Tibaut put his hand on his forehead

"And why did you tell her that exactly?" He asked while stroking Lucky's head.

"Thing is, we haven't seen him for the last two seasons."

"Okay, so how does that equate to death?"

"The thing is, I think he's the first pet she ever had."

Tibaut looked at him expectantly for further information and Ezekiel obliged.

"Ya know, I thought it'd be better for her to accept it now than having misguided hope he was alive."

Upon hearing Tibaut's eyes widened. "Wow, Ezekiel, I didn't take you for a pessimist."

Ezekiel then took Lucky off of himself and insisted he explain to Tibaut why he did it.

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

Approximately 2 years ago

"Are you serious?" A somewhat shorter Elizabeth asked the man lying on the grass.

"Yep. We just gotta sit here and make sure they don't wander off too far." The man on the grass responded while looking quite comfortable.

"I've heard rumours that this place was where the dreams of adventurers die but I didn't know it was this bad."

The man looked at the clouds in the sky and responded to her. "Why does it matter if this place doesn't have any grand ruins or swarms of monsters? That's a good thing."

"Then how the hell are we supposed to move up our guilds if we have nothing to do here?" She responded with a hint of anger.

"So what, would you prefer the people here getting attacked every day so you can show off to HQ?"

Elizabeth looked insulted. "Wha-, now you're just putting words in my mouth. Whatever, it seems in both skill and attitude you're subpar. I shouldn't have expected much of the leader of the top guild from a parish like this." She said before storming off.

"Yeesh, she needs to learn how to roll the punches. I give her a year before she mellows out. 'Sides, the hell did she set up shop here if she wanted to move up the ranks. I tell ya man, these newcomers nowadays are getting odd."

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Ezekiel then closed his eyes and decided now was as good a time as any to take a nap.

However, in the next few moments, he would be awakened by a noticeable bang. Ezekiel decided he was gonna ignore it as he neither noticed the sound of flesh being torn apart near him nor the sound of the sheep crying.

Then it happened again. "Whatever," he thought, surely it wouldn't happen a third time. And it didn't. Instead, this time he heard the cry of a wolf.

He immediately got up. "Alright, what the hell is going on here." He said in an irritated tone before approaching the source of the sound. What he saw when he got there only further soured his mood.

Before his eyes was Elizabeth, who was surprisingly clean for someone who just massacred a pack of wolves. The wolves surrounding her could be grouped into two categories, lucky and unlucky. The lucky simply had a stab wound in their eyes that presumably exited their skulls. The unlucky ones on the other hand looked like they had shot with a howitzer.

The area between both their sets of legs had been completely blown away. Their ribs, internal organs and skin had been scattered across the field. Upon seeing this sight the only thing Ezekiel could do was sigh. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" He asked her in a surprisingly calm manner.

"There were wolves here and we're protecting sheep, what do you think I was doing?"

In response to that the only thing he could do was facepalm. He then asked her "Do you know anything about the local wolves?"

She didn't respond.

"Thing is, these guys are pretty passive." He then paused to look at the offal she had spread all over the grass. "In fact, I'm pretty sure I see the kids in town play with them sometimes." He said while looking disappointed.

She heard this information but did not react. However, her mind was in turmoil. "(Passive? What's he talking about? Obviously wolves eat sheep even a little kid would know that. He must still be annoyed at what I said earlier. Yeah that has to be it!)"

"They were near the sheep, what did you expect me to do?" She responded coldly.

"Let me ask you this, did it look like they were hunting anything? In fact, did they even attack you when you approached them? And besides you could have just run them away instead of butchering them."

Now that she thought back to it they only approached her when they saw her walking towards them. And even then the only one that looked ready to attack was the last alive in the pack. She thought the lack of resistance was just due to her swift movements, but was it just because they didn't expect it?

Her face started to turn. She tried to explain her actions but the words just wouldn't come out. In her heart, she knew was in the wrong. She looked like she was on the verge of tears while she was struggling to get a word out.

Then she saw it. She didn't know where it came from but a small pup was rubbing its head against the head of one of the wolves she'd blown the guts out of. She couldn't bear the sight so she turned away, however as if her legs were made of jelly she fell on her knees and started crying with her hands on her face.

What had she done? Why didn't she just shoo them away? Soon Ezekiel tried calming her down but she wouldn't budge. Right as she was beginning to stand up she felt an almost negligible amount of pain on her leg.

When she looked down it was the puppy desperately biting her leg. She fell to the ground embracing the puppy in hysterics. No matter how much she tried to straighten her face, the tears wouldn't stop and her arms wouldn't let go of the pup.