308 To separate them
Outside the kindergarten, a young boy was leaning on the wall with folded arm. He checked the time on his phone. There were still ten minutes left. He sighed and closed his eyes.
“Uncleee~”
He opened his eye again after hearing a cheerful voice. A little kid was pulling his pants excitedly.
“Hi!”
Kairen unconsciously moved his hand to pat the kid. He ruffled Ariyan’s hair and smiled at him.
“How was your day?”
Grabbing the kid’s hand, Kairen started to walk toward their house.
“We played a lot! The teacher asked us to draw, and then we ate cake!”
“Oh, cake? Why cake all of a sudden?”
.....
“It was someone’s birthday! The cake was really delicious!”
They walked along the way while chattering. Their house was not too far away from the kindergarten, so they didn’t need to use a bus or taxi to go home.
“You celebrated that kid’s birthday?”
“Yeah! And there were a lot of presents too! They even gave us a present!”
“So you had fun!”
“Yeah!”
The kid jumped up and down while walking side by side with Kairen. They passed a park and entered their alley.
“Umm... did u-uncle R-Ron return home?”
Kairen couldn’t help but chuckle.
“Yes. He returned this morning.”
The kid had started addressing Aaron as ‘Uncle Ron’ at some point, but he still stuttered whenever he called him like that and flushed visibly. It was a cute sight no matter how much Kairen saw it.
“I-is he at home now?”
“Yes. He said he wanted to cook... for...”
Tap
Kairen couldn’t finish his words. He placed his hand on the wall and lowered his head. A rush of dizziness made his head spin and lose balance. His body limply hit the wall.
“Hah... Hah...”
“...Uncle?”
Ariyan worriedly squeezed his uncle’s hand as he called out for him. Kairen shook his head and straightened his body using the wall as a support. He patted the kid’s head once again.
“Let’s go...”
“Uncle...”
Pat Pat
Kairen grabbed Ariyan’s hand again and resumed walking, while still leaning on the wall. Ariyan sent glances at his uncle’s face from time to time but didn’t say anything at all.
‘This shit again!’
Kairen cursed inwardly.
‘I shouldn’t ve overdone it...’
How would he know that trying to bring his mana back and go back to normal would have more side effects than simply throwing up blood? Well, he could say that the dizziness and exhaustion he was feeling was a side effect of throwing up blood... as lack of blood was also dangerous.
But what else could he do? He was going nuts over his problem with his mana. It has already been two months since Aaron started working in SMF, and he had problems with his mana even before that. The fact that he could do nothing was making him crazy.
“Uncle Ron said he wanted to cook the lunch, so he stayed home today.”
“Ah!”
Ariyan gasped and looked up, his eyes started to sparkle.
“Delicious food!”
“Yeah, delicious food!”
“Hehe!”
The kid chuckled before letting go of Kairen’s hand and running towards their house which was visible from where they were.
“Gah! Stop! Kiddo!”
Kairen yelled from behind and hastened his steps. Fortunately, the house was not too far away and he could arrive at the door soon enough, though he arrived later than the kid.
As soon as he entered the house, the nice smell of the food his brother was cooking entered his nose. Despite the cold and snowy weather of the city, the house was warm and cozy. Kairen plopped down on a sofa to loosen up his fatigued body and calm his heart that was beating fast only because he had walked a little bit quicker. As soon as his butt successfully hit the sofa, a man’s nagging was heard.
“Don’t sit there! Go wash your hands and come here. Claire set the table!”
“Food! Food!”
“You too, Ariyan! Go wash your hands!”
Aaron shot furious glances at the two of them while ordering Claire to set the table. Kairen sighed and moved his body again to get up.
“Uh-”
BANG
Thump
Once again, the dizziness made him lose his balance, his knees gave out, and he fell down to the ground again with a loud thump, almost crashing with the table that was beside the sofa.
‘This damn dizziness-‘
He closed his eyes in fear of throwing up.
“Ren?”
“What happened?”
A few confused comments and some footsteps, and then someone knelt down beside him.
“Ren? Ren?”
“Mmm...”
“What the-”
Aaron grabbed his shoulders.
