The evening was a most pleasant one, and for once, Kreig left his canvas for just a moment to take a gander at what his siblings were doing.

He might not have been much for books, but upon sitting down next to George and asking what his novel was about, Kreig couldn’t help but get sucked into the story as well. Stories back in the other world had always either been very simple or all too complex. It was either some simple knight-and-princess story or some sort of convoluted story about politics and betrayal. Kreig had neither time nor mind for either, so he let them slip his mind.

George’s story was, if George’s imaginative motions and expressions were to be trusted, much more interesting. Sure, it was somehow about politics, but it was interesting politics!

As far as Kreig could tell from George’s heated recounting of it, the novel was about a secret evil wizard’s rise to power beneath his master. Even though George was far from the end of the novel, he still didn’t hesitate to inform Kreig of the fact that the secret evil wizard would, at one point, murder his master. Kreig didn’t understand why he’d take the time to spoil the whole story like that, but if it made sense to George then it was probably a good idea.

Turning to his sister and leaving George to his reading, Kreig found her playing a different game than before, although equally absorbed. Unlike before, she was now running around with a sword, stabbing creatures Kreig couldn’t recognize and easily destroying the lot of them with a few well-placed swings.

The whole game seemed very complex, but since Sam hadn’t turned to him once he sat down next to her, he decided against talking to her and bringing her out of the story. He turned his attention to the game.

And now her character was fighting a very big creature. All the other creatures shed fought before were either smaller than her character or about the same size. This thing, on the other hand, was immense.

If her character was the size of a human, then the massive sword-wielding hound she now encountered was about the size of a regular drake. That is to say, absolutely massive.

And for the duration of about an hour all and all, Kreig was given a nice view of how his sister slowly grew more and more frustrated trying to kill the wolf. Every time her character died and returned to life, she got just a bit further in defeating the wolf. Chipping away just another centimetre of health, predicting more and more of its movements before they even happened. It was almost impressive, if the movements of the little character weren’t so basic.

And after about an hour of this, she gave up.

Huffing, she almost slammed the controller onto the coffee table before standing up and storming over to the sink, where she downed a full glass of water before returning.

Only after this brief interlude, after cooling her guts, was she able to defeat the wolf.

That fight was, despite everything, almost tense. If only because Kreig really wanted his seething sister to win. But she did win! And once she did, she leaned back with a deep, content sigh, sinking into the couch back first.

Happy with his observations, Kreig stood back up, noticing briefly how George gave a break to his novel to let his eyes follow him as he wandered back to his canvas. For a short moment, Kreig considered what he should draw. That moment passed quickly though when he recalled the thing he’d been staring at for an hour now: the sword-wielding wolf. And the character, of course.

So, drawing from his memory, he painted the fight. Just a single moment from it, with both parties locked in battle, blood and iron slashing the surroundings.

Once he was done and happy, he wasn’t actually sure what to do with it. It wasn’t as though he could hang it on the wall. The subject of the painting was almost completely irrelevant to everything he held dear, and he didn’t much care for either subject. With his own indifference in mind, he decided to gift it to his sister, who accepted it with expressive gratitude, only dampened slightly by her mental exhaustion from the fight itself.

Before Kreig could get back to painting, George quickly told him that if he ever wanted to read any of his novels, he was welcome to pick out any one of them. They would be in his room, a place Kreig shouldn’t hesitate to enter unless George was in it. Kreig gladly accepted the offer, though he’d save it for later.

With that, the evening concluded. Everybody was in bed before midnight, which allowed them a full night’s sleep to handle the sleepless night of yesterday.

The next day passed in much the same manner.

It was Friday, and before his tutor could arrive, Kreig spent his time carefully picking out a single novel from the bookshelf in George’s room. He felt guilty being in there when George wasn’t there, but he’d been specifically told to do so, making the situation more acceptable. The novel he picked out was called “The Collector,” and he only had two reasons for choosing it. Firstly, compared to all the other books it was much more beat up, which would suggest that George didn’t care for it. Secondly, it had a pretty butterfly on the cover. Kreig liked butterflies. They didn’t hurt nobody.

Sadly, he didn’t have time to so much as open the cover before the doorbell chimed.

