1 The Mysterious Force
Redd, 4 years old.
Redd woke up to the light of thunder and the sound of storm outside. He rubbed his eyes with his small hands, trying to resist the returning drowsiness.
Boom!
A lightning bolt fell on the ground, not far from their home. Redd's body shivered slightly and his drowsiness disappeared instantly.
He looked around the room, trying to find his mother. Seeing that she wasn't in the room, he arose from his bed and walked up to the desk at the corner of the room.
There, he pulled the table's drawer open, and picked a candle from it. He lit the candle in the way he had been taught and with it in his hands, he exited the room in search of his mother.
Moving around the house with his small feet and some slow-pace searching, he finally found his mother in the underground study.
His mother was sitting before a small desk. Some candles were lit and placed around the desk, and she was holding a book in her hands.
Redd went up to her, placing the candle on the desk, he hugged her waist.
"Mom, what are you doing?" He asked with his cute voice.
His mother smiled, pulling him and placing him on her lap, she showed him the book and said, "Mom's trying to read, my son. Your father is an illiterate, so mom has to be the knowledgeable-one."
"Oh!" The boy exclaimed in a small tone. "Is reading fun?" He asked.
His mother was silent for a moment.
"It's fun. Very fun!" She said, rubbing her fair, smooth cheeks against his small face. She loved the feeling of her son's cheeks.
...
Redd, 10 years old.
"Why aren't you sleeping yet?" Redd's mother entered the study with a candle in her hands. She saw Redd holding a book and reading it under the illumination of various candles on the desk, and she felt slightly nostalgic at the sight.
[ The History Of The Nation ]
Redd was reading a book that introduced the history of their country.
"Just an hour more, mom. I want to complete this book before sleeping!" Redd replied without moving his eyes away from the history book.
Sighing! The mother thought to herself, 'Had I harmed my kid when I told him that studying was fun and taught him how to read?'
Unable to do anything since this was a consequence of her actions, she sat across him and accompanied him in reading.
...
Redd, 16 years old.
"Mom, we need more books. I've already read all the books in our study!" Redd was eating his dinner under the illumination of the moonlight and some candles as he brought up the problem that had been plaguing his mind for a while.
"Hmm! Ask your father." Redd's mother looked tired. Her son was so obsessed with books that he had made her worry about his health. If possible, she wanted his son to be illiterate, just like his father.
At his mother's words, Redd looked at the late twenty-ish looking man before him. The man was eating dinner just like him.
"Dad, you heard mom. I need more books!" Redd said to the man.
The man's handsome face twitched at his son's words. He put his bowl of rice on the table and said solemnly, "Son, let me tell you why we are living in this secluded space away from other humans, first."
"We are living deep inside this forest, away from civilisation, because your mother did not want your growth to be influenced by the existing human society! Do you understand?"
Redd looked at his father with an innocent face. He obviously did not understand what his father was implying. After all, it wasn't Redd's first time hearing why they lived deep in the forest, all alone.
Seeing the incomprehension on his son's face, the handsome man continued. "What I am saying is, since our aim was to avoid being influenced by the human society, why are you reading the books created by them? Do you want to waste the effort your mother put to create this environment for the last 20 years of her life?"
"Even the books in the study that you now have were allowed only because your mother beat me..cough! Cough! Forget that! What I am saying is, you'll get no new books!"
Redd squinted his eyes at his father suddenly.
His father put on an adamant expression in return. It was as if he would not let his son have his way through him like the many times before. This time, he was serious in rejecting his son!
Thus, the father and son had a staring contest. Finally, due to his mother, who pulled his cheeks, Redd lost the contest.
This also meant, he would not get any new books.
But Redd wasn't disheartened. His father might have downplayed his request, but he had also given Redd a hint.
As long as he was able to beat his father just like his mother, Redd could get new books for himself.
As the dinner proceeded, Redd's mother could not help herself as she gazed fiercely at his father. It seems she was trying to remind his father of something.
Seeing her almost-murderous gaze, Redd's father coughed awkwardly.
Inwardly asking God why Redd's mother hadn't changed and was still so dominant even after bearing his son, he cleared his throat and said, "Son, since you have already read all the books in the study, you should accompany me to hunt tomorrow. It's more fun to hunt than to read, you know!"
Redd rolled his eyes towards his father suspiciously.
