Lone: The Wanderer

Book 1: Chapter 27: Hobgoblin and Synergistic Mages

Three days had passed since that long day of training his Bone Armour skill with Sophie.

During the first of those three days, Lone focused on using his mana to create a set of armour for Soph's teenaged body.

As the two of them had discovered with the help of Sophie acting as a test dummy, her teenaged body was the best one for using armour as well as the body her more violent and cold side felt the most comfortable in.

It was smaller than her adult form, but it still had enough strength to wear any armour without much effort.

Sophie still recalled how to use and move in the various equipment that Lone had made for her and Soph, so it was quickly discovered that she was, much like Soph, best suited for full-plate armour with a chainmail underlayer to protect her exposed joints.

This just reinforced the idea in his mind that they were the same person deep down. It would be wrong of him to not express his feelings towards Sophie as well as Soph, he felt.

Soph seemed inclined to agree when he brought it up though she was strangely obsessed with doing everything with him first.

Helping her into her new full-plate armour, Lone asked, "No more chafing?"

Sophie shook her head and stretched her limbs a bit. "No. You readjusted it perfectly. Good job. Maybe we should reward you for being such a good boy?"

Lone could imagine a coy smile on her lips. Unfortunately, he couldn't see it since he was stood behind her fastening her heavy boots on.

The two of them had gotten closer over the last three days since he had continued to focus on ranking his Bone Armour up during that time.

He wasn't satisfied with just gauntlets and boots, he wanted a full set. His Growth Accelerator seemed to agree with him. He also wanted to fix his relationship with the violent and seductive side of the girl.

While they had certainly grown more comfortable around one another, an invisible wall had formed between the two after he had offered her to bathe with him.

Regardless, Sophie was happy to oblige with his training. She was far more vicious after the 12 hour session and she didn't hold back at all.

Supposedly, she even earned the skills Short Sword Mastery and Dual-wielding Mastery yesterday evening.

Lone had to wonder if that was a fast or slow pace. Were it him, he'd have earned those skills in minutes, maybe an hour or two at most.

For her though, it had taken a total of about 40 hours of nearly non-stop training across the span of three days plus the initial long training session.

Was that normal for someone without Growth Accelerator? Was Sophie a very quick learner when compared to your average person? Was she a slow learner?

In Lones mind, this was definitely something to research once they reached some sort of town or city.

Regardless, he successfully upgraded his Bone Armour to the next rank, Advanced. What Sophie lacked in physical strength, she more than made up for in pure ability and ruthlessness.

Unique Subskill: Bone Armour

A subskill unique to the host, Lone Immortus.

Allows the host to use the unique skill [Basic Regeneration] to push the host's bones outside of their own body and use them as a weightless shield.

The strength of the bones will increase with mastery. The strength of the bones will also increase the more that they're broken and damaged.

The host can currently create a set of gauntlets, boots, [New!] armoured sleeves and [New!] greaves.

Cost:None to invoke (30-minute cooldown). Drains MP to recreate rapidly or to heal at varying speeds depending on the speed of the recreation or the severity of the damage being healed. Mastery:Advanced Level 1

He was wearing a reinforced steel chest plate and a full-face helmet to make up for what his Bone armour couldn't create yet.

Still, now, with this, he could level the skill without too much trouble via the goblins since it covered a good portion of his body.

Unfortunately, he couldn't cover his tails with steel armour since it was stupidly uncomfortable and even more so unwieldy.

It just felt like his tails had been dipped in tar. He couldnt move them at all, which, honestly, made a lot of sense.

Lone was just regretful that it was such a big distraction that it was genuinely a better idea to just let his tails be targets for attacks than to restrict them so heavily with armour.

"I dunno. I feel like you're the one who deserves a reward. I've been working you to the bone for the past few days, after all," Lone replied, ignoring Sophie likening him to a dog as he finished tightening her armour up and then got on his feet.

Sophie spun around and chuckled before she ran her gauntlet-covered fingers across his breastplate. "You haven't worked either of us to any bone, yet."

Lone nodded. "Yup. Far less attractive when we're both covered in armour. Also when I know you dont mean it. Maybe I should force you to wear that all of the time?"

He walked past her and headed towards the edge of his Illusionary Dome.

Sophie trotted alongside him and held her hands behind her back. "It is not fun if you do not blush nor get tongue-tied."

Lone smiled wryly. He took his steel swordspear out from his Dimensional Storage after he'd passed Sophie her swords.

"Are you sure you'll be fine fighting? I know you're better at it than Soph is, but I'm happy to let you stay here or in The Summoning Room if you'd rather avoid it," Lone offered.

