Lone: The Wanderer

contemporary romance

Book 1: Chapter 6: Sophie's Powers and Sophie's Nickname

Lone spent the rest of the afternoon after the boar's attack on fixing their teepees. Well, more rebuilding them from scratch, if anything. The enraged animal had been ruthless to the poor stick constructs.

After he had finished doing that, he sat down on the beach and watched Sophie skilfully cut up the boar's hide as she avoided damaging the beast's meat.

'There's no way that we can eat all of that before it rots... Should I use one of my remaining powers to store it somehow? If I do, then I should make a skill that will be useful in the long-run as well... hmm...' Lone thought to himself.

A few moments passed before he realised something. 'Wait, I haven't even asked Sophie what abilities she has. I'm so stupid. Maybe she can preserve the boar somehow.'

"Hey, Sophie," Lone called out to the focused girl.

She turned her head and looked at him with a curious expression on her small face.

Smiling politely at her, Lone asked, "Do you mind telling me what powers you have? It might come in handy knowing what we're both capable of. Yknow, in case of another wild boar attack."

Sophie finished cutting up the piece of hide that she was holding, and she then put down the knife that Lone had made for her before she walked over to him and sat down.

That knife had been a real struggle to create with his Creation Magic. Less so creating it but more so creating it and not passing out from mental pains.

He knew next to nothing about metals, but it was thankfully small and shoddy enough to only drain two-thirds of his MP this time unlike his wooden spear.

"I can only use two of my powers..." Sophie said in a very low and upset voice.

Noticing her mood, Lone laid one of his many tails on her lap to let her squeeze it. She seemed to enjoy that, after all.

To no surprise, she immediately grabbed the fluffy limb and began wringing the life out of it with her iron grip.

"That's okay. Just tell me what you can and can't do, please," Lone replied in a very calm and soothing voice.

Of course, he was trying his best not to wince all the while. Fuck me where is this arm strength even coming from? Without Basic Regen I bet that tail would suffer permanent injuries.

He wasn't going to get upset at Sophie for this though, that would be beyond immature. He also had no plans to get mad if she couldn't use her powers properly or if she didn't own any of particular immediate use.

He looked at her and had an idea. "Why don't I go first? I have six powers. The Summoning Room, which I can put you in or out of at will. I'm not sure how useful this one is, to be honest, but it can keep you safe in a worst-case scenario."

Sophie's eyes trembled a little bit. "I don't like that place... It's dark and... lonely."

Dark? Is not everything dark for a blind person? Man, Im so curious how she can see without her eyes, he thought in passing.

"I'll make sure to never put you in there for too long, okay? Only if I really need to. I don't want to see you getting hurt or dying on me. I think thats fair, dont you? We don't know what or who is living on this island besides us," Lone clearly voiced his opinion.

"Mmm... I know. I trust you," Sophie smiled sweetly in response.

"Okay," Lone said before he continued explaining his skills, "I have this really useful ability called Creation Magic that you've already seen. It made my spear and your knife."

Sophie nodded and didn't say anything, so Lone listed his next skill. "The other two you've seen or aren't relevant. Basic Regeneration seems to heal my body automatically, and Growth Accelerator apparently lets me learn anything that isn't a unique skill like our powers are. There are a few other features in there but nothing super important."

Lone sighed and then added, "The final two are my species and the skill I used to kill the boar. I'm not sure why those stupid gods made me a foxkin. I used to be a human before coming here..."

Sophie quietly mumbled to herself, "I love your fluffiness... so it's not a bad thing..."

Lone pretended not to hear her before detailing his last ability. "Mental Destruction was used to kill that creature. It lets me destroy the mind and soul of anything a few ranks higher than me so long as it isn't immune to magic and I can only use it a limited amount of times per day based on my rank. For now, that means once a day. I need to feel threatened too."

"That seems really powerful..." Sophie said with a bit of an awed expression on her face.

"Yeah. I made it after you stabbed the boar. I also have more chances to create additional unique skills, but I'm not going to use them until I need to," Lone explained. "So, what about you? What powers do you have besides teleportation?"

"... The only other ability I can use is called 'Mana Sensing'. It lets me detect magic passively for no cost, but, apparently, even though I'm a Cosmos-ranked being whatever that is - its power is limited to my rank, which is the same as yours. At I-rank I can only sense magic within a 15-metre radius of myself," Sophie said as she cuddled Lone's tail tightly.

Ahhh the light shines through the rain! Thats why when she followed me at first through the treeline, she stayed no further than 15-metres away from me. Does it look like sonar or something, that Mana Sensing? Damn thats pretty cool, well, ignoring the tragedy of blindness, Lone thought, happy to have found an answer to his lingering question about how she saw.

Lone ignored the pain in his fluffy limb as he asked a less insensitive question than one regarding her eyes. "What do you mean, 'Cosmos-ranked being?'"

Sophie shook her head. "I don't know. It's what the blue messages told me I was back when I got most of my powers 600 years ago."

"Huh... I wonder if it's something special?" Lone held his chin in thought. So she killed God at about 400-years-old? The Templars werent active for that many centuries. Weird

"I dunno..." Sophie replied meekly.

"What about your other eight unique skills then? What are they and do you know how to get them back?" Lone questioned as he laid down and put his hands behind his head.

Sophie lightly nodded and then told Lone all about her other eight abilities. "My other powers are..."

