red. | LCF

CHAPTER TEN: Untitled

CHAPTER TEN: Untitled

***

Eruhaben started to go out at least once a week for some reason. Roksu doesn't need to know why, but his curiosity is always there. Everytime their guardian comes back, he would observed how he looked and record it in his mind. There was nothing that changes, maybe the mood but it's normal for moods to change.

There are also times when he went out with him to go shop some things he needed for the chamber just beside their room. The chamber turned into a lab of some sort that was of course, owned by none other than Kim Roksu. The youngest was somehow always finding things to research on, and the poor lavender colored video communication device was just the start of it all.

Roksu was adamant on making a phone here, or at least something that resembled a phone. He found out that the video communication devices can be connected to anyone but there was some sort of tracking there that could show anyone capable of magic the history of your calls and he doesn't really like the thought of that.

Eruhaben told him that, when he was around one year old. The thought of not just dragons, but anyone capable of magic could see whoever he calls was something that doesn't sit right with the private Kim Rok Soo. Even when he was team leader, he never asked his subordinates who were they calling unless it's from the company.

Being monitored and available for monitoring is something he hated.

So, at one year old, he decided to make something close to gadgets in this world. Except, instead of electricity, he's going to use mana.

Unfortunately, anything relatively modern, especially technology, are also the things that needed a lot of mana.

He felt a little frustrated at himself, because damn it. He should've known that for the devices to go the way he wanted to, he also needed a lot of mana to control it the way he would want it to. Like phones, the little things. Even keypads are hard to imitate despite being the easiest.

In gadgets, there are little wires, buttons, connections, jacks and other hardwares that makes up the device. A simple thing like keyboards are hard because the buttons needed to have the right type of hardware for it to function the way it was intended to.

And phones and all touch-screens are much harder because it's not like the hardwares for a keyboard or keypad phones. It's a lot more complicated than a laptop because the little things just has too many functions, settings, and specs that was unfortunately needed for the phones to run as smoothly as possible.

So, Roksu was in trouble.

He may be a man from a planet that was only on the verge of reconstructing its human society but he's also a man who bore the art of survival and technically, making modern technologies like gadgets are something he did not learn. He just knew how to use it, not how to make it. Which is unfortunate.

And now that he's in this rotten world, he already know how hard it would be because even Iphones spent months to create a single model. And that was with all equipments, knowledge, and people. He is only one, and despite having an ancient dragon as a father, or a regressor as a brother, they know nothing about the things he knew from a world they did not originated from.

There are also times when he just wanted to lay down and listen to Caleb talk about his experience with the protagonist. Caleb kind of have this weird tone whenever he talks about Choi Han and his supposed to be companions, and he's also actively looking for their youngest brother, apparently.

Roksu subtly told him to check the Sten residence, the Tolz territory, and the like. But Caleb roamed the whole Rowoon Kingdom in his free time and he found nothing.

Roksu frowned at that, because that means the black dragon, as an egg, might have been passed around from filthy hands to filthy hands and there was just something uncomfortable in that fact that made his stomach churn and an honest to god, a growl came out of his own self. It made him feel a little conscious, bless his human past as a team leader, but his dragon blood was demanding to get the dragon now because dragons are not meant to be treated with such filth.

But he can't do shit for now, because said dragon was nowhere near where the novel told him they would be.

So, he listened. Caleb told him all his adventures everytime he comes back once a month. Their father force him to do so, after three whole months of not visiting. Either that or Caleb wouldn't be able to roam around as freely as he could right now.

Said adventures revolves around his meetings with the protagonist. Apparently, now that he's seven years old, he can be trained as a knight now. He polymorphs into a human whenever he chats with him, his red hair as red as it was when he was Jour Thames's son, a contrast to the darkish green of the dark forest that continued to haunt Choi Han even in his dreams. He goes on a hunt with with trained warriors from the village, and Cale is a little irritated by that.

“He has nightmares from his experience in the forest, yet he volunteers everytime they go on a hunt. This bastard, I genuinely want to hit him and force him in a dreamless coma.”

“I think he just really wants to help.”

“His family member is worried about his health, too. Apparently, he has been in that damn forest for who knows how long that the experience was starting to haunt him now that he constantly has human interactions.”

“...Roksu, We can't help him sleep a dreamless night.”

Caleb had sounded suspiciously disappointed at the last comment and he wondered, now that Caleb is not Cale Henituse, did he ever let go of the time when he provoked Choi Han because of his hatred in the village?

He asked that same question when he was three something years old, while their father was away again for a couple of hours to come and they have time to talk about matters that needed to be kept from someone whose experience in time is only through aging and not transmigrating, reincarnating and regressing.

“I'm not sure, dongsaeng.” Caleb hummed while they laze around inside Roksu's experiment chamber.

“I still haven't got closure, so how could I let go of it?”

That was what he said and what Roksu remembered.

Caleb cares, but not unconditionally.

‘That's fine.’

The only thing tying them down was a common enemy, anyway.