Exiled.
That was the word my father used, and he said it the way you'd tell a servant to take out the trash, completely unbothered by the fact that the trash in question was his own son.
"Gene Theosborne, from this moment, you are exiled from the royal family. Unless you fulfil the duty of gaining adventurer's experience and conquering enemy territories, you are not eligible for the throne."
The throne room was dead silent.
Every advisor, every court official, man in expensive robes who had watched me grow up doing absolutely nothing, they all just stood there nodding like this was the obvious conclusion to a very long story.
'Ten years,' I thought.
'Ten years of the perfect life and it ends like this.'
"What? You cannot do this to me. My brother had no prerequisites," I shouted.
"Your brother proved himself with his affinity." The king's eyes didn't even flicker.
"You have not."
'Oh, so that's how it is.'
I was not born here.
I had memories of another life entirely, on a planet called Earth, where I died doing something embarrassingly ordinary and woke up the next moment as a newborn prince in a fantasy kingdom.
And my first thought, once I was old enough to process what had happened, was not that I must become the greatest hero this world has ever seen.
It was, and I stand by this completely: never leave this palace.
Ten years.
Not a single monster fought, not a single dungeon entered, not even one adventure point earned.
I ate well, slept better, and let the world handle itself without me. It was, objectively, the correct strategy.
Until today.
I walked back to my room without another word, and Damon had the nerve to follow me.
My older brother.
Same face as mine but ten years older and ten times more self-satisfied, the golden child who trained every morning and earned his affinity at fourteen and never once let anyone forget it.
He knocked twice and came in without waiting, which told me exactly how seriously he was taking this.
"Come on, Gene. You know how father is. Spend one year out there, and he will calm down," he said, leaning on the doorframe like this was a conversation about changing bedrooms.
"Easy for you to say. You are not the one going."
"Can I at least bring a knight?"
"Father said it makes the journey too easy."
'Of course he did.'
"I will keep tabs on you," Damon added.
"If you are in real danger, I will send my men."
I looked at my capable, well-trained, magically gifted brother who was going to stay in this warm palace while I went outside to get killed by something with too many legs, and I thought several things I chose not to say.
"I need some time alone," I said instead.
He nodded and left, and I sat in the quiet, staring at the notification floating in my vision for exactly two years.
[Event Created: Explore the Depthless Cave and retrieve Excalibur]
[Reward: New Mana Affinity]
Two years I had looked at this and filed it under absolutely not and gone back to breakfast.
The cave was three weeks south, full of mid-tier monsters and whatever ancient nonsense decided a sword needed to be everyone's problem.
I had no affinity, no combat skills, and stats that would embarrass a farmhand.
Speaking of which.
[Name: Gene Theosborne]
[Level: 10]
[Strength: 2/100]
[Stamina: 15/100]
[Vitality: 10/100]
[Mana: 5/100]
[Intelligence: 50/100]
[Luck: 10/100]
[Skills: Bondage Mastery Lv. 9]
I stared at that for a long time.
Strength two, out of a hundred.
A decade in a royal palace with access to the best trainers in the kingdom, and I had the physical capability of a particularly motivated house cat.
And my one maxed skill, the one thing I had apparently spent ten years perfecting, was not swordsmanship but a sexual activity.
'Hey, system. Please tell me Bondage Mastery Lv. 9 does something useful in a cave full of monsters.'
[Bondage Mastery: Allows the user to restrain, immobilise, and completely incapacitate any target with exceptional efficiency.]
'...Any target?'
[Any target, Host.]
I sat with that information for a moment.
'That is actually not useless,' I thought, and for the first time since the throne room, something close to a plan started forming in the back of my head.
'Hey, system. Any way to max out my other stats quickly?'
[Yes, Host.]
[Obtain Excalibur.]
'That is literally where you are already sending me.'
[Correct.]
I closed the screen.
Mina came in around midnight, my maid, same age as me, short brown hair, wearing the stockings she knew I liked.
She reached back and unclasped her dress, letting it fall, then climbed onto the bed and settled into the position she knew I preferred, patient, waiting, already knowing how this went.
I picked up the rope from the bedpost.
She shivered before I even touched her.
I wound it slowly, deliberately, the way I always did, until she was exactly where I wanted her, completely still and mine.
Then my hand found her hair, and I grabbed a firm fistful as I pulled her head back just enough, and I leaned down close.
"Last night," I whispered.
She exhaled like the word had taken something out of her.
"Last night," she said back, and closed her eyes.
We spent it the way we always did, her completely at my mercy and neither of us complaining about the arrangement, and she fell asleep after, wrists freed, curled up and peaceful while I sat in the dark thinking about Strength: 2 and three weeks of open road and a cave full of things that wanted to kill me.
'I am going to die out there,' I thought.
Then I thought about my father's face. You have not.
'No,' I thought. 'I am going to come back and make this worth something.'
I lay down and slept.
Morning was cold, and nobody came.
No send-off, no carriage or word from my father or brother.
I put on the armour, picked up the sword I barely knew how to hold, and walked to the courtyard and stood there alone in the grey light like the universe's least prepared adventurer.
The windows of the palace were empty.
'Fine.'
Then I thought about [Bondage Mastery.]
'Actually,' I thought, adjusting the sword on my hip, 'let those monsters try. I'll fucking put them in their place'
'System, map the cave.'
A green line appeared in my vision, cutting south past the gates into the distance.
"Here I come," I said, and walked out before I could change my mind.