Sean looked around the forested area, confused for a couple moments. He thought Roge had said that the main area was plains, but he chuckles when he realized why it had so many trees. ‘He really needs to watch out for that…’ he thought to himself, exploring every nook and cranny he could. The kobold nest in the cave system didn’t look too bad, the lion smiling at all of the little lizards barking excitedly at him as he left. The ice cave looked rather imposing, especially with the ice drake casually sleeping on a pile of coins. ‘I wonder if Roge knows that they’re being kept here…’ he mused, moving on to the last section, the house.

  It was unfamiliar in its architecture, but looked cozy inside, the plush carpet feeling nice against his paws when he took his boots off. ‘Maybe this… isn’t so bad.’ He sank into one of the couches with a sigh, waiting on his friends to finish so he could return. He also needed to have that conversation with the dragon, now knowing more and more that he wasn’t going to be like the last hoarding dragon he’d met.

  ‘No one could be as bad as them…’

  ~~~

  It took a good five minutes for everyone to be seated, the restaurant owner practically fainting when the wolf had requested a table and everyone crowding around to look at them. Once they’d fended off their audience, the wolf finally relaxed, giving Hops, Marge, and Roge a smile. “Sorry about that. How… How should I start?”

  “Name would be nice,” Roge grunted, feeling just as uncomfortable with the ‘niceness’ of the people around them. “I’m Roge. This is Marge and Hops.”

  “My name’s Lore. Nice to meet you,” they said shyly, the wolf shifting as they tried to ignore the stares. “So… is it you that has the truth telling skill?”

  “Uh… no? Why would you assume that?” Roge asked, giving Marge and Hops confused looks.

  “We have a way of verifying your story without that,” Hops stated, nudging Roge. “Give him a bag of ash, please.”

  “Oh! Right.” Roge quickly collected ten units of the ash into one of his bigger bags before placing it on the table and sliding it over. “Put this in your inventory, and then pull up the problematic skill, please?”

  Lore did as was asked, looking a bit lost right until Roge grabbed the screen he’d summoned, the dragon kobold moving it around so Marge and Hops could look over it as well.

  “Jeez…” Roge said, feeling lightheaded at the implications of the skill. “And here I thought I was overpowered.” That made him pause, Roge frowning as he looked over the description. “But if you don’t want it, why doesn’t the system change it? It’s what it did for me.”

  “That’s… not how skills work Roge,” Hops stated, letting out a sigh. “Well I guess it is if someone severely doesn’t like a skill or ability. But generally, it’s given to fulfill a want or need the person has, and is rarely changed outside of it.” The elf then turned back to the pink wolf, giving them a frown. “What is the class called?”

  “[Jailbreaker]…” Lore mumbled, making Roge and his party members jerk up in alarm. “I… I got into a bit of trouble with my boss. She didn’t like how generous I was and so decided to give me a punishment. But… I was soon forgotten about. The only people I could talk to were the guards, so…”

  “You tried to manipulate them…” Roge muttered.

  “Pretty much. My class offers a physical means of escaping as well, but it didn’t work inside the jail. When I finally got to the surface… I thought the class would just go away or I could pick another one. But it just… keeps growing…” Lore looked ready to cry at that point, Roge standing up on his chair and offering his claw to hold.

  “It’s okay. We can help you with it.” Roge looked to Marge and Hops, the former looking skeptical, while the latter writing everything down as usual. “How did you want me to help you with your problem?”

  “You have [Static Mind], right?” Lore asked, Marge shifting uncomfortably as Roge just nodded. “Well, if I can bond with you, we could use your ability to interfere with my skill. Then, it wouldn’t work as long as I’m under your control.”

  “Is that… something you want? I’m not in the business of enslaving people for their own good unwillingly.”

  Lore looked off to the side, scratching their neck and giving Roge a weak smile. “I do better when I follow someone’s lead. It’s how I gained the [Familiar] class in the first place.” Roge jumped as Marge and Hops looked at the wolf in alarm, only Hops catching the dragon kobold’s confused expression.

  “It’s a very rare class,” Hops muttered, surprisingly not going for his book and seemingly trying to remember information off the top of his head. “The public knowledge is very bare bones, other than to contact the church if a child manifests it. But if I’m remembering right, it’s a pure follower class for mage-style classes and is a great boon for people who have the [Familiar] skill like I did. Otherwise, you have to bond to a magical animal, which is good, but not the best.”

  “You… had it?” Roge asked, frowning as Hops flinched slightly.

  “It’s since evolved into [Draconic Familiar],” the elf sighed. “It seems to draw power from our bond to power myself up.” Hops then sent over the screen he was talking about, Roge frowning at the wording.

  “And you haven’t mentioned this… why?” Roge asked, squeezing the wolf’s paw to make sure they knew Roge was still paying attention to them.

  “I’m still trying to acclimate to it and see if I want to try and change it,” Hops replied, fiddling with his book in nervousness. “It seems to take a lot from you, including me being able to use most of your [Screen Hoard] ability, so I wanted to talk to you about it first when we had time.” Roge almost interjected, but sighed instead as he realized that the elf *was* going to talk to him about it. ‘At least that’s a bit of a change…’

  “But going back to your class…” Hops pointed at the wolf, frowning for a second before they replied.

  “Lore.”

  “Lore, sorry,” Hops continued, giving the pink wolf a small smile. “Are you sure you want to tie yourself to someone like this just after meeting them? Someone you don’t know?”

  “Oh I know enough,” Lore huffed, holding up his fingers. “First, he can help keep my skill under control, which is more help than you could imagine. Second, he was disgusted by the rampant [Mind Magic] in the area, telling me he wouldn’t take advantage of things like that. And three, one I just learned, he’s a dragon that tries to hide that he’s a dragon.” Lore shrugged as he put his paw back down, grasping for Roge’s claw. “That points to him being a good person. And if he’s not, there are multiple ways to get out of a familiar contract, including keeping in clauses for bad breaches.”

  “You… may have a point,” Marge conceded, giving Roge a sarcastic smile that made him from back. “Roge is too much of a sap to abuse people like that. He even has us in his hoard, but tries to not take control if we don’t want it.”

  “Why would I?” Roge asked, scoffing as a sour taste entered his mouth. “I couldn’t live with myself if I hurt you guys like that.”

  “Then, if you don’t mind, I want to try creating a [Familiar Bond] with you,” Lore said excitedly, practically crushing Roge’s paw.

  “Hold on…” Roge muttered, pulling the [Infatuating Charisma] screen back and giving it a quick glance. “I might be able to help you without that. It might hurt a bit, but it would fix your problem without forcing you into a contract.”

  “Uh… Sure? But what kind of effect-“ Lore cut themselves off with a grunt as Roge pulled a gem out of the screen, the rank section ticking down from twenty three, to twenty two. The gem was a pink-purple color in the shape of a coin for some reason. When Roge flipped it over, the other side had what looked to be a winky face on it, making the dragon kobold shiver.

  “What was THAT?!” Lore screeched.

  “Did it hurt you too much?” Roge asked, looking over the wolf critically as he turned the screen around and pointed to the rank number.

  “You… it didn’t hurt too bad. But… you can STEAL ranks from a skill?!”

  Roge winced as the grip on his other claw became crushing, giving the wolf a small smile. “Skills, abilities, and classes. If you’re willing to endure it, I can rip that class right out of your [Status]. No bonding required. Then, once you get to know us, if you still want to bond, we can talk about it again. But I’d rather have your informed consent on something that might last a long while.”

  “Deal,” Lore growled, holding Roge’s claw with both of his paws and shaking it up and down.

  “First, though, I need to make some healing potions. I’m guessing taking the components of the class is going to take a lot out of you.” Roge sighed as he noticed the lacking materials for the tier one healing potion, instead making his system use the other emergency cauldron to start making the tier zero versions that he’d need to upgrade with coins. “Once we’re done, hopefully things will go back to normal. Though… we should probably get you out of the city before we fully deactivate it. Who know how much these people are going to remember…”

