Only Wisdom Awakened - Chapter 195

Chapter 195: Aiden’s nightmares
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[Aiden: Brother, I’m back]

As Hans picked up the phone, he read what Aiden had texted him, and immediately replied:

[Come to the little park beside the pizza hut, I haven’t seen you in so long!!]

‘What is this thing?’

Asked Caelan, who was watching Hans’s movements as he tapped on the screen.

‘It is called a cellphone, we can use it to communicate with other people, we can even hear their voices through these’

‘How much range does it have?’

‘How much range…. I guess enough to cover the whole world’

‘What?! Enough to cover the whole world? Is it an artifact? Where did you find something so rare?’

‘Calm down, will you? It’s just a cellphone, everyone has one of them these days, even kids’

‘W-what? Which mage invented this, I thought some of my ancestors were incredibly skilled in artifact refining, but I’ve never heard of anything like this, also… how did you dig up all the materials needed to create one for every person in the world?

Oh… right, how big is your world?’

Caelan had forgotten to ask about any of that, since up till that point it didn’t regard him, but now that he was a spectator, he at least wanted to know all the information necessary to enjoy the show.

‘I don’t think it’s huge, but our population is quite high.’

‘In numbers?’

‘Hugh…. After the catastrophe happened, my world’s population more than halved, and a lot of states still haven’t managed to do a complete check of the dead and the ones who disappeared, but there are three billion confirmed to be alive right now.’

‘Thre…. Billions…’

‘What? Is something wrong? Was your world that much bigger?’

‘No, no… It’s quite the opposite…’

‘You mean?’

‘In the entirety of the territory known to our people, even before the final waves of the monsters…. Lived almost a hundred and fifty million citizens.’

‘Huh? Isn’t that kind of small then? The state I’m residing in at the moment has about the same population even after the catastrophe.’

‘That… I think your world might be the anomaly here ‘

‘Whatever you say…. I’ve got to meet with a friend of mine, and my mana reserves are running low, you know, keeping you outside costs a lot of mana, how about we wrap it up here for today?’

‘Fine… I guess I don’t have to stress over every single minute since I’ll get to enjoy this boring sight for another hundred years or so’

‘You talk too early, maybe I’ll die in like four years, or maybe even tomorrow’

‘Yeah, yeah, don’t try to get me emotionally attached to you, I’m just enjoying the scenery’

‘Alright then… see you tomorrow’

Hans stopped the flow of mana toward the star, and as a result, the voice of Caelan stopped popping up in his head.

Hans left the dorm and went to the nearby park where he had told Aiden to meet him before, waiting for the boy to arrive.

A couple of minutes later, while Hans was sitting on a resting bench in the designated spot, he saw someone in the distance.

With a smile on his face, the young man got up from his seat and started walking towards Aiden.

“Aiden! How long has it been?!”

Hans said, but no reply came back from the boy.

‘Huh?’

“Aiden is something wrong?”

Hans was watching his friend, but his expression was not the same as it used to be.

The carelessness that used to be painted on the boy’s face was nowhere to be seen at that moment, and taking its place was the saddened expression Aiden had when Hans first met him.

Those lifeless eyes seemed to go beyond what was in front of him and the same for his mind, lost in thoughts.

“Aiden?”

The boy continued walking without hearing Hans’s words until he hit his head against the young man’s chest.

Only then did he finally talk, but not before wrapping his arms around Hans.

His teary eyes wet Hans’s shirt, and his sniffles resounded throughout the empty street.

Since all the stores weren’t available to the students until the day of the opening, no one was around at that time of the day.

The young man’s first reaction was to hug Aiden back, and then reassure him:

“Hey hey… what’s wrong? Come on there’s no need to let these emotions get the best of you, whatever it is… I’ll help you fix it”

The boy took a few seconds to calm down before talking to Hans.

“Can you really help me fix it?”

The desperate young boy asked as he watched his brother’s face.

“Yes, come on, tell me what happened, we’ll find a solution together”

Aiden drained his tears with the sleeves of his shirt as they walked to the bench where Hans had been waiting for him.

After they settled down, Hans went to a vending machine just a few meters away from them and bought a bottle of iced tea.

“Here, drink this and get back on your feet”

The boy had completely crumbled.

Between a sip and another, he started talking about what had happened during these few months in which they hadn’t seen each other.

“As you know brother, I have been traveling with Grant and his Dad.”

“Mh… his Dad’s the demon extermination team leader, isn’t he? That’s what you told me last time”

“Yeah… he is, an amazing person”

The admiration he held towards that man could be perceived even through his saddened words.

“And? Why is it that I see you so blue?…”

“It’s… Brother, I have seen it with my own eyes… the people were desperate.

There was this woman… her leg had been cut off by a monster, forcing her onto the pavement, even severely injured, she still held her baby into her arms as she crawled towards me… I saw her taking her last breath whispering for help, I didn’t hear any of the words she said but I knew it…”

The boy’s eyes became lucid as he told about what had happened.

“I knew she was calling for me… for help, for salvation.

But I couldn’t do anything, trembling in fear when faced with the monster that stood behind her.

She and the baby both died an excruciating death, while I, a coward who couldn’t even move his body to help someone else, am here, back to my life as if nothing’s ever happened…”

Even with his eyes open, tears started running down his cheek.

“What… did these people do to deserve such a death…”

“That mother… she held her child tight even in the face of death, while I couldn’t do anything, not even move a muscle, and yet!

Sniff…

And yet the hunters made it in time to save me!

Why Brother?! Why?!”

“And not once…

Sniff…

It didn’t only happen once…

It happened a second, a third, and even a fourth time…

Again, and again, and again, and again….

I saw them all die! They died because I was unable to help while all the others were trying to hold the monsters off! They died because I couldn’t protect them!”

“Calm down Aiden”

Whispered Hans, changing the tone of the conversation compared to Aiden’s screams.

“It’s not your fault, bad things happen everywhere, no one is to-”

“Yes, it is! There is someone to blame, there is someone to blame because if you had been in my place, those people would be alive right now!

It’s because of weak hunters like me who can’t do anything that the world suffers, it’s because after obtaining what I wanted, I enjoyed my life not caring for all the people who are out there dying to the monsters right now!

I was here, playing around with my friends while people died because a hunter wasn’t there to assist them!

I need… I need to grow.

Please, Hans…. Teach me how to grow”

The boy cried his eyes out, holding his head up with his arms placed on his knees.

His face was shielded by his hands, sparing him a bit of embarrassment for crying in front of his brother.

“I would really like to help you, but…

“But what?!

You said you’d help me out!

Hans you saved me, you could’ve saved all those people right?! Why don’t you do it?.. Why don’t you-”

“Aiden! Snap out of it!”

Hans grabbed the boy’s shoulders, and the other finally realized what he had just said:

“T-that’s not what I meant brother…

I-I just….

wanted to….”

Before finishing his phrase, Aiden fell asleep, tired from the long travel that had just come to an end, and the rage venting he had just done.

And beside him, holding him up was Hans, who soon took him on his shoulders and brought him to his dorm.

While walking him home, Hans was thinking about what Aiden had just asked of him:

“Please… help me grow…”

‘Help you… grow?

I would like to do that but… how could I… Ever do that when I’m still not grown up myself?”