Chapter 119 - The Hospital

Kairen now knew why he was told to come to the hospital.

He was called here to act as a babysitter.

Kairen looked at the kid who was sleeping in his arms. He patted the kid's head and looked outside of the window.

The sky was dark. It was evening already.

Kaiten yawned and looked at the bed on his side. He looked at the man who was sleeping on the bed. He had been asleep for a few hours now.

Kairen was also tired. He wanted to go home and sleep but he couldn't do that. He had to take care of this kid.

Ariyan's both parents were sleeping. It was better to say that his mom was asleep and the dad was unconscious.

He too was sleeping in Kairen's arm while hugging him toughly. 

The kid finally fell asleep after crying for a few hours because of his father going SPLASH SPLASH.

Anyway, Kairen couldn't leave the kid alone and go take a nap.

"Sigh."

He sighed again and leaned against the back of his chair carefully and slowly so that the kid wouldn't wake up because of the movements.

'What a bizarre day.'

And such a day was coming to an end.

There were a lot of things that Kairen had to take care of. 

He had to find an explanation to give the team leader about why was he out of the building when the breakout happened.

He also had to find Alan, whom he had left in the teleportation center. 

Plus, he had now a lot of work to do because of what happened. A lot of extra work was coming his way.

But Kairen didn't want to think about any of those problems at the moment.

He was too tired to do that.

"Uh... Mmm..."

Kairen turned towards the bed after hearing the faint groans of a man. 

"...."

He could see Kain slowly opening his eyes.

"...."

Kain silently stared at the ceiling. After blankly looking at the ceiling, he looked down at his body.

"...."

Kain looked at his wounds one by one, before taking his eyes off of them and turning towards the window.

"...."

"...."

And he kept looking outside the window without even glancing at Kairen.

"...."

"...."

He kept looking outside the window without saying anything. 

The room was deadly silent.

'Did he not see me, or is he ignoring me on purpose?'

Kairen silently waited for Kain to say something. 

But that didn't happen even after waiting for 10 minutes.

"Nnng... splash splash...."

Ariyan mumbled some things in his sleep and pulled Kairen's shirt a bit more.

His voice was loud enough for Kain to hear. He hurriedly jerked his head towards the source of the sound.

"...."

What he saw his brother staring at him with a scray face while hugging his son and sitting in the darkest part of the room.

"What the- When did you come here?"

"Shhh!"

Kairen pressed his finger on his lips and pointed at the kid.

"Don't yell!"

Kairen pointed at the kid with furious eyes.

'Does this bastard even know what I went through till this son of his fell sleep?'

Kairen didn't say those things out loud, but Kain seemed to have understood everything.

"...Oh."

Kain looked between his son that was still going SPLASH SPLASH and Kairen's face. 

He started talking in a lower voice.

"When did you come? I didn't notice."

"I've been sitting here for three hours now."

"...Oh."

Kain looked away from Kairen and scratched his cheek. He then glanced at Ariyan. He looked at his son for a moment before looking back at Kairen.

"Alessia is asleep in another room."

"...Oh."

Kain nodded his head. He silently looked at Kairen from head to toe.

"What about you? You injured somewhere?"

"No."

"...Oh."

Kain nodded again and turned away. He raised his body and sat down, leaning against the bed. He pointed at the kid with his hand, then patted his bed mattress.

Kairen slowly got up and placed the kid on Kain's bed, putting his head in his father's lap.

"Umm... Unkle..."

Kain grabbed Ariyan's hands and separated them from Kairen's shirt. He covered the kid with the blanket and looked back at Kairen.

"So, what happened?" 

Kairen plopped down on his chair.

'Ah, my arms are numb.'

He leaned back on the chair and answered Kain's question.

"Everything was taken care of in less than an hour."

"What about the damage?"

"A big part of the city was destroyed. They said it will take quite a time to rebuild everything."

"...What about the losses?"

Kairen kept answering the questions in a nonchalant voice.

"Compared to the damage, the losses weren't too great. There were quite a lot of injured, but around 10 deaths in total."

"...Oh."

Kain softly stroked Aroyan's cheek.

"Why did such a thing happen? Were the barriers broken? Didn't the control devices work properly? Such a thing happening in the capital..."

Kain quietly mumbled those to himself. 

He wasn't the only one who was shocked. Probably everyone who got to know about the situation had such feelings and thoughts.

Kairen was new in this world, but he knew a little bit of stuff. He also knew that what happened today wasn't natural. 

No. It would be considered natural if it was a few hundreds of years ago, but not now.

A long time ago, when monsters first appeared in the world, people were all defenseless against them. They would be slaughtered and killed easily by a single low-level monster. The world went into great chaos after the first appearance of the monsters which was around 4000 years ago.

It was only after some time passed that people realized that they could use different powers. It was also around that time when Hainston Empire was founded by Emperor Reynold. 

Emperor Reynold, as described in history, was a kind-hearted man as well as a strong one.

At a time when the world was struggling to survive and no one cared about the other, he alone started to create an empire. 

He gathered powerful people, helped those with power to use them, and killed the monsters that were roaming around the continent little by little. 

He united the people on the continent, created a safe nation for them, thought people about the powers, and established a great force that could get rid of all of the monsters.