  ~~~

   Proton reported while they were heading out of the city, it taking significantly longer due to the many people who tried to harass the wolf. Roge hadn’t even noticed the butler having wandered off, sighing as yet another group of people had to be commanded off by Lore. They’d thought ahead of time, though, Roge using his [Royal Hoard] to make himself look like a lion while Hops and Marge went safely into his hoard. Thankfully, Roge’s lion form didn’t copy Sean’s exactly, which would make getting everyone back into the city easier if not a lot of people had seen them around Lore.

   Roge sent back to Proton, mentally checking off one reason why they’d gone to the northern city. Due to the abundance of [Ice Magic] in the air, they’d have an easier time finding a creature with the same ability, giving Roge more ice related treasures to increase his power with.

   Roge was only half paying attention to Proton’s words, as they’d finally reached one of the gates to the city. They’d tried to go for the southern gate at first, but quickly learned that the density of people was too high. Finally reaching the northern entrance, Lore shooed everyone away so they could have some privacy, Roge not liking the looks everyone was giving him. He especially didn’t like how he had to borrow some of Sean’s clothing, the fabric itching against his fur before he shifted back to his kobold form.

  “Here we go…” Roge muttered, bringing out the healing potions that had gotten made so he could upgrade them each to rank nine. He’d kept around the rank one healing petals for that reason, seeing no need to waste them even though he now was getting rank five versions. “Show me the class, abilities, and skills you want gone.”

  Roge paused as he looked through the rather odd class, looking up and giving Lore a raised eyebrow. “And you want *all* of this to go away?”

  “Yes. I don’t really need it and it puts a target on my back,” they explained, fiddling with their paws and not looking Roge in the eyes.

  Roge sighed as he pulled up all of the skill and ability screens, noticing that [Mind Magic], [Allure Manipulation], and [Infatuating Charisma] all were sitting at rank twenty four, with [Dimension Breaker] and [Dimensional Magic] both sitting at two. He suddenly thought of an explanation Hops had given him while he was recovering, mentioning that all of one’s skills and abilities had to be at twenty four before any of them could reach twenty five. It was why almost no one picked up a class after reaching level six, as their progress would be halted in all of their other classes until that new class hit the twenty four cap. Looking over Lore’s numbers, it made sense why they were like that, as having one of the skills constantly active, and thus ranking up the other two, they’d hit the cap pretty easily, while the other skill and ability wouldn’t get much attention.

  Roge looked back up at the wolf, his mind churning as he thought back to the Greed portal that had cropped up near Jadedwater. It had been the source of the draconic creatures that had been roaming the area, though none of the rumors they’d heard about its discovery mentioned how it had been made. “Where… where exactly did you break free from?” Roge asked carefully watching Lore’s face as they winced.

  “I… I used to serve Entitlement. But… they had me working for Greed for a while before my imprisonment.”

  Roge sighed at that, grimacing as he signaled for Hops to come back out. “Yeah… we need to discuss that…”