Chapter 8 - My Father Can Be a Little Stupid
It had been six minutes since the test began. Carn waited patiently for the strange liquid surrounding him to drain, but as he observed the tense expressions on his father and the two researchers, a creeping suspicion told him something was wrong.
Tired of the farce, Carn decided to end it. He lightly knocked on the glass wall, pretending he couldn't hold his breath any longer, hoping to provoke a reaction.
But Han didn't flinch. His cold, unyielding gaze reminded Carn of the human hero who had once stormed the dungeon to slay him and his demon kin. The same determined eyes, the hardened expression, and the unmistakable killing intent were there, except that Han's clenched fist was trembling.
Was it anger?
Was it Fear or anxiousness?
Carn couldn't tell. But one thing was clear—he was done with this absurd test.
Gathering the residual Aether in his soul, Carn prepared to channel it into his fist. The plan was simple: break the glass and get out.
But then, something odd happened. The liquid around his fist darkened, turning a deep black.
'Huh?'
Carn's eyes narrowed. Whatever this dark energy was, it wasn't something he recognized—and it felt dangerous. Without waiting for his father or the researchers to stop the experiment, Carn threw his fist forward, unleashing all his strength in one decisive blow.
*CLANK*
The capsule's thick glass shattered with a violent crash, sending shards flying and splashing the green and black liquid across the clinic. Alarms blared as Carn stood amid the chaos, drenched but unfazed.
Rev and Eric scrambled in a panic, while Han simply stood there with his unreadable expression. Carn wiped the water from his face, glaring at his father.
"Enough games," he growled. "Now, what the hell is really going on?"
Meanwhile, Han's eyes locked on the darkened liquid pooling on the floor. He took a deep breath, then, with a cold resolve, pulled out his personal sidearm. The barrel pointed directly at Carn's forehead.
"You're not my son," Han's voice trembled, though his hand was steady. "Who are you?"
Carn's heart sank. Though this world was a different Earth, Han was still his biological father. He still respected and admired him, hoping to reconnect in some way. But now, being interrogated by this version of his father with a gun to his head left him feeling hollow, anxious, and deeply saddened.
"I'm still Carn, your son."
Han scoffed, pressing the muzzle harder against Carn's skin, his eyes fierce with betrayal. He yelled, "Bull-f*cking-sh*t! My son is an ordinary human! No mana, no abilities. You just used it in front of me! So answer me before I kill you, WHO ARE YOU?"
Carn bitterly smiled, swallowing the lump in his throat. His father's instincts were sharper than he anticipated. He quickly realized that the strange green and black liquid in the capsule had likely reacted to the residual Aether in his body, exposing him.
*VIIIIIIIII*
Suddenly, a sharp pain tore through Carn's skull as the searing headache returned, a side effect of using his Aether without a silver mark. His vision blurred, and blood began to trickle from his nose. He staggered back, nearly collapsing. Clutching his head, Carn groaned in agony, falling to the floor as his balance faltered.
Han hesitated. The sight of his son's distress triggered something deeper. His hand, still holding the gun, trembled as he watched Carn struggle.
Behind him, Rev and Eric glanced nervously at one another, unsure whether to intervene or remain silent.
Carn, now sitting on the floor, looked up at his father through blurred vision. He said while he struggled to breathe, "Is it wrong for me to change, father? Was it my fault that I learned something to protect myself from the bullies at school?"
Han's grip on the gun tightened as his hand began to tremble. His hardened expression cracked as tears welled up in his eyes. The sight of Carn, weakened and vulnerable, stirred a deeper pain in him. His son—his REAL son—was suffering, and here he was, holding a gun to his head.
Unable to bear it anymore, Han let out a choked breath and slowly lowered the gun. With a sharp, self-directed slap across his face, he switched on the safety and holstered his weapon. He fell to his knees before Carn, the weight of guilt pulling him down. Without hesitation, Han wrapped his arms around Carn, pulling him into a tight embrace, his chest heaving with regret.