These factors made people's lives a lot safer and easier. 

Still, that didn't mean that the world was safe. 

Monsters would pop up out of nowhere no matter where you were even if you lived in Hainston Empire. So Even large cities weren't so safe. Small and big monsters would appear at random places at random times and attack people.

However, that was in the past. 

The story is for a long, very long time ago.

As time passed people learned how to use their powers efficiently. People had more knowledge and experience and could counter the monsters easier.

On the other hand, the appearance of the monster slowly decreased. As people lived on, it felt like the chaos slowly was subsiding.

Then, after a lot of hard work and research, people could finally find some clues about monsters. 

They still didn't know how and why they appeared, but they could find a pattern, something like an algorithm, for their appearance.

Using this new knowledge and their powers, they could create devices and gadgets to help them have a safer life.

Combining their powers and knowledge, the people created a system. 

Some barriers, devices installed everywhere, people that were always on alert. This was the system.

The system prevented any monsters from appearing in the city and it had been working completely fine since the first day that it was installed until now, which would be around 20 years.

The said system was a new invention and was really hard to use and control. That's why it was only used in big and important cities for now. Of course, there were other mechanisms that helped protect other cities as well, but none were as efficient as the newest invention.

But now, a huge group of monsters suddenly invaded the biggest city of the strongest country on the continent. 

Kain turned back to Kairen as if he was waiting for him to answer his question.

Kairen simply shrugged his shoulders.

"I know nothing. I was here the whole day."

"...Oh."

Kain looked down. He was silent for a moment before suddenly starting to talk.

"I'm sorry. It seems that I caused you a lot of problems."

"...."

Kairen silently glared at Kain. The man continued to talk.

"Are you sure you are not hurt? You look pale..."

Kairen frowned and glared at the man furiously.

The room was dark.

Kairen was too lazy to go and turn on the lamp so the room was getting darker and darker.

It was too dark that it was hard to even see each other's faces. 

And Kain was saying that Kairen looked pale.

"What bullshit are you saying now?"

"Eh?"

Kain flinched at those harsh words. He definitely didn't expect to get such a response.

"Is that the way you talk to your older brother? Huh?"

Kairen took a deep breath to calm himself down, but he wasn't successful.

"Yeah, that's exactly how I talk to a person who is even more stupid than me!"

Kairen was pissed. 

He was pissed by the situation he was in. 

He was pissed by all the things that happened and would happen to him in the future. 

He got even more pissed whenever he remembered that he was too scared to explain things to the team leader and was instead avoiding him.

And the thing that pissed him off the most was this person in front of his face. 

Kairen got angry simply by looking at that face. 

He was trying to control himself until now but Kain saying nonsense made him so annoyed that he completely forgot about controlling himself.

"What? Um, Kairen? Are you really fine-"

"Shut up, bastard! Stop asking if I'm fine or not when you look like a piece of chewed gum!"

"....."

Kain nervously looked around.

"I... Um... Did I do something wrong?"

Kairen raised his finger and pointed at Kain's face.

"Everything you do is wrong!"

"H-Hey! Come on! Why are you mad at me all of a sudden?"

"I get mad at whoever is more stupid than me!"

Kain nervously pulled the blanket and covered Ariyan even more.

"What have I done to be considered more stupid than you?"

Kairen moved his body and sat straight.

"The bastard who is playing the hero in front of a group of monsters isn't stupid at all! Yeah! Right!"

Kain blinked his eyes, bewildered.

"Playing the hero? I just wanted to protect my family!"

"You could've picked up your wife and sun and run away if you just wanted to protect your family instead of fighting the whole monsters."

"....."

Kain looked at Kairen with his mouth wide open.

"Since when..."

Kain pointed at Kairen.

"Since when have you become such a cowardly loser? My brother wasn't such a selfish person!"

"What? What did you just call me?"

Kain glared at Kairen with a serious face.

"You are telling me that I had to run away and let the people die? You are such a gutless fool!"

Kairen raised his clenched fist in the air.

"Yeah yeah. It would be better if we stood there and fought until the shit was beaten out of us! Yeah! So cool! So brave!"

"Y-you! Do you understand what the fuck you are saying?"

"Do you even understand what the fuck you do? Save your family if you want to save your family, shithead! You would be in heaven if the team leader and Reyan arrived a little bit late! Not only you but also your family would have been dead by now. THIS IS NOT HOW YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO SAVE YOUR FAMILY! Who cares if some stranger dies? Huh?"

"KAIREN!"

Kain looked at Kairen as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing, and Kairen looked at Kain as if he would really bit him up if he wasn't injured.

Just when Kairen opened his mouth again, they both heard a low murmur.

"Unn... Splash... fuck... Splash..."

"...."

"...."

The kid was tossing and turning while mumbling.

"Papa... Shithead..."

"...."

"...."

The two of them looked at each other.

"MM... Gutless..."

"...."

"...."

Kairen looked away from the kid and got up.

"I-I'll go tell the doctor that you are awake..."

Kain covered his mouth with his hand and silently mumbled.

"Please God, please. Make this kid forget about these words when he wakes up, or else my wife would kill me."

He closed his eyes and sincerely prayed.