Sophie shook her head. "We are perfectly fine. Soph is a blubbering mess in a fight and that won't be changing any time soon. She can only act when her life is on the line or if yours is. Admittedly, we have not ended anythings life in over 600 years, but we will be - as we said - fine."

"'Kay. I trust you," Lone replied as he stepped through the Illusionary Dome. "Since we're in this bulky armour, I doubt we can be sneaky like in the past excursions. Do you mind teleporting us a few times to get away from home a bit? Just in case there are any gobs nearby."

Sophie grinned under her helmet and sheathed one of her swords before linking her arm with Lone's.

A split-second later, they had teleported five times. They were now in the thick of the forest. Soph really is very talented with this skill of ours. To think its already reached Intermediate rank

Right, yeah, because just shy of three full weeks is quick for a rank up Man, I have a feeling she genuinely is talented though. How abnormal am I? Lone thought as he frowned.

He got his bearings though and whispered, "Thanks."

Sophie nodded and redrew her second sword.

They had wandered around for 15 minutes before they caught sight of a group of 20 goblins.

There were two goblins with staves who were probably mages of some sort as well as one of what Lone recognised to be the far larger race of goblin, a Hobgoblin.

They hadn't been spotted just yet since they had luckily ended up behind this massive group of monsters.

Sophie turned to look at the crouching Lone and asked, "Do we fight, or flee?"

Lone tightened his grip on his swordspear and thought to himself. 'With our armour, the normal gobs shouldn't be a problem... I'm a bit worried about that Hobgoblin's club though. Armour sucks against blunt force... The mages too, they might be a problem...'

"I want to fight," Lone admitted.

His blood was boiling. This would be a true test of his and Sophie's skills. Perhaps if it was Soph by his side he'd have immediately retreated.

However, it wasnt. Next to him was her second personality, Sophie. When it came to combat she seemed far more competent than her sweeter side so he felt more confident than usual.

"Okay." Sophie slowly got up and held Lone's arm. "What is the plan?"

"We need to get rid of the normal gobs first. They can't hurt us with our armour unless they're really lucky, but they'll get in the way. I want you to focus your attention on them. Don't kill them since you can't get exp from them but cripple them if you can. I'll finish them later," Lone ordered.

Sophie nodded. "And the big ugly one who looks a bit like you?"

"Fuck. You. Im gorgeous, Lone protested though he quickly gave her a serious response too. I'm gonna try to engage him in one-on-one combat. If he has no skills I can steal, I'll use Mental Destruction if he's too much to handle,"

"Greedy." Sophie grinned. "We like it. How about the mages?"

Lone frowned. "I'm hoping they're like the one Soph and I encountered not too long ago, the fireball one. If their spells take ages to chant, we'll be fine. We should have enough time to clean up before they're done. Let them hit me with their magic. If it looks like I'm dying, save me, okay?"

"Only if you kiss me when we're done," Sophie declared in a juvenile tone while still keeping her voice down.

Lone smiled underneath his helmet. "Turn into your adult form and get your far more likeable sides permission and I'll do almost anything you want."

Be careful what you promise, Lone. It may just come back to.. bite you. With that said, Sophie teleported herself and Lone right into the centre of the goblins' formation.

Confusion filled the faces of almost every monster there. Only the Hobgoblin seemed to understand that they had shown up out of nowhere and clearly werent presenting themselves as a free buffet.

However, before the rest of the goblins could properly react, Sophie spun like a hurricane and targetted the thighs of the regular goblins as well as their shoulders.

She wasn't as fast nor as accurate as she would have liked, Lone was sure. That was mostly due to her abysmal physical-based stats and thanks to how bulky her armour was.

Some of the goblins reacted in time and dodged her attacks, but in her initial flurry, she managed to cripple three of the normal monsters, leaving only 14 more to deal with.

On his way to the now enraged Hobgoblin, Lone didn't bother trying to evade or block the attacks from the other goblins at all.

He swung his swordspear wildly and lopped off two heads while skewering three more goblins, bringing their numbers down to nine.

The Hobgoblin was beyond furious upon seeing this. He roared powerfully, and in response, the terrified goblins that were still trying to penetrate Lone's armour retreated a bit before they sprinted towards Sophie.

Lone was a bit surprised that they hadn't done that already since she was a woman. 'Maybe they couldn't tell thanks to the armour so the hob reminded them? Ah, the mages are chanting too... Well, at least it's a one-on-one now.'

Without mercy or hesitation, the Hobgoblin brought its two-metre-long club over its head and then slammed it down towards Lone.

