20: User 1's Interlude

A mother was cradling her child under a leaking roof while a thunderstorm was ranging outside. Something is wrong with her baby boy, as if he was switched over night. He no longer cry at wee hours in the morning, nor he bit her since that faithful morning.

Any mother would be glad that their toddler had calmed down, but for Emiko Ryun? She was rather wary of the change in her son. Other women in the community told her that he's her first son, so it's normal for her to feel postpartum depression even after over a year of giving birth.

The son knows that his mother is wary of him, but that's okay. As long as she doesn't find out that her son has the mind of a grown man, then Eden will be safe and sound. This is his second chance of life, and the System promised to return him to his original world, with the bonus of having the correct body, so Eden just have to tough it out for eighteen years in this harsh world full of superpowers.

Right now, he was holding on to his mother's sleeping body, taking every bit of warmth he could from her. The system didn't explained much, and all Eden understood was he transmigrated into an unpublished book that one of his old friends wrote.

He transmigrated into the side character Eden Ryun, son of Emiko Ryun and Harris Wilson, and the older half brother of Kade Easton, the protagonist of the book. His father doesn't know that he existed yet, but the System told Eden that his living conditions will get better once his mother finds his father and get him to pay child support.

But for now, Eden will just have to suffer in the cold and keep a positive mindset. At least he got to keep his name, and his mother's last name sounds so cool.

_

His positive mindset was thrown out of the window when the woman who sometimes babysit him lost her daughter.

Lidia, he only playmate Eden had, was violated by a man who broke into Linda's home while the mother and daughter was asleep. He tied the mother to the chair and violated the daughter who's no older than Eden himself.

Crying from the toddler dragged out long enough for Emiko to intervene, only to find a stranger in her friend's apartment. It didn't take long for the woman to kill the man because of her background in martial arts, and it made her guilty when she saw Eden's ever watching green eyes staring at her. She had to bring him with her because no sane person would leave their child alone in an apartment in their shady neighborhood. Nonetheless, Emiko didn't refuse the extra hands helping her burying the monster.

All these crappy situations made Eden glad that he's not a woman, but as a boy in this fucked up world, everything everywhere would still be dangerous until he reaches adulthood.

Did the System make him witness all these gut wretching horror for character development? Because Eden sure was traumatized, and it's only his second week on this post apocalyptic earth ravaged by wars.

In the span of two days, Linda lost her job, and she kind of moved in with Eden and his mother. Most of the time, instead of leaving her toddler with the traumatized woman who definitely needed to be put in an asylum, Emiko took Eden to work with her.

The transmigrator watched his mom wash dishes in a local bar, and he entertained himself by sneaking a peek at the TV outside of the kitchen once in a while. Since the bar opened all night, they needed someone in the morning to take care of the dishes. Once his mother was done, it was almost afternoon.

His mother got her barely liveable wages, and the pair returned to their shabby apartment that's actually one single apartment chopped in two so that the greedy landlord could rent to more people for cheaper prices.

Linda wasn't in their apartment.

Thus, the frantic search for their friend began. It didn't take long to find her crying in front of a bakery. According to gossips from passerbys, Linda tried to kidnap a child from a new couple in town, which resulted in the child being slightly injured. Eden was just glad that Linda was still alive after that encounter because he saw people being shot in the head for less.

The little boy stood in the shadows as his mother tried to comfort their friend. His green eyes landed on two people coming out of the bakery. He didn't recognize either of them, and they have a baby with them. Those people look like they would fit into the shady neighborhood with their old clothes and general messiness, but the way they acted made it obvious that they're not from around here.

What caught Eden's attention was the baby's purple eyes. Damn, talking about identifying important people. System, who's that?

[ KAON THE MAIN VILLAIN

NAME: KAON JAY

CURRENT PUBLIC NAME: KJ RETH

FUTURE ALIAS: RED RAIN, BLOOD PRINCE

CURRENT AGE: 1 YEARS 4 DAYS

LEVEL: 1

SUPERPOWER: - locked - ]

Eden began screaming in his head. 'That's the main villain?!? He's younger than I am!?'