"I'm so sorry, Carn. I'm so sorry!" Han's voice cracked as he whispered the words over and over again, his face buried in Carn's shoulder.
Carn, still reeling from the pain, didn't say anything. He could feel the warmth of his father's arms, the trembling sincerity of his apology. For a moment, the tension of the past few minutes dissolved. But the silence between them was heavy. Though Carn longed to reassure him, he couldn't shake the deep sadness that lingered, knowing how far apart they had grown in this world.
Han clung to Carn, his tears soaking into his son's shirt as if holding on tight enough could bridge the gap between who Carn once was and who he had become.
…
After the chaos subsided, the family sat in tense silence, face-to-face. Eric and Rev were busy cleaning up the mess and finishing the task Han had originally intended. Rev remained seated in his wheelchair, holding a freshly printed paper and X-ray film in his hands. He sighed in relief, though his expression remained hard as he shoved the documents into Han's hands.
The X-ray displayed nothing out of the ordinary—a normal human skeleton, the healthy frame of a teenager with no abnormalities.
"Congratulations, Han. Your son's a human," Rev said with biting sarcasm, still upset over Han's earlier outburst. He gestured to the blood test results. "But there's something interesting here. He's got a hint of mana circulating in his blood. Normally, people who've had bone marrow augmentations produce a few mana cells a day, but 10% of this kid's red blood cells carry mana. He's natural."
Han's face tightened with guilt, the bitter truth settling in. He had overreacted, and now he couldn't bring himself to look Carn in the eyes. His shame kept him silent as he stared at the results, unsure how to begin apologizing. The words seemed stuck in his throat.
Rev wheeled himself toward the corner of the room, heading straight for his favorite coffee machine. Stress and anger still simmered beneath his calm exterior. He absentmindedly pulled out a lighter and nearly lit the unlit cigarette hanging from his lips. Just before sparking the flame, he realized what he was doing. Grumbling, he tossed the lighter away in frustration, knowing the no-smoking policy in the infirmary.
He turned back to Han in frustration, "I know your instincts are sharp, but sometimes you need to apply some LOGIC! If your son were a doppelgänger, your entire family and half the state would be long dead. Think before pulling a gun on your own kid!"
Han flinched at the harsh words, unable to defend himself. He glanced at Carn, searching for something to say, but the damage was done.
Meanwhile, Carn seemed unfazed by the earlier incident. Since no one was harmed, he quickly brushed it off and shifted his focus to something more intriguing.
"What exactly is mana?" Carn asked, breaking the silence and directing his question at everyone.
Eric raised an eyebrow in surprise. "You seriously don't know what mana is?"
"This is the first time I've heard the term," Carn smiled, but he was excited about the new prospect. He wondered if this world's mana might be similar to Aether from the other world.
Rev, noticing the emotional wreckage on Han's face and figuring that Han wasn't in a position to do so, decided to step in and explain.
"Mana is a chemical substance that exists on the other side of the dimensional rift. Only explorers and government agents who've been to that other side carry traces of it in their bodies. For most people, it dissolves quickly and comes out with urine. But in rare cases, some returnees... mutate. You know, they became supermen." Rev pointed at Carn, gesturing at what might have happened to him.
Carn's grin widened. This was getting interesting. He asked, eager to know more about this world's power structure. "How many 'supermen' are we talking about? How many of them exist?"
Rev scoffed, "At least a thousand in our country. Most of them are locked away in special prisons, or they work for the government."
Carn raised an eyebrow. "Why's that? What about the ones who try to live like regular civilians?"
Eric and Rev exchanged knowing glances before both shot disapproving looks at Han as if blaming him for not educating his son on such a crucial subject.
