I was in that castle's dungeons for quite a while, huh?"

Soph nodded as she buried her face in his chest and wrapped herself up in his fluffy limbs. "Mmm. I was asleep for just as long..."

"... We've both been through a lot," Lone mumbled. "Well, here's to a peaceful break to help unwind, huh?"

Soph smiled as she looked up into Lone's eyes. "Mmm! I'm happy. Hopefully, people here are kinder than in Milindo... I, uh, I know they don't respect humans much here but I'll behave as best as I can so I don't get mistreated like you did in that stupid kingdom!"

Lone had enough to worry about as it was already, Soph felt. Getting concerned over her wellbeing would just be one more problem to add to the list. If she could avoid that then she would.

His lack of sleep greatly weighed on her mind. If she was able to help him in any way whatsoever then doing so would be her top priority.

Lone raised an eyebrow as he felt the weight on his stomach increase by a decent amount. "Your adult form?"

Soph blushed as she felt her clothes tighten thanks to her bigger body size. "Let's, em, have some fun?"

"Haha, sure, let's," Lone answered as his friendly smile slowly turned carnal.

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The following morning Lone sighed as he got up. "3-hours and a light nightmare..."

He glanced down at Soph who lay at his side in her 20-year-old adult form, fully nude. Leaning down he kissed her head softly. "With you by my side at least I can get a bit of sleep, huh? Better than trying and failing repeatedly like in the dungeons... Love truly is wondrous..."

He gave Kyuubi a quick belly rub since she was snoozing in Soph's arm. He then went to have a bath.

Unexpectedly, the bathtubs in the Rusty Sprocket were steamforged tools. Not only did they have temperature regulating faucets like modern-Earth bathtubs but they also massaged the user while they relaxed in them. Truly innovative, Lone thought.

After drying himself and getting dressed he left his and Soph's room and knocked on the door to Breena's.

"Breena? Are you awake?" He wasn't so rude nor inconsiderate that he'd barge in with his spare key if he got no response. The teen could still be asleep or washing herself up, after all.

"Y-Yes," a muffled voice said from the other side of the copper door. With a series of clicks and clangs, it unlocked and swung open to reveal Breena in her adventurer gear - something she wasn't wholly comfortable wearing yet as evidenced by her fidgeting.

"Morning. Sleep well?" Lone asked with a smile. 'This girl needs affection. I've got no idea what it's like to be the sex slave of some perverted and twisted man like Daisuke, but it must have left its fair share of mental scars. My own experiences with torture has taught me that much. I have Soph but Breena thinks she has no one to confide in. She needs to learn that Soph and I are here for her.'

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Breena smiled awkwardly, clearly not used to expressing herself much. "Uh, y-yes? As well as anyone else, I think..."

"That's great. I was about to go and wake up Soph and have breakfast. I was wondering if you'd like to join... us... wait... Didn't you only have a single tail?" Lone asked as he noticed a second fluffy limb swinging behind the girl's hips.

"U-Um, it grew in last night..." Breena explained.

Lone smiled in pride. "Well, this is something to celebrate, no? A beastkin gaining an extra trait will strengthen their racial skill, after all. At least, that's what the books say."

Breena looked confused. "Um... wouldn't you, uh, know? G-Given that you have nine..."

"Huh? Oh, I was born like this. Yeah, that works. I was born this way," Lone said a bit half-heartedly. It felt freeing not needing to be too overly protective of his private information anymore now that he wasn't in immediate danger, that was for sure. "Anyway, your ability to freeform create illusions should be stronger now, right? You have unlocked your racial skill, haven't you?"

"Yes? I, uh, have a-and I suppose so," Breena answered meekly.

Lone sighed faintly. 'Poor thing. Beastkin traits only multiply after extremely harrowing or life-changing experiences according to my limited research and from my talks with Gilbert. I guess her time with Daisuke and then the escape here to Krieg Moor culminated in the change...'

"We've stood here for long enough; me in this hallway, you in that doorway. Let's go get Soph then some grub, huh?" Lone suggested. "After that, I plan to go to the local branch of The Adventurer's Guild and see what's happening. Maybe take on a quest or two."

"Yes, Mas-... Lone," Breena answered.

'That's the second time she's almost called me master. Once I could ignore as a mistake, but twice is the sign of a deep-rooted habit. Man, why is everyone fucked up in some way? I was never very good at dealing with troubled kids as a teacher... Fingers crossed I'm better at it now,' Lone thought optimistically as the two of them set off.

----------------------------------------

Soph glanced away from Breena's new tail as she reined in her desire to snuggle with the thing, instead focusing on Lone as she cuddled the snoozing Kyuubi. "So uh... why are we going to the guild?" she asked.

Pouting her lips she added, "I thought we were coming here to relax and plan... Adventuring is dangerous..." Scenes of Lone almost dying to both the Mana Silk Spider and the Blue Orc Chieftain filled her mind.

"I like adventuring, besides, not all quests are dangerous. A lot of normal people uninterested in power or uninvolved with monsters just need an extra hand to help lay bricks or whatever other menial tasks they need doing," Lone answered before a serious look entered his eyes. "Also, I don't ever want to repeat what happened in Milindo. More strength is needed for that."