She had a lot of interesting ones, but conversely, a couple of useless ones.

To list the ones Lone liked the sound of, they were; Void Walking, Immortality, Unique Magic: Barrier Magic, Phasing, Minor Time Control and Immunity To All Negative Effects.

Sophie actually didn't know what any of these powers did, because, according to her, she never once used them after gaining them, and now that they were sealed, she couldn't see their details via the system.

The uses of most of them were obvious from their names, but Lone could see how frustrating not being more knowledgeable about her powers made the small girl feel.

She clearly wanted to be helpful, of that, Lone had no doubts. However, according to her, not only were most of her powers sealed, she even had two useless ones; Body Manipulation and Armour Creation.

Sophie knew exactly what Body Manipulation did as that was one of her first skills and one she used regularly upon gaining immortality she had explained.

It allowed her to age her body by five or ten years and to swap between each form freely and without cost, but nothing else.

Lone had his doubts about that but nothing concrete just yet. Theres no fuckin way that skill is so simple. She could be a secret Gomu-Gomu fruit user for all I know. That would be both incredible and super helpful. We have to experiment with that at some point if we can.

Armour Creation was obviously a terrible skill since Lone had his Creation Magic which was essentially an upgraded version of it. Although, again, he wondered if it could be used in an inherently unique way to give it some value.

He rubbed Sophie's head gently since she seemed depressed after giving her explanation. "Don't worry about it. Most of your skills sound insanely powerful. You said you know how to unlock them, right?"

"Mmm. The system stated that I'll get one new power every time I rank up, which means one new power every time you rank up," Sophie said with a slightly more cheerful tone in her voice.

"Ranking up, huh? I wonder how that works... It probably has something to do with our levels, doesn't it?" Lone asked rhetorically as he looked at his status.

Status

Name:Lone ImmortusSex:Male Age:24Level:5 [+4] Species:FoxkinRank:I Race:Golden Foxkin HP:410/410 [+90]SP:2,100/2,100 [+100] MP:2,331/4,000 Basic Stats Strength:22 [+6]Vigour:210 [+10] Dexterity:53 [+15]Agility:61 [+21] Vitality:41 [+9]Luck:51 [+1] Bonus Stats Charm:71 [+1]Charisma:39 [+1] Magic Power:400

"Eh? I levelled up? I guess killing that boar didn't only give us some hide and meat..." Lone mumbled as he thoroughly inspected his status sheet. How in the name of Saint Peter does a boar have charm and charisma?

The thought of such a thing made him chuckle a bit. If there was any humour to be drawn from almost dying to an oversized pig with tusks, it was here, that was for sure.

"So, HP and SP are 100% linked to Vitality and Vigour respectively. Good to know definitively. I wonder why Magic Power was the only stat that didn't get any points... There's so much we still don't know about this system..." Lone's lack of knowledge annoyed him.

Sophie, who was sat next to him, let go of his tail and smiled. "Thanks, Lone. I feel better now. I-I'm sorry none of my powers are very useful right now... but I'll finish up preparing the boar and we can eat something better than coconuts soon, okay?"

"Sure, and don't worry about your powers. It's fine. I'll look after you. Also, don't look down on yourself, Soph, your skills don't define you as a person," Lone claimed as he got up and grabbed his spear, presumably to train in preparation for whatever was waiting and lurking within the shadows of the forest.

S-Soph? the girl mumbled in surprise. A nickname It feels nice.

Lone smiled to himself upon hearing that. Man, making kids happy is such a blessing. Well, she aint no kid but regardless, warm feelings, haha.

The hours quickly passed, and it was now sundown. Lone hadn't gained any skills but he did feel like his handling of the spear was far more accurate and deadly than before, which was a good improvement as far as he was concerned.

He had decided to, in the end, use one of his four remaining powers to create a storage space, much like his character from his online game used to have. freew(e)bnove(l)

Unique Skill: Dimensional Storage

A skill unique to the host, Lone Immortus.

Grants the host the ability to store things in a nigh-impossible to access pocket dimension.

Anything stored will be frozen in time and will not lose its temperature nor its quality.

Has no limit to how many things may be stored within it.

Cannot store sentient beings.

Cannot store anything intangible.

Cost:N/A Mastery:N/A

The host has three remaining soul slots.

And I wont fucking use any of them unless I absolutely have to. Just getting this skill already feels like a waste, Lones inner hoarder stated.

Still though, with this skill, he and Sophie could safely continue to eat the boar for a week or two without having to worry about food poisoning whatsoever.

It also alleviated any future troubles regarding luggage and their possessions.

Sophie had just finished cooking some of the boar meat when she called out to Lone. He sat down next to her at a small campfire the girl had made all by herself.

"Lone... I can sense a few creatures watching us from the forest. They're hiding behind the trees," Sophie suddenly told him in a hushed voice. "What do we do?"

"Are they humans?" Lone replied as he wrapped a tail around Sophie. She seemed to love his fluffy limbs and they helped keep her calm, so he had no issue covering her in one right now despite the obvious dangers.

"I don't know... They're really small... smaller than me," Sophie replied as she used one hand to eat while the other caressed Lone's fur.

"Let's finish eating. If they don't do anything by the time we're finished, I'll confront them. If things go badly, I'm going to unsummon you, okay? I know you don't like that place, but we have no choice," Lone ordered in a worried tone.

Sophie squeezed his tail and nodded her head reluctantly. "Okay."