Lone: The Wanderer

Book 1: Chapter 13: Cooking Cartographer and New Encounter

Lone awoke to a heavy sensation on his body. Without even opening his eyes, he already knew the source of this unusual weight.

'Should I just make a king-sized bed instead of the planned two singles? I have a feeling she'll find a way to my tails no matter what I do so giving her the space to do so might be wise,' Lone thought with a sigh as he gently pushed Sophie off of himself.

Gently shaking her shoulders to wake her, Lone greeted the sleepy girl. "Good morning."

Rubbing her eyes with two of his tails still held within her arms, Sophie replied, "Good morning."

"You really like those, huh?" Lone commented with a wry smile. I could make you some plushies instead if youd prefer.

Sophie's cheeks flushed before she let go of the fluffy limbs and looked embarrassed. "Sorry... They're just really soft... I I cant help it Um, whats a plushie?"

Lone scratched his cheek. A toy? Its basically a stuffed animal thats soft and, well, plush.

Sophie scrunched up her brow. I-If Im bothering you, I can try I dont want you to w-waste your valuable MP though. I feel like Id ignore the toy I really cant overstate how soft your tails are Sorry.

Lone laughed a bit before he got up off of the treated boar fur that was acting as the duvet. "It's fine, I dont really mind I just wanted your thoughts and to know if this would be a recurring thing or not."

"Mmm," Sophie mumbled as she weakly nodded her head.

The pair soon left the half-built cabin after fixing their hair and shaking off their drowsiness. Thankfully, none of Lone's alarms had been triggered last night.

'That implies nothing saw the cabin, something saw it but was warded off by the spikes or string, or something saw it, bypassed it and investigated us while we slept. Hopefully the first option is the right one. I do wonder what the goblins that got away during our first encounter ended up doing though' Lone shook his head. it wasn't worth thinking about it any further for now.

Sophie tried to cook breakfast for the two of them using some of the boar meat after Lone took it out from his Dimensional Storage.

Sadly, much to his horror, it would seem that Sophie was even worse at cooking than his younger sister, Hazel was. A commendable feat of lacking skill, he thought.

"I'm really sorry!" Sophie exclaimed with tears pooling at the corners of her eyes.

Lone just sighed and smiled wryly. "It's my fault. I should have known that you can't cook since you didn't need to eat for almost 1,000 years. Im glad I let you try though. You cant learn without first trying."

"Still..." His words didnt seem to have relieved her much.

"Don't worry about it. We can do it together from now on. If we keep at it we might get a skill out of it," Lone suggested.

He then took some more meat out from his Dimensional Storage and a few herbs he had gathered yesterday.

As a person from modern Earth who lived by himself, he knew what a few edible plants that worked well as seasoning looked like. It sure was a blessing that the spice bottles had handy images of what they were made of on the labels.

It was also a blessing that this world, Altros, shared some of the same plant life as Earth.

Sophie watched Lone as he began making a meal for them and asked, "Lone, can't you use your Creation Magic to make food for us?"

"I tried that while you were sleeping yesterday. It uses up way too much MP, sadly. I might have been able to make some basic blankets for us had I not. Maybe after Ive gained enough Magic Power for my MP to reach a level where I can splurge on stuff. For now, I need to always maintain a certain amount of MP in case I need to create something mid-fight," Lone explained.

Sophie had an impressed look on her face. "Y-You can use Creation Magic while fighting?"

"I dunno," Lone shook his head. "But I think I can. I tried to create some simple items in less than a second yesterday, spools of string and the like. It worked, but it seems to use up more MP since I don't have a clear image in my mind."

"You're amazing..." Sophie absentmindedly muttered.

Lone grinned. "Says the 1,000-year-old woman who can teleport."

Sophie pouted and squeezed one of Lone's tails hard enough to make him wince. "I'm 971, not 1,000."

"Sorry, sorry, for fucks sake that hurts!" Lone cried out.

Congratulations! The host's passive skill [Physical Pain Resistance] has levelled up! It is now Intermediate Level 3.

Sophie promptly apologised for accidentally injuring Lone and she then affectionately showed her care for his fluffy limbs as he cooked their breakfast. All the while, instructing her of his every step in the process.

And, of course, once he was done, two system messages covered his vision.

The host has developed the passive skill: Cooking Mastery. fr(e)ewebn(o)vel

Passive Skill: Cooking Mastery A skill that makes cooking 5% easier and reduces the time needed for food items to cook by 5%. Cost:N/A Mastery:Beginner Level 1

"So there was a skill for it, huh?" Lone chuckled at the fact that his encouraging words for Sophie had quickly become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Hmm? Sophie quizzically looked at him while she dug into her herb-infused boar steak.

Lone smiled and waved dismissively. Its nothing.

She didnt seem to be a very confident person so letting her know of his success in spite of her failure didnt seem like the wisest of moves in his opinion.

After their meal, Lone got geared up in his newly-repaired survival gear and then helped Sophie into her boots.

With that done, they set out to explore the full size of the island. Lone's plan was quite simple in all honesty.

He didn't know how many goblins inhabited the island so he was going to walk around the entire place and create a rough map of its shoreline so he could get an estimate on their numbers based on the habitable land.