He looked towards his mother, as if he was asking her if hunting was really more fun than reading.
Seeing her nod, he nodded back to his father.
Since his mother gave him her consent, he would have to follow his father tomorrow to learn how to hunt.
But suddenly, a strange, mysterious force appeared in their surroundings making Redd's body go stiff. This mysterious force seemed to be making some changes to his body as he felt unbearable pain and itch assaulting him.
Luckily, the selfdefence mechanisms of his body acted fast and knocked him unconscious, sparing him from feeling the pain and the itch.
But, the mysterious force did not stop! It continued doing what it was supposed to do for another hour before it stopped effecting him.
...
It was already the next day when Redd woke up. Just after opening his eyes he saw his father clearing up their dining table.
At this moment, his mind was groggy, and his thoughts weren't as clear as they use to be.
"Where's mother?" Redd asked, shaking his head to get out of this groggy state.
"Oh, you woke up." A voice appeared in Redd's mind making him blink his eyes in confusion.
"Mom...., you are in my head?" Redd was rather reluctant to ask this question.
"Haha! No, my son." His mother's voice once again appeared directly in his head. "This is telepathy. The superpower I have got after waking up this morning. I am in the study right now."
"Oh!" Redd was bewildered for a moment. He glanced at his dad who was still clearing the table.
His dad smiled at him.
Ignoring his dad's smile, Redd got up and left towards the study. His mind had already recovered from its groggy state.
Pushing the underground study's room, he saw his mother flipping through various books on the desk.
He made his way to her and glanced at the titles of the books she was flipping.
[ Supernatural, The Story Of Rei ]
[ Reborn In The Fantasy World ]
[ Apocalypse Of The Magic World ]
[ Nardian Myth ]
[ Ghost Lover, My Wife Is Dangerous ]
....
There were various types of books on the desk, but most of them were related to superpowers and fantasy.
"What are you searching for, mom?" Redd asked. He had already read all the books in the study and that included these fantasy novels. He could help his mother if she was searching for a specific book in the study.
His mother rolled her eyes at him. Her son's outstanding memory came from her. Obviously, she knew the information in the books even clearer than him.
"I am searching for clues. Clues regarding how I got this power." She replied as she flipped more fantasy novels.
"Oh! Maybe, your telepathic ability come from the mysterious force yesterday?" Redd murmured.
"What? What mysterious force?" Redd's mother was confused.
"You didn't feel it?" Redd was startled. The mysterious force had put him under endless mental pain and itch before he lost his consciousness.
From the fact that he was still on the dining table when he woke up, Redd could easily guess that his mother and his father had lost their consciousness along with him. After all, they would have carried him to his bed if they were still conscious, right?
"You didn't feel the mysterious force? The mysterious force that put you under extreme mental pain?" Redd pondered for a moment before looking at his mother.
His mother stopped filliping the books. She twisted her neck to her left side to look at her handsome son.
Squinting her eyes, she said, "Seems like you've undergone something special."
"Do you feel any changes in your body?" She asked.
Redd thought for a moment, before he closed his eyes. A few minutes later, he shook his head.
Obviously, he didn't sense any new changes to his body.
"Rein, come down here!" His mother shouted loudly.
A few moments later, Redd's father entered the underground study.
"Do you sense any new changes to your body?" Redd's mother questioned.
Rein, Redd's father outstretched his right hand in response.
And if one looked closely at Rein's outstretched hand, they would find a ball of gases revolving on top of his palm.
"It seems, I can now control wind to a certain extent." Rein said, still bewildered at the sudden turn of events. As soon as he woke up, he had a feeling that the wind around him was more intimate with him than before. He tried concentrating on this feeling, and to his shock found that he could control wind. How bizarre was that?
'Telepathy, Wind Control....something seemed to be changed. The world might be undergoing drastic changes at the moment!' Redd's mother closed her eyes, seemingly in thought.
"Rein, I want you to practice this new ability of yours for the next month. I need you to gather information about the outside world in a month from now. The world might not be what we have imagined it to be by then!" Redd's mother's voice appeared in Rein's head directly.
It seems, she doesn't want her son to know about this?
"Redd, Try to sense any changes during this period of time. You don't need to care about hunting that your dad mentioned previously."
"Ok, mom." Redd nodded. Seeing both his mother and father become similar to those characters from the fantasy novels, Redd was eager to join them.
