"And then after that, he decided to take care of me," Ezekiel said while holding his cards. He then showed his hand and the two girls at the table groaned.

Ezekiel's little story had been going on for so long they had decided they had decided to start playing a card game in between it.

At first, they were playing some game Tibaut hadn't heard of (whether or not it existed in his previous world was anyone's guess). But soon after going on a 5+ game losing streak, he managed to convince them to play poker instead (at least what he could remember about the game anyway).

Tibaut sat there with his face pale.

("I can't even imagine going through something like that. Seeing your parents dead is one thing but in that state? How do you even move past that? Could I have moved past that? Would I have been able to convince myself I needed to get stronger after seeing something like that?")

Tibaut clenched his cards so hard that it would leave an imprint on them.

While he was lost in thought trying to put himself in Ezekiel's position he felt a flick on his forehead. He turned to see Tina looking quite annoyed.

"You're the one who started this game in the first, so don't go zoning out." She said to him.

"Oh, right" He played his cards and much to Ezekiel's distress he had a better hand.

He continued "Still I'm kinda surprised how casual you guys are after hearing that."

The girls shrugged their shoulders.

"It gets less shocking the more you hear it plus this bastard doesn't seem to care so why should we?" Tina said while drawing her cards.

Tibaut was at a loss for words. How could they brush past this so easily?

Ezekiel decided to speak.

"Man, it really isn't that bad," he stated. "I was barely four at the time so it was essentially a fever dream to me when the old man decided to tell me about it when I was older. 'Sides he's the one who has taken care of me since I was little, so the whole thing kinda just felt like hearing bad news about some distant relatives. Like it sucks but it's not like I knew them well enough to be sad about it."

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

"But," Tibaut tried to say but was cut off.

"Don't worry about it, I'm fine." He said with a smile on his face.

After he said this, Tibaut decided not to press any further.

"But still, this royal family sounds pretty ruthless."

"Eh, it only seems like they bother nobles most of the time so I'm not too concerned." He said as he shrugged his shoulders.

He then played his next hand and was shown he had drawn the worst hand out of the four of them. He clicked his tongue and looked outside.

"Well it's getting pretty late wouldn't you say."

"I guess I better head back home now," Tibaut responded.

"The hell are you talking about? It's time for dinner so let's put away the cards."

"You bastard, I can still win this!" One of the girls shouted to no avail.

They soon prepared and had dinner. Surprisingly Ezekiel did most of the heavy lifting and made everything except the salad and juice. After eating, Ezekiel convinced Tibaut to stay for the night.

"Do I really have to sleep in your room?"

"Don't worry I have an extra mattress you can sleep on," Ezekiel replied.

"No seriously, I'm alright sleeping on the couch."

"I'm telling you this is a pretty fine mattress (there's no way I'm leaving a man influenced by Vanessa unmonitored around the girls)"

"What was that last bit? Eh whatever I guess this isn't so bad, I wanted to ask you about something" Tibaut asked.

Ezekiel widened his eyes in curiosity and nodded as if to tell him to go ahead.

"Why did you become an adventurer? From what we talked about earlier you seemed pretty wild and were mostly by yourself."

Ezekiel looked at him with a surprised look.

"Isn't this quite the question though it's not surprising." He then rubbed his chin for a bit while thinking. "I suppose it's the funniest thing I can do, I guess?"

"Didn't you give that answer for your sword?"

"Yup, they're both fun. What's wrong with that? I mean I used to do some hunting before I became an adventurer. It was dull as hell."

"You, a hunter?" Tibaut asked.

"Yup, though I never bothered to be one of those hide-in-a-bush types. As soon as I got my prey targeted, I'd take them out as quickly as possible. It was honestly pretty boring."

"I suppose your magic would make it pretty easy once you got close."

"Well, to be honest, I did start to only use my knife a few weeks in but it was still pretty easy."

("Is this guy a challenge youtuber or something") Tibaut wondered.

"To be honest I felt pretty empty doing it. I'd get in work mode and just do my job without a second thought. It made me feel like someone's golem. Having to kill something that doesn't fight back much every day to make ends meet was pretty boring. So I decided to visit the old man and see if I had what it took to be an adventurer. And from me being here you can see the answer was yes."

"Huh, but is adventuring that much different?" Tibaut asked.

"At least I don't have to do it alone and the killing isn't every day."

"I see. Doing something with someone else is indeed better than being alone." Said the man who had been alone for the past four years.

They continued their conversation before going to sleep.