Of course, this would not be an accurate estimation. It was impossible for him to know the goblins breeding rates, life expectancy, living conditions, so on and so forth, however, this would, at the very least, give him and Sophie some idea of what they were up against.

After all, the units hed seen so far were made up of 6-10 members. With just that and the island's size, he could paint a picture with the help of his historical knowledge.

The host has developed the passive skill: Cartography.

Passive Skill: Cartography

A skill that makes map-drawing and copying 5% easier.

Any maps drawn by the host are 5% more easily understood by those who read them.

Cost:N/A Mastery:Beginner Level 1

Upon getting this skill Lones first thoughts were that not everything had the mastery tag slapped onto it even if it was passive.

The second was that he greatly appreciated the skill since artistry was never his strong field.

Congratulations! The host's passive skill [Cartography] has levelled up! It is now Beginner Level 2.

Congratulations! The host's passive skill [Cartography] has levelled up! It is now Beginner Level 3.

The pair of odd adventurers had almost returned to their campsite at this point, so Lone filled the rest of the maps drawn shoreline based on his existing knowledge. He then put it away in his Dimensional Storage.

Sophie noticed this and asked, "How big is this place? My feet don't hurt like they did when we went into the forest, so it must be pretty small, right?"

"Right you are," Lone praised, making Sophie smile. "Your feet hurt mostly because of the uneven terrain and the fact that you were wearing new boots, but you're still right that this place is small. I'd guess that it's no bigger than three miles from end to end."

"Miles?" Sophie tilted her head at this unfamiliar word.

Lone sighed mentally for forgetting that this measuring unit wasn't used by any of the countries that Sophie had lived in during those times.

He simplified by saying, "Roughly 482 of our cabins lined up from end to end if my maths is correct."

"Woah!" Sophie's eyes sparkled. "That's a lot of cabins!"

"It is, isn't it?" Lone casually replied. "By the way, Soph."

"Hmm?" Sophie looked at Lone.

"What would be your preferred weapon if you had to fight in close combat?" Lone asked seemingly out of nowhere though he had a reason for doing so.

Her Teleportation skill was absurdly powerful and it couldnt be underestimated. Despite that though, Lone felt it was smart to use his Growth Accelerator to determine her ideal weapon and give her one to train with.

The more options she had to defend herself and to attack with, the better.

"I trained with two short swords as a child all those years ago. It was just for fun more than anything else. My parents never expected me to be a warrior or anything. I've pretty much forgotten it all by now, but if I had to choose, it'd have to be that," Sophie said.

"Here," Lone abruptly said as he took two of the short swords he had claimed from the slain goblins out from his Dimensional Storage and handed them to her.

They looked almost brand new, which seemed to puzzle her.

Seeing that, Lone explained, "I spent my mana on repairing the daggers, swords and axes that we looted off of the goblins before we went to sleep last night. Repairing things seems to be far cheaper than out-right creating them."

"Oh... Thank you!" Sophie replied as she enthusiastically held her new weapons with affection.

"Try your best to get acquainted with them. You might need to use those swords in a minute. Worst case scenario, rely on your teleportation as a weapon," Lone suddenly ordered.

"Huh?" Sophie cocked her head adorably.

Lone took his wooden spear out of his Dimensional Storage and a serious look enveloped his expression. "I thought I could hear people. Now that I'm used to this body, my ears are actually quite sensitive. So while not as accurate as your mana sensing, it seems that I have more range... for now at least."

As soon as their cabin was back within their vision, both Lone and Sophie could see several figures carefully snooping around and inside of it. Lones spikes had been ignored and even his string trap didnt seem to have been triggered.

"They're not goblins... They have so much mana... Its Its so bright and verdant Lone, what are they?" Sophie asked, concern leaking out of her voice.

"Well." Lone tightened the grip on his spear before saying, "If Earth mythology proves to be accurate again, they appear to be some kind of elves."

"Elves?" Another unfamiliar term to her, it would seem.

"Yeah. Pointy ears, beautiful faces, most of them seem to have bows and arrows on them... They look really dirty though. Not exactly picture-perfect elves," Lone noted in a quiet voice.

"... Beautiful faces?" For some reason, this single piece of information had struck Sophie more than the other details he had listed.

"Yeah, though there are only men there. I have no clue if thats odd or not. Maybe their culture disallows women from being scouts," Lone commented. As a history teacher this all fascinated him, even if he was both scared and a bit anxious right now.

Abruptly, one of these elven men turned his head to where Lone and Sophie were slowly approaching them from.

"Shit," Lone muttered.

The elf looked alarmed. He drew his bow and yelled, "Who are you?!"

"What...?" Lone was so dumbstruck that he forgot to answer. "Did he just speak in English?"

Sophie was frightened, but also confused. "What's 'English'?"

"What?" Lone's mind was spinning. 'Is the world translating our words to each other or something?'

"I asked you who you are!" The elf's voice filled the beach once more.

At this point, his companions had joined his side and were also aiming their weapons towards Lone and Sophie.

'I guess I can save it for later. For now, I need to de-escalate this or prepare to fight...' he thought.

Ideally, Lone would like to make some friends on this island with the ever-present danger of the goblins.

However, he was more than willing to take drastic measures if these people proved to be hostile to him and Sophie.