TBE Chapter 55

  Ezekiel was waiting for the three spades that were awoken by the spell Tiny Servants to dig enough a deep grave where he could put in the three corpses. His feelings about the situation were beginning to overwhelm him like some sort of panic attack. He thought he could shrug off the act of killing people who would try to hurt him and his brothers but killing humans for the first time affected him deeply.

  He thought again of what would have happened if he allowed the three men to survive and in all of his speculations of different scenarios that could happen, the possibility of him and his brothers coming out from this situation well was not good.

  Ezekiel knew that he should not feel guilty. He did overhear the three men planning to kill him and his brothers once they found the healing potions on them. Norman Duvon even informed them that there were supposed to be two healing potions left. He knew that with time, he would be able to rationalize his actions and allow his conscience to accept the act.

  He also knew this would not be the last time he would be killing humans but Ezekiel vowed that he would limit himself even though this world was backward and wars and killings could be normal here.

  Ezekiel was a goody-two-shoes. Even in his DnD games, his characters' alignments were almost always Lawful Neutral and above. One of his worst behaviors that some of his online gamer friends scolded him for was when he was playing the computer game Skyrim, if one of the townspeople got killed by an enemy like a bandit, a vampire, or a dragon attack, he would feel guilty and there was a huge chance that he would restart his gameplay. That made him download a mod that made the villagers and townspeople immortal in the game. He just could not stand it when his favorite merchants like the blacksmith Adrianne Avenicci in Whiterun disappeared because she was killed by a vampire.

  When the grave was deep enough, he lowered the Tenser’s Floating Disk that was carrying the three corpses to the bottom of the grave and dispelled the disk.

  He thought of burning the three corpses using the Fire Bolt spell but decided against it and commanded the three spades to fill out the grave. Soon the only signs remaining of the three men was the disturbed mud in the forest and Ezekiel knew that after some time, even those signs would disappear.

  Ezekiel dispelled the Tiny Servant spell on the three spades and stored the tools in his 4th tab space then returned to the Galder’s Tower House. When he arrived there, he called Robert, and Luke and his brothers ran from the Wash Room upstairs and met him in the bedroom and hugged him.

  “Are the bad men gone?” Surprisingly, it was Luke who asked that question first.

  “They’re gone so let’s go back to sleep,” Ezekiel comforted his brothers.

  Ezekiel tucked his brothers in the bed and then told them that he would need to wash up first before sleeping so he went to the washroom and took a shower. He felt so dirty and knew that it was brought on by the guilt that he felt for killing those men.

  Soon, Robert and Luke were asleep but Ezekiel was still awake, contemplating the situation and the need to sometimes kill his fellowmen for protection. He was hoping that he did not develop post-traumatic stress disorder since he saw what the mental disease did to his uncle when he was a young child in the other world.

  Ezekiel wondered if the rich sick noble would send more men or if Norman Duvon would instigate the rich man to send more people to him. He wished that his killing of the three men would bring them more time since once they reached a huge city like Lonmere, the capital city of Delantan, they could lose themselves within the population.

  Stolen story; please report.

  He was hoping that the rich man would lose his patience with Norman Duvon since with the three men not returning, it would be a while before they would learn about the situation. Ezekiel didn’t believe that the rich noble would believe that he and his brothers killed the three men due to them being children and small ones in size due to malnutrition.

  He was hoping for a lot of things but Ezekiel knew that the best thing he could do was just to be vigilant. To be honest, his current problem was not truly a large one. The sick rich noble was just desperate but he knew that the noble probably did not one hundred percent believe in Norman Duvon’s claims about a magical health potion especially since the old man was the only one who saw the potion. Given time, Ezekiel believed that the problem would resolve itself.

  The next day, the three of them left the campground early after breakfast. Of course, Ezekiel made sure that there were no traces of any magic left in the area. During the first few hours, Robert and Luke stuck to him and were quiet but soon they returned to their active self and played around again.

  Ezekiel was glad of the resilience of the young. Even though they encountered a scary situation the night before, they got over it soon.

  The day passed without any issues. Ezekiel studied the two books that he had while the boys played. Soon, he believed that he would learn enough that he could create a lesson plan for both Robert and Luke.

  They stopped at a nice campground at four in the afternoon and after Ezekiel fed and watered Prince Charming, he busied himself completing his most recent woodwork project while the boys kept on playing after eating some snacks.

  After three hours, Ezekiel was glad to see that his project was almost complete. It only needed some finishing touches and it’s good to go. He would sell it but would not attach a high price on the item since its quality was much lesser compared to the finished products that he purchased from his system shopping site.

  Ezekiel cleaned up the kitchen and then went to the stable to clean it. He also fed and watered Prince Charming. He then went to the bedroom and took his brothers to the washroom so they could clean up and after that, they went and ate dinner.

  After dinner, Ezekiel made sure to cast all the spells needed to defend their house since they assisted him greatly in subduing the three attackers the night before the defensive spells were effective.

  The next day was basically the same as the day before but after lunch, they arrived at a large village which was as large as the last village where they stayed to sell some items. This time, Ezekiel decided to stay in this village for around two to three days since they needed a break from the road and the village had an actual inn.

  They went directly to the inn and asked the stable hand, who was probably older than Ezekiel’s body, to handle the cart and Prince Charming. He did tell his brother Robert to follow the stable hand since they did have a lot of things in their cart.

  The young stable worker did look very open and honest but he knew that one shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. Ezekiel and Luke then entered the inn. They stumbled upon a young woman who was about sixteen years old cleaning some of the things inside.

  “Hello miss. I would like to rent a room for two or three nights. Can I talk to the innkeeper?”

  “Oh! What a polite young man. Are your parents with you?”

  “No. Can you please call on the innkeeper?”

  Ezekiel showed an obvious mild impatience on the girl but the young woman just smiled and went inside to find the innkeeper. The innkeeper was a fat man but had a jovial smile on his face. He remembered one of his favorite fantasy books. One of the characters there said that one shouldn’t trust a non-fat innkeeper and that made Ezekiel smile.

  “My name is Rodrick and I’m the innkeeper here. Are you traveling alone?”

  “Yes. This is Luke and my other brother is with the cart and our donkey together with your stable helper. Our parents passed away and we’re now traveling to Lonmere since our relatives are there but I’m also a woodworker and merchant and an amateur butcher since I did butcher animals that we encountered in the forest.”

  “How capable! How many rooms do you want to rent? You said three nights right?” The innkeeper said while walking to a counter near the door.

  The innkeeper took a record notebook from somewhere and probably listed his name there.

  “Since me and my brothers are quite small, we will only rent one room as long as the bed is big enough for the three of us. My second brother is just a little bigger than Luke here.”

  “We have a room like that. It will cost you three silver for three nights and breakfast is included. You have to pay for lunch and dinner though.”