Rev continued, "No civilian is allowed to possess mana, kid. The reason it's tough to stay a civilian is that having mana makes you a walking weapon. First, you'd have to pass the Spiritual Aptitude Test, SAT for short, to get into the Special Education Program. After that, there's a five-year government contract where you're trained to handle mana and given permission to modify your body—called an Augmentation License. Even then, you've got to go through two years of real combat training before you earn an Explorer License. Only then are you allowed to enter a rift as an official explorer."
Carn blinked, absorbing the information.
'That's quite the bureaucratic process,' Carn thought.
Rev wasn't done. "A lot of explorers tend to go rogue once they get a taste of superhuman abilities. That's why we have special agents tasked with hunting down rogue explorers. People like your father."
Carn's eyes widened in surprise. "Huh?"
This was news. He turned to Han, astonished.
Was he really a big shot?
His father? A rogue explorer hunter?
How fancy!
Han winced, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. So far, he had kept his real profession hidden, telling his family he was just an ordinary FBI agent handling basic investigations and interrogations. But the truth was finally out, and he could see the excitement in his son's eyes.
With a wry smile, Han sighed. "I wasn't planning on letting you find out this way... Also, you!"
Han shot an angry glare at Rev, his voice low but full of tension. "You weren't supposed to tell anyone about my status."
Rev, never one to back down, scoffed.
"You brought your goddamn kid to a top-secret military base! Do you really think we care about your little secret?! Hell no! WE. DON'T. GIVE. A. FCK!" His voice echoed through the clinic as he leaned forward in his wheelchair, poking fun at Han's attempt to stay undercover.
Then, as if he couldn't hold it in any longer, Rev burst into laughter. The grumpy veteran clearly enjoyed having the last word, relishing his small victory. He waved them off dismissively. "I'll send the repair bills to your boss later. Now, if you're done here, get lost! I've got work to do!"
With that, Eric, Han, and Carn left the clinic. Rev remained behind, grumbling while preparing to deal with the mess Carn had made. His sharp eyes softened for a moment, though, as he glanced at the scattered glass shards, clearly amused by the chaos they'd left in their wake.
…
While walking back to the test area, Han let out a deep sigh, still feeling bad for nearly killing his own son.
"I'm sorry, Carn," he muttered, his voice low. It was the second apology he'd made.
Sensing an opportunity, Carn smirked. "If you're really sorry, then how about some extra allowance? And how about telling me everything about mana, explorers, and whatever these rifts are."
Before Han could respond, Eric, who had been quietly observing, cut in. "You'll learn all that soon enough, kid. Now that your MC-test came back positive, the Secret Service will be knocking on your door soon. You should be worrying about yourself, not those trivial things."
Carn's eyes widened in surprise. "Wait, why? What's the big deal?"
Han sighed again, this time rubbing the back of his head in frustration as if the weight of the world had suddenly fallen on his shoulders. He bitterly smiled at Carn, then recited a law that hung like a noose over them both.
"MRA—Mana Regulation Act, Section 19," Han began, his voice solemn. "Any human who discovers the presence of mana within their bloodstream is required by law to report their condition to the appropriate governmental authorities within 72 hours of detection. Any person found to have intentionally failed to report the presence of mana within their blood is subject to... life imprisonment."
"What the hell?!" Carn's face contorted in disbelief. The gravity of the local laws struck him like a punch to the gut.
"Yeah, it's ridiculous. And now, because you've been identified as someone with natural mana, you're on the government's radar. They'll want to know everything about you—and fast."
Life imprisonment just for having mana?
Absurd!
The absurdity of the situation felt unreal. His whole life was turned upside down in a matter of hours. All this talk about rifts, explorers, and mana, coupled with the looming shadow of government agents coming for him, left him bewildered and angry.
Han looked at Carn with a mixture of concern and sadness in his eyes. "I've been keeping this world's darker side from you, but... there's no more hiding it now. I didn't want you involved, but things just got a lot more complicated. Again, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought you here."
Carn sighed.
Dammit, dad!