Heart soaring with mild elation, he put the book on the kitchen table before opening the door. There she was, standing small and petite and lacking so much as a hint of fright. In the past days, she had slowly grown more comfortable around him, culminating at this moment where her eyes held only innocent curiosity. Kreig was happy to see it, and even more happy to experience it.

She smiled, stepped inside, and immediately let her eyes fall on the battered novel sitting atop the kitchen table. “Isn’t that the novel that inspired those two serial killers?”

Kreig bristled. It what?

After picking up the novel and reading the backside, she nodded slightly. “Yup, this is it. Are you reading it?” Kreig felt hot and ashamed under her gaze. “Good choice! I’ve heard it’s really good, though I’ve never read it myself. Yet.”

For all his age, Kreig could not understand the smirk that lingered on her lips as she placed the book back on the table.

Kreig hadn’t thought about it yet, but the realization that there were serial killers in this world as well made him somehow unhappy. Couldn’t they have stayed in the other world? Though, again, it did make sense, in a terribly horrible way. As long as he didn’t have to meet one, Kreig supposed he’d just not think about it too much.

The day continued at a steady pace, letting Kreig’s thoughts of human suffering leave his mind, instead focusing on silently and carefully studying the textbooks he’d been presented with.

Social science before lunch, history after it.

It was interesting. As much as he had thought he’d despise it, he found himself silently enraptured in the textbooks. He might have wanted to believe it was only because they presented a much-needed understanding of the world he’d left behind, but it was more so that he simply enjoyed the act of learning.

He always had.

To practice the sword is to learn. To survive a battle is to learn. To master an art is to learn.

This was just a more honest form of it. True, in a way. Little facts entered his mind, things about the world he enjoyed knowing. Peter had always been the more knowledgeable of the two, but in this moment, Kreig could truly understand what made it so enjoyable to simply learn.

Erica helped him, of course. He never asked for it. After 130 years of being told that asking for help would only reward you with betrayal, he stopped. He was supposed to know these things. Asking for help was to ask for humiliation.

Then, how kind it was for her to give it to him anyway.

As if she could read his mind, at times when he sat stuck rereading the same page over and over again, trying to make sense of words that didn’t seem to fit, she’d step up behind him, let her eyes graze over the page, before explaining each part. Sometimes she explained parts he already understood, but he didn’t stop her. As silly as it was, being helped felt good. It meant she cared, and that was all he could want.

So he listened to her talk and talk and explain and explain and in the end, he’d hesitantly ask her to clarify a single little part. Just to hear her talk a little more.

And she seemed to enjoy it, somehow.

So, the day passed. He made her lunch, studied history with a strange hunger, and learnt about people from days of old.

When she left, he had two hours before his siblings arrived. Or, rather, about one hour before his sister came home, with his brother coming an hour later. Until then, he prepared dinner.

But making dinner isn’t something that takes up the entirety of the time it takes to do it, no, there are plenty of moments of leisure where you only need to wait for various things to finish bubbling and boiling. In these small moments, Kreig picked up the novel. It was… Interesting. He supposed.

The part he liked most was that it gave him a true look into the life of a regular person. Or, as regular as Frederick could be. It was a strange read, but he enjoyed every page of it.

Two hours later, his siblings had both returned home, weary and fatigued, and dinner was served.

All sat around the table, they got to eating. Sam wasted no time complaining about her workday, talking about how Mr so-and-so was an incompetent ass and that officer Krupke was up her ass about this-and-that and how she’d had to travel out to the middle of the countryside to subjugate some low-level portal or another. At the mention of a portal, Kreig’s ears perked up.

Apparently, the portal itself was very low-levelled but since it wasn’t completely out in the countryside beyond human civilization like some, they had to subjugate it or it might harm the civil populace. Her rant continued for a few more minutes before George scratched his chin and remarked that since Kreig was technically a civilian, speaking about these matters was illegal with him in the room. Sam, in turn, developed a nice shade of white. Arms flailing and sweat beading, she implored Kreig to ignore everything he just heard. He accepted her words solemnly but decided against using a memory-wipe skill on himself since they probably don’t want him doing that at dinner.

A short silence befell the table. That was, until George spoke, his brow furrowed and eyes distant as if he’d been mulling the question for a while.

“...Say, Kreig,” he said. “What religion do you believe in?”