Mia reached over to one of the platters, carefully selecting a piece of roasted meat. She held it up with her chopsticks, turning to Ethan with a mischievous smile.
"Here, Ethan. Say 'ah.'"
Ethan frowned, leaning back slightly. "I'm good, thanks. I can feed myself."
Mia pouted dramatically, her voice softening in a way that felt far too intimate. "Come on, little brother. Don't be shy. Let me take care of you."
Before he could protest further, their mother, seated near the end of the table, chuckled warmly. "Let her, Ethan. Mia just wants to spoil you a little."
Ethan sighed, his resistance crumbling under his mother's encouraging gaze. Reluctantly, he leaned forward, opening his mouth slightly as Mia grinned triumphantly and gently fed him the bite of meat.
"See?" she said, her tone teasing but laced with satisfaction. "Doesn't that taste better when I feed you?"
Darius snorted, trying to hold back laughter. "Careful, Mia. You're going to scare him off before the Rite."
The other two brothers exchanged knowing glances, each offering their own dry jokes about Ethan's situation.
Ethan, despite the teasing and Mia's intensity, found himself relaxing slightly in their company. For all their quirks, this was his family now.
He was an avid reader of webnovels back at earth too, it was one of the few things he loves to do when not at work, but ever since he got transmigrated a little while ago he hasn't gotten the time to check out his system...
He still had many thing going on in his mind, with the exception of his recent memories of the original owner of this body, Claire's well-being was giving him a great deal of tension even though he acts cool on the outside.
He's yet to know whether when her soul trajectory was reversed she would be in earth, or for some unknown reasonin this world, Though it was all guess from what he knew so far, there should be a high chance that she's back on earth...
He didn't know how to feel as he was completely unsure of the end result of everything, if she was brought back to life by the system reversing her soul trajectory, there's still the apocalypse occuring in their world, with it taking everyone so suddenly, everyone unprepared when it happened, there's a high chance that majority of the inhabitants back at earth won't make it past the apocalypse, and she may or may not be part of the survivors, this uncertainty put him at unease, but even if she was somehow able to escape death by apocalypse, there's still Loki the God of mischief...
Ethan tried putting this at the back of his mind but each and every time it keeps resurfacing
---
Suddenly, sharp clearing of a throat silenced the room.
Everyone instinctively straightened in their chairs, the atmosphere shifting from lighthearted to serious in an instant.
Kaelen, the eldest, had been the one to signal the change. He leaned back in his chair, his gaze steady and pointed as he glanced toward the door.
From the hallway, the faint sound of footsteps echoed. They were deliberate, measured, and impossibly quiet for a man of his stature.
When Lord Gareth Drakethorne entered, the room felt colder.
He was a man who carried authority like a second skin. His presence alone was enough to command silence and respect. Dressed in a unique dark-blue coat lined with silver embroidery, he exuded both elegance and dominance. His sharp features were accentuated by a neatly trimmed beard, and his deep-set eyes glimmered with an intensity that bordered on intimidating.
Two male servants followed closely behind. One stepped forward, removing Gareth's heavy cape with practiced ease, while the other knelt, his hands outstretched. Gareth unhooked the Greatsword from his back—a weapon as imposing as the man himself—and placed it in the servant's hands with deliberate care.
"I didn't expect the dungeon raid to take so long," Gareth muttered, more to himself than to anyone in the room. His voice was deep and gravelly, filled with an innate charisma that demanded attention.
As he moved to the custom-made chair at the center of the table, the weight of his presence pressed down on everyone. Even Ethan, who was no stranger to authority in his past life, felt a chill run down his spine.
No one spoke. No one moved. The entire room seemed to hold its breath until Gareth sat down, his gaze sweeping across the table.
---
Ethan, feeling the full force of the patriarch's aura, thought to himself, It's no wonder this man became a legend.
This was the kind of person who shaped empires, the kind of man whose presence alone could change the atmosphere of an entire room.
As the silence stretched, Gareth's piercing gaze settled on Ethan, and for a moment, he felt like he was being weighed, measured, and judged all at once.
The tension in the room was palpable. And Ethan knew this was only the beginning.
The silence in the dining hall lingered as Lord Gareth Drakethorne took his seat at the head of the table. His piercing gaze swept over everyone present, lingering briefly on Ethan before moving on. Even with his gruff demeanor and commanding presence, there was an air of weariness about him tonight, like a predator that had just returned from a long hunt.
For a moment, he said nothing, allowing the weight of his presence to settle. When he finally spoke, his deep, gravelly voice filled the room, cutting through the silence like a blade.
"There's something strange happening in the dungeons," Gareth began, his tone calm yet laden with authority. "Something I've never encountered before in all my years of raiding."
Ethan felt a chill run down his spine as his father's words hung in the air. He wasn't the only one. The rest of the family sat straighter, their attention now fully fixed on the man at the head of the table.
The difficulty of some dungeons has started increasing," Gareth continued, his brow furrowed as though the very thought troubled him. "I've raided countless dungeons in my time, and I can read them like a book. Their energy flows, the patterns of their beasts, the way their terrain shifts. But recently…" He paused, letting the tension build. "Recently, that pattern has begun to change."
"Change how?" Kaelen, the eldest, asked, his voice steady but curious.