“What have you done when I was gone?”
“...Nothing.”
“You look like a corpse!”
“I don- Huuu-”
“Tsk!”
Kairen could feel someone pulling him up.
“Let’s go to your bed. You guys eat lunch without us.”
“Uncle-”
“Alright.”
Claire nodded her head and started to fill Ariyan’s plate while Aaron dragged Kairen away.
“Didn’t I tell you not to do anything stupid when I was gone for the mission?”
“....”
“Yet you go and do whatever you want without even thinking.”
“....”
“You smell like blood. Didn’t you say you don’t throw up anymore when casting spells?”
“....”
Kairen sat down on his bed. A cup of water was placed in his hands and his brother was staring at him with a fierce gaze.
“I... wanted to test something...”
.....
“Test what?”
“....”
Kairen sipped the water, which made him feel refreshed a little bit.
“My power.”
“...”
Aaron crossed his arms and sat down on the other end of the bed.
“What about your power.”
“Mmm... You know, you’ve seen how that holy sain’s power worked... His power was similar to mine a little bit... But he used it differently... His power looked like a mixture of my cracks and electric currents, but it was of course red... Huuu...”
Wasn’t the weather a little bit cold? The house was warm though a few minutes ago.
“Also... My power creates cracks that look kinda dull, but his power’s electric currents... looked dangerous. I can only use those cracks as a shield, but he attacked with them... So I thought... When I can’t use mana, then I’d at least test out to see if I could do the same thing he did...”
Kairen put the glass of water on the table as he was afraid that it might slip out of his hand and shatter.
“I thought a little bit, and there was something strange... My power is mixed with my mana a little bit. I mean, I can use it freely but only like some kind of raw power, or use it to cast spells... but when I use my mana I can mix them together... and those cracks are literally useless when I use it like mana...”
He had thought about it deep and hard. In the past two months that he had nothing to do but help out Glenn, he thought about his mana and his power a lot. The man was seriously strong, and if they faced him again, there was no saying what could happen. Though they weren’t able to find any clues of him anywhere, there was still no guarantee that he wouldn’t come after Kairen or Aaron again.
“So I tested if I could separate my mana from that power.”
“So?”
“I could do it to some extent...”
Kairen moved up his hand and opened his palm.
Bzzz
A small, thin, crack popped up on top of his palm. The cracks looked unusually shiny, and its surface was sizzling a little bit. The crack looked cute and harmless, but it was giving off a strange aura at the same time.
“Ugh-”
The crack disappeared as soon as Kairen closed his palm and groaned at the same time. His dizziness was back again and he had to clench the edge of the bed not to fall off.
“Hey!”
Aaron was quick to catch him and pull him back.
“But since then, I can use even less mana...”
He couldn’t even cast a single fireball. Also, his mana without that power mixed to it didn’t have the same destructive force as before, so he couldn’t rely on low-level spells like before anymore and had to cast more complicated spells that needed more mana... which was impossible for him right now.
“But the power alone has enough destructive force for me not to need to use my mana anymore... If I just can separate the two of them completely...”
Unlike before, using his power alone didn’t have a huge burden on his body now that he could use it separately from his mana.
“The power doesn’t have a big impact on my body... I wonder if it was the mana mixed with that power... that was making me suffer when I used my power before...”
His voice sank down. He put his head on his brother’s shoulder.
“...Why are you like this if that power isn’t dangerous for you anymore?”
“I... tried casting a spell that I... could cast with no problems before...”
“What then?”
“...I threw out blood... like... A lot...”
Until he fainted for half a day.
“When?”
“Ye...ster...day...”
His voice sank down even more.
“Ren?”
“Mmm...”
“Hey! How much blood did you- What the hell did you to yourself?”
“Mmmm...”
“I have to talk to that master of yours!”
Aaron’s angry voice made chills run down Kairen’s spine. He wanted to defend his master and say that captain Neal was not at fault, but he didn’t. He was scared.
“How did you go to work today when your body is like this?”
“...I was fine this morning...”
He slept in their staff break room all day anyway.
‘Please, let me faint. I don’t want to explain things to Ron right now.’
Kairen didn’t faint that day.
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