Kaon, also known as Red Rain or Blood Prince, will be the bane of Eden Ryun's existence. He didn't read the original book, but the System gave him enough information to make him scared.

How can he forget that name when the System hit him with [ Main Mission: Survive - Don't get killed by Kaon ] on day one?

Looking at the baby fiddling with something in his hand, is that really the dude who's going to try to kill Eden? No one was born evil after all. The parents also looked young. The mother was talking to Emiko, and she forgave Linda for the incident too quickly.

System, can I check the parents' bio?

A blue interface screen popped up on the woman's head, and Eden felt like puking up his breakfast.

[ KAON'S MOM

CURRENT PUBLIC NAME: VERENA RETH

CURRENT AGE: 13 YEARS 6 DAYS

LEVEL: 20

SUPERPOWER: - locked - ]

Teen moms were unfortunately common in this world, but the transmigrator never thought that he would find one this young. His green eyes moved from the teenage girl to the big man holding the purple eyed baby. He looked more mature, but his bio was just as grim as his partner's.

[ KAON'S DAD

CURRENT PUBLIC NAME: TC RETH

CURRENT AGE: 15 YEARS 6 DAYS

LEVEL: 21

SUPERPOWER: - locked - ]

Eden was at a loss for words. No wonder Kaon was so messed up in the head. His mother was twelve and his father was fourteen when they had him. Talking about the family, when one look closely, Kaon's eyes are purple while his father's are red, and his mother's are dark blue. That's not really how genetics work, but Eden had to toss his logic aside because he's in a world where superpowers can be inherited, and superpowers generally don't follow the laws of physics and biology. They either work around it or bend the rules.

Then, the transmigrator made eye contact with those unnatural purple eyes. The baby boy didn't give any warnings before he dropped a coin on Eden, which the toddler caught rather gracefully.

His green eyes widened in surprise when he realized that it's a silver coin. Does the little villain know how much that's worth?

Because his mother has always been low on money, Eden learned the monetary system pretty quickly. The people don't use paper money or any form of fiat money, instead they rely on three types of coins: gold coins, silver coins and copper coins. One silver coin is worth two hundred copper coins, and a gold coin is worth twenty five silver coins or five thousand copper coins.

To put into perspective of how much a silver coin worths, the monthly rent of Emiko's little one bedroom apartment is one silver or two hundred coppers. The wages that his mother made this morning from washing dishes at a bar was 10 coppers. Just two coppers was enough to get the mother and son duo a meal. Emiko liked to rant about her financial problems to her almost two years old child, so now Eden knows a little too much.

"Sunshine," His mother's voice called out to him. "Give the coin back to them."

Like the obedient child he is, Eden lifted the coin back up at the baby villain, but it was quickly turned down by the villain's mother. "Keep it, we're not scamming you."

That's not reassuring at all. Sounds like something a scammer would say.

"You're too kind, Kaon. Let's go back to the motel." The teenage mother said to her baby, and Eden had to agree on one thing. The baby villain was too kind. Or his parents are secretly loaded. Definitely the second one because the baby dropped the coin on accident, but now it's a charity case.

As Emiko tried to half carry Linda, Eden presented the coin to her. She took it in between her slender fingers, and her eyes widened. She even tried to use her fingernails to scrape off the paint on the silver. If paints can be scrapped off, then it's fake, yet coin in his mother's hand still remained shiny with no traces of paint. Wow, so it really is a silver coin.

Emiko's lips pulled into a smile, and her eyes squinted in joy. "My sunshine, you are getting new shoes and new clothes."

Eden wanted to yell at his mom that they need to pay rent first, but yelling at his mom means OOC, so that's not an option. The shoes he's wearing now are getting tight, so new shoes it is.