He reached down and rubbed Soph's head as he smiled. "Don't forget that you have a new skill to test out and train as well," he said in reference to her newly unsealed unique skill, Unique Magic: Barrier Magic.

Soph frowned. "I hate it when you make sense but the end result is still you being in danger..."

"Haha, sorry about that, but yeah, for the first few weeks nothing dangerous or even related to monsters, 'kay?" Lone answered to which he got a hesitant nod of acknowledgement.

Before long, the three of them plus Kyuubi found themselves at the local guildhall and the building itself simply blew Lone away.

Much like the rest of the city, it was absolutely covered in mechanical bits and bobs which surely worked to do something useful but to Lone, it looked like nothing but a large piece of artwork. "I fuckin' love this city..."

He reinforced his backseat goal of learning what he could about the art of steamforging while they were here before he entered the building. Once inside, he headed for one of the reception desks.

'This place is a lot busier than Ranton's guildhall, that's for sure,' Lone thought as he noticed a lot of dwarves and a few other people of other species talking to employees or going through quest boards, most of whom had pickaxes on their backs, grime on their faces and a hardened look in their eyes. 'Miners? Makes sense. I imagine the Stone Dwarven culture requires a fuckton of metal and stone...'

Once the dwarf in front of Lone's group had successfully registered his quest and barged past them to presumably fulfil whatever it was he was now tasked with doing, the receptionist stared right into Lone's pupils.

It was a female dwarf but she had unnaturally icy eyes. "Ach. A fookin' non-dwarf... Gae us a second tae switch tae ma neutral accent an' vocabul'ry, aye?"

'Oh? They do that here? That's relieving. I thought she was upset that I'm not a dwarf for a petty and racist reason but it just turns out its the local policy in this guildhall to try to be more legible for those not used to the dwarven accent,' Lone thought. 'An understandable frustration to have to flip that mental switch. Trust only a dwarf though to voice it so frankly though, haha. I guess I won't mention how I can understand them perfectly as it does grate on the ears a bit.'

A few moments passed before the receptionist spoke again and said, "How can I help you today? I can see your plates but I don't see a quest form. Do you have a question for me, perhaps?"

"Yes, thank you. I'd just like to ask if there's any local etiquette that we should follow while we accept quests here," Lone explained. "This is our first time in a dwarven stronghold and we really like the place, so while we're here we don't want to step on any toes unnecessarily."

"That's a rare question," the receptionist said in surprise.

"I'm sure. A very near and dear friend of mine is a dwarf, you see. He's a real piece of work but he's a good man, so I want to respect his mother culture while I'm visiting his people," Lone said.

"Oh? Someone from the krieg?" she asked.

Lone shook his head. "I'm afraid not. I don't know where he's from exactly just that he isn't from Krieg Moor. He is a Stone Dwarf though."

"Shame. I know most everyone in this city thanks to my job. It would be nice to meet a top-sider dwarf. Rarely do they come back home after leaving unless they had a damned good reason to leave. Local... customs and whatnot," the lady sighed. "Anyway, adventurer etiquette, yeah?"

She pointed a thumb at the men with mining picks on their backs as she said, "Most jobs here are about that; mining. Don't take them. It's not viewed very well when an outsider 'steals' a job that a krieg-born should be doing. Apart from that, don't be too much of a pushover and you'll do fine."

"It's that simple?" Lone asked.

The woman shrugged. "We're not complicated people most of the time. People post quests to get shit done, do it and you're already a better adventurer than most other lazy idiots. Like I said, no mining and keep your back straight. That's all, sonny."

"Huh... Thank you," Lone replied with a smile. "I was also wondering what the minimum requirements were for forming an adventurer group?"

"Simple, that. You need at least five members and the leader has to be a silver plate at a minimum. All groups represent the guild, after all. Can't have some useless rabble relying on our organisation's power. Groups tend to get privileges in countries where the guild is widely accepted and welcomed on account of them usually being a bunch of reliable 'problem solvers', you see," the employee explained.

"Ah, that makes things a lot clearer, thank you." Lone nodded politely towards the woman then led Soph and Breena to the quest boards.

"Uh, I'll swap to Sophie. She's good at finding useful quests," Soph said before her attitude became cold. "What are we looking for, exactly? Stray cats stuck on pipes we assume since you wish for a relaxed experience," she teased.

"Heh, sure, that would work. Anything normal with at least a half-decent reward. Maybe something that would help us develop skills like building or hands-on assistance," Lone answered with a chuckle.

Sophie nodded curtly and then left his side to investigate the other boards.

Lone looked down at Breena and asked, "You don't seem comfortable."

He'd noticed her gaze flickered from the floor to the many adventurers in the hall with an anxious expression thus he raised the topic.

"... There are a lot of people here..." Breena mumbled back.

"You can return to the inn if you'd prefer. I'll happily escort you back once Sophie and I have chosen out a quest," Lone suggested.

Breena was tempted but she steeled herself and shook her head. "I... I need to get stronger too. Developing skills takes effort."

Lone smiled. "Well then, welcome to the team. Let's find a quest, shall we?"