TBE Chapter 43

  Ezekiel closed his store and went home. When he arrived home, he fed and watered Prince Charming then cleaned up the donkey’s home using his Prestidigitation spell. He was so glad that the spell worked so fast since when he entered the house that was converted into Prince Charming’s stable, he had to hold his breath due to the smell of the donkey’s excrement.

  He then entered the dining room where Robert and Luke were already waiting for dinner although they didn’t seem to mind the wait since they were playing with their other toys. The Tiny Servants that were made out of the wooden blocks lay silent beside them since the spell already lapsed but curiously, Robert and Luke didn’t bother him while he was in the workshop.

  “Robert, Luke, why didn’t you guys go to the store to ask me to wake up your wooden friends?” Ezekiel asked his brothers.

  “You’re busy and we thought that they needed rest anyway so we let them sleep for a bit,” Robert said while Luke pointed at his wooden block toy and whispered, “Shoosh, he’s sleeping”.

  “Let me wake them later than before we go to sleep so they will look after you both while you're sleeping. Let’s eat dinner first,” Ezekiel then retrieved three of the plastic boxes that he prepared that contained their food and cold water.

  After dinner, he cleaned up the plastic boxes and the utensils that they used and stored them in his inventory. Then he cleaned up the boys and their clothes using Prestidigitation.

  “Tomorrow we will need to go to Mr. Duvon’s house so I can continue my reading and writing lessons. You can’t bring your wooden block toys since we still can’t let the villagers know that I can use magic,” Ezekiel told his brothers.

  “We can't?! But I’ve been telling everyone that you’ve been using magic,” Robert said looking worried.

  “You don’t need to worry too much Robert since nobody really believed you. But from now on you should avoid talking about magic,” He told his brothers.

  “Why?” Luke asked.

  “It’s because they will never understand and I’m thinking that the villagers wouldn’t approve of my magic and there’s a chance that because of it, they may drive us away from here. We can leave this place but I’m hoping that we can stay longer since we’re still too young and the road is no place for young people. Once I’m older and bigger, we can travel and look for a place that will accept us for who we are,” Ezekiel told his brothers.

  “I miss Mama and Papa,” Luke suddenly said then he started sobbing.

  Ezekiel knew that it would probably be a while before his brothers adjusted to the disappearance of their parents. It was such a big blow to them and when he disappeared for a long time, it further traumatized the kids. He went and hugged his brothers.

  “I’m sorry that they’re not here Luke and I miss them as well. But remember that we have magic now and because of that we can do anything we want. Let me wake up your wooden friends,” Ezekiel then cast Tiny Servants to the wooden blocks and the tiny servants sprouted arms and legs and stood up.

  Ezekiel then commanded the tiny servants to follow Robert and Luke’s command, and then the boys commanded the wooden blocks tiny servants to dance.

  After a few minutes, they transferred to the bedroom and he tucked his brothers in. Instead of telling them their bedtime story, the kids wanted to watch the wooden blocks dancing until they fell asleep.

  In a few days, Robert and Luke would be going to school and Ezekiel still hoped that they would not encounter any issues like bullying. At least, his snowy owl familiar Yuki Onna would keep an eye on them and even though the owl was going to be too far away from him to talk to him in real time, the familiar would still find a way to communicate with him if there’s an issue with his brothers in school.

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  They woke up early the next day and headed directly to Mr. Duvon’s house for Ezekiel's lessons. After several hours of lessons, while Robert and Luke were playing in Mr. Duvon’s courtyard, as usual, his teacher praised him again for learning his letters too fast. He was given an assignment which was to read a book. The book was about geography and apparently when it was penned by the author, it was made simply enough that young people could easily read it without any issue.

  Suddenly, Mr. Duvon said something that made Ezekiel doubt all the kindness his teacher had given him during the past few days.

  “I received news that a noble in the city of Penderton is severely sick. It’s a chance for you and your brothers to receive a tremendous amount of gold coins. You’ll want for nothing if you let that noble have one of your healing potions. You will still have one left since you mentioned that you have a total of three of them,” Mr. Duvon said.

  What amazed Ezekiel was the old teacher said it with a straight face and he couldn’t detect any sort of malice or shame in the old man’s expression. He was not truly a young man and Ezekiel was aware of what would probably happen if he declined. He was old enough to know that if he were going to receive a “tremendous” amount of coins, the old teacher, as a referrer, would probably receive a “tremendous” amount as well, and if he declined, someone, probably powerful mercenaries would come to their home and attack them searching for the potions.

  He could probably defend himself and his brothers from any regular mercenaries that would come to their home to attack them for the potions but that would make their lives chaotic. The only solution that he could think of was to just sell a couple of those Healing Elixirs for a lot of coins.

  The main problem was, if he let of go the supposedly two healing elixirs in his possession, would people believe that they were the only ones left or would they try to capture him and his brothers to torture them for more information about those potions?

  Right at that moment, Ezekiel knew that the best option that he had was just to sell the two healing elixirs and if trouble did come after that, he would handle that then. That meant that their peaceful days of waiting till they had grown up enough before they could leave this place were over. He would need to increase his level so he would have more power to defend himself and his two brothers from any trouble. That meant that he would need to dive deep into the forest again to fight fearsome animals so he could increase their level or maybe they could just begin traveling to other areas.

  They should be able to live on the road comfortably because of his spells and he could earn the coins that he would need by selling items from his system shopping site to the villages and towns along the way.

  After a couple of minutes, Ezekiel arrived at a decision.

  “Mr. Duvon can you give me a couple of days to think about it? My parents did leave those elixirs for me and my brothers and I already sacrificed one of them so I was really planning on saving the remaining two for Robert and Luke. I will probably sell them though since as you know, the boys would start school in a couple of days and I already paid their tuition but a lot of coins would make our lives easier.”

  “Of course, you can think about it. I just know that you will make the right decision since as everyone in the village already knows, you have a good head on your shoulders,” Mr. Duvon said while smiling at him.

  Ezekiel returned the smile but deep down inside, he was angry and sad. Angry that the villagers still wanted to take advantage of them and sad that he should have expected that the people there wouldn’t suddenly change and start treating them right. They allowed the previous owner of his body and his two brothers to suffer until they were almost dead, why would he think that suddenly they would care about them?

  Ezekiel called his brothers and told them that it was time for them to leave. After that, they headed to the village park just like before and ate lunch there even though he didn't have any appetite. He still tried to behave normally for his brothers and to satisfy his paranoia that Mr. Duvon might have someone following them to watch them.

  He knew that there was nothing like that but sometimes, paranoia didn’t conform to logic. While they were eating, Ezekiel thought of his decision to leave the village. He thought that it would probably be a good thing to find another location that was far enough away from here where they could live and grow up safely without the baggage of their history behind them.

  They probably would need to travel a long time to make sure that they truly leave this place and fast enough that no one could catch up to them. As of right then, there was still a chance for them to escape without too much trouble since a healing elixir was a very difficult thing to believe in. The only one who had truly seen the elixir was the old teacher and even though it was going to be the old man’s word against theirs if they were not present, there was a chance that the people would treat the old teacher as someone who so old that he became senile already, believing in some sort of magical potion.