As much as he wanted to block that with his bone armour, Lone could instinctively tell that were he to try to endure that attack, his arms would be crushed without a doubt.

He'd be able to heal them after the fact, of course, but he wanted to save his mana points to fuel his Basic Regeneration when the mages finished their spells.

The Crude Fireball had come extremely close to cutting his life short. As much as he wanted new magics added to his repertoire, he wasnt going to die over it.

He leapt out of the way and barely avoided the devastating Hobgoblins attack. The creatures club got lodged into the earth and the monster was struggling a bit to remove it.

Lone took that opportunity to cut at the back of the thing's knees, restricting its movement. The Hobgoblin screamed in pain and abandoned its weapon.

Turning as quick as lightning, it moved with its hands to grab Lone's body.

'He's fuckin fast for his size,' Lone noted.

He stepped backwards and sliced down with the sword end of his weapon, severing the monster's hand.

A wail of pure anguish flowed out of the ugly beast's mouth as it gripped its now profusely bleeding wrist.

Lone smiled. 'I don't think it has any skills so I should be fine to kill it like this. The mages are taking their time though which is a good sign. Probably more crude magic and nothing amazing but magical beggars cant be magical choosers.'

As Lone was dealing with the Hobgoblin, Sophie had been utilising her Teleportation to flicker through the nine remaining healthy goblins.

A stab to the shoulder. A smack to the back of the head with the hilt of one of her swords. A trip into the air only to result in several broken bones after a long fall.

Sophie was, if described with a single word, ruthless.

By the time Lone had cut off the Hobgoblin's hand, all of the remaining goblins bar the mages had been incapacitated.

Sophie may have been inactive for centuries and her body was several times weaker than Lones, still, she had killed hundreds, if not thousands of soldiers of Christ. Dozens of which were members of the Knights Templar.

Some untrained, unskilled freaks of nature would never be her match.

She stayed still and simply observed Lone's fight with the Hobgoblin while dividing her attention between the downed goblins and the still-chanting mages.

'Em, you did really good, Sophie...' Unexpected praise filled her mind.

'Thank you, Soph. At least this way, we can help him. That is what you wish for, is it not? While we aren't as good at comforting him as you are, we can more than make up for it in battle,' Sophie replied.

'Y-Yeah!... I'm just sad that I can't be more useful...' Soph expressed.

Sophie shook her head. 'You are far more useful than we are, Soph. Do not sell yourself short simply because you struggle when it comes to fighting.'

Silence was her only response. Clearly, her meeker self either didnt agree or just didnt know what to say.

Perhaps a minute or two had passed before Lone finally managed to slay the lumbering Hobgoblin.

The mages were very nearly finished with their spells, so he wasted no time in slitting the throats of every one of the still breathing goblins.

This might have been seen as cruel by a more pacifistic soul, however, these monsters only had two goals as far as Lone was aware; kill all men, kidnap and breed all women.

His morals couldn't let him leave such vile monsters alive. This was not going to change unless some sort of miracle happened which revealed everything they were doing was for a better purpose other than self-preservation and propagation.

It didnt help the creatures that ending their lives directly increased both his and his companions strength.

Lone stood in front of the mages and simply waited while Sophie was just behind him, ready to teleport him out of danger at a second's notice.

The two mages were clearly quite scared given their constant shaking though they didnt stop chanting their magic.

Suddenly, and almost without warning, the left goblin had finished his spell. A massive ball of water appeared out of his magic circle and spun violently towards Lone.

Standing strong like a bulwark, Lone endured the pressure of the thing slamming into him and his armour.

It was far more painful than he had imagined it would be, but he was faring immensely better off than he did with the Crude Fireball from not long ago.

None of his armour broke, and he was ultimately fine if not a bit wet after the ball of water had collapsed onto the ground. What happened next, though, was truly surprising.

A tiny arch of black lightning was formed by the other mage and it slammed right into Lone and coursed through his water-soaked body and his metal chest plate and helmet.

"Urggg." Lone let out a strange-sounding grunt as he grit his teeth and felt his entire body jolt.

He could practically hear his rapidly beating heart that was barely enduring the electric discharge of energy that was destroying his nerves and stiffening his body up.

Sophie could see that Lone was in danger, but he didn't seem to be dying.

With that knowledge in hand, she teleported next to the Goblin Mages and slashed their thighs and shins, making escape impossible.

As an extra precaution, she reached into their disgusting mouths with her armoured hands and ripped their tongues out.

As expected by both Sophie and Lone, a few minutes passed before he was right as rain. He was a bit mentally exhausted and devoid of some MP though.

He put the mages out of their misery and smirked from underneath his helmet. "Totally worth it."

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