Life didn't get easier, even in another world.

A groan left his mouth. The voice that came out of his own mouth sounded distant.

“Ren...”

He could hear another distant voice.

“...en... Please... Re...”

He couldn’t hear it clearly, but he knew who this voice belonged.

‘Brother...’

He wanted to call out his name, but he couldn’t. His throat was dry as a desert. His chest was burning. His head was tingling. His insides were all on fire. He felt cold. He felt like he would freeze to death despite his burning body.

“Re... A little... more... hang... ple...se....”

.....

The voice was getting fainter and fainter.

‘Am I going to die?’

He asked himself. Was he going to die? Like this? Right now? Right after finding his brother?

He didn’t want his life to end like this.

Wouldn’t that be too meaningless? He had literally done nothing in his life. He had achieved nothing. He thought he had tried hard, but that still didn’t seem to be enough. He had trained his butt off to get stronger, but someone just came and almost killed him as if he was nothing but a fry. He had gathered as much information as he could, but unexpected things kept happening right and left. Nothing went as he wanted or as he predicted.

“Ren... Ren yo... will be fi..e... Ren...”

His brother’s voice was getting impossible to hear.

‘Is it because I am not smart enough?’

Would things be better if he was smarter? Would he be able to perform better if he was smarter? If he was like his brother?

That was the question he had always asked himself. When he was a little kid, when he went to school, and when he became an adult, he had always wondered about that.

How come he couldn’t do anything? How come he was always lacking.

As a little kid, he mostly was sick. He was sick only in the first years of his life and his physical condition got better by the time he was 6 or 7 years old, but he was a weak child before then. He would catch a cold right and left and had to stay at home most of the time.

Now he wondered if that was also because of his power... Did he have his power since the beginning? If so, wasn’t it natural that a weak child’s body wouldn’t be able to handle all of that power and would fall ill?

Well, that didn’t matter anymore.

Back then, he always envied his brother who was old and healthy enough to do anything he liked. He could play everywhere he wanted and eat anything he liked. Kairen thought that it was not fair. He was really jealous of him.

Kairen was always a bother to his parents as he got sick a lot and that caused them a lot of headaches. His mom even had to stop going to work for a while to take care of him. But his older brother was not like that. He would always help his parents, unlike Kairen who only caused them more work. He could make them laugh, unlike Kairen. He could make them proud, unlike Kairen.

He was really jealous of him. He hated his older brother so much.

Once he got old enough to go to school, he found another reason to hate his brother.

Why was he so damn perfect? Why was he always at the top? That bastard didn’t even study at home, so how? He always played games all day while Kairen spent the whole time studying, but he was still lacking.

His grades were not low, but he was still lower than his brother who was always the best student.

Their parents were always proud of their older son. He was the best, so why wouldn’t they be proud? He took part in every competition and always was the best. Even in sports, he did better than his weak little brother.

Even if there was a day when Kairen did really perfect, it wouldn’t really seem much to his parents. Their first son has done such things years ago countless times, such small things would no longer make them excited or proud.

Also, why did Kairen have to be Kairen? Why was his brother Aaron when he was Kairen?

Why was their name like that? First of all, the names didn’t look like the names of two siblings. They weren’t alike at all.

Also, why did their parents give his brother a beautiful name but not him? Throughout his life, Kairen was always ridiculed and mocked countless times only because of his name. His classmates, his friends, and even their relatives. All of them made fun of him whenever they saw his face.

-Forget about everything the others say. They are all fools! You have such a great name, Kairen!

He had only sniffled and ignored his brother’s words.

-Well... If you hate it that much then... I’ll call you Ren from now and you call me Ron. That sounds more like brothers, right?

That’s what his brother told him when Kairen just started to go to school and would suffer a lot because of his name.

-Are you really crying over something like that? Our parents have a strange sense of naming, but that doesn’t mean you have a bad name. Maybe not in our country, but your name sure has a beautiful meaning in another language.

His older brother tried to soothe the little kid who was crouching down behind a tree in their backyard and crying.

-What? Hey! You have a fever! Come on get up I should show you to mom!

Why was this brother of his so nice to a fool named Kairen? Didn’t he know how much Kairen hated him? It wasn’t like they had a peaceful relationship. The two brothers fought all the time. But Ron always helped Kairen out whenever he needed help.

Kairen didn’t want to be helped out, especially by his brother! He’d rather fail something than succeed in doing it with his brother’s help. His mother always scolded him, saying that he had to ask for help if he needed help, but Kairen never listened. He was stupid, not smart, and weak, but he couldn’t break his pride and go ask for help from his brother! No! He’d rather die!

Ron was a nice and warm person. Someone who people felt comfortable around. He was one of those kinds of people who could make jokes out of everything and make people enjoy his company. Even when they were young, he always made Kairen laugh despite the little kid trying to act cool and indifferent near his older brother.

‘I want to be like him.’

That was the little Kairen’s wish. It was his goal. Being better than his brother was impossible, so he at least wanted to be a little bit like him.

When he was a kid, he started following his brother everywhere. He secretly repeated what he did and always memorized every single joke that he made. He didn’t have the courage to make jokes or the confidence to talk to people in a gathering and make them laugh like Ron, but he still made sure to keep in mind every single word that his brother said. He read the same books his brother read, watched the same movies, played the same games, and even used the same words as him.

It must have been really annoying to his brother, seeing a little stupid thing repeating all his actions, but he never said anything to stop him. At first, he was a little bit surprised by his baby brother’s actions, but he soon got used to it. As time passed, he even invited Kairen to play games with each other or watch movies, and Kairen accepted them head on.

Not that he liked to play games with him or watch movies together! Nope! He had to do these things to reach his goal!

But then, that incident happened.

The incident changed their whole lives.

It was an ordinary day in winter. The two brothers were having a snowball fight in their backyard. The fight started after Ron accidentally broke one of the wooden arms of the snowman Kairen had built.

“Hey, stop! I’ll find another stick to repair it.”

Said the older boy after fighting with the kid for about half an hour.

“There is none left in the yard!!”

“No no!”

Ron shook his head.

“I’ll find another one from outside okay? I can even ask the neighbors to give me one!”

Kairen had lowered his hand holding the snowball after hearing those words. Ron examined his baby brother’s face which was red from the cold and his hands which seemed frozen. The older boy could beat this boy with snow and even bury him under a pile of snow if he wanted, but he let Kairen hit him as much as he wanted and then surrendered. If this kept on, this fool would catch a cold again. Why did he insist on fighting when he was freezing!?

“Hmm...”

Kairen nodded his head.

“Then, I’ll go find one and come back real quick. Go wait inside until I come back.”

“I’ll wait for you here.”

“I won’t play with you anymore if you catch a cold!”

“Uh... Okay...”

Kairen watched as his brother left through the door and then turned to enter their house.

It was when he opened the door and turned on the lights.

BOOOMMMM

He heard a loud voice and saw a bright light lit before his face.

At the same time, a strong force pushed Kairen back, sending him towards the walls of the backyard.

“Ah?”

Kairen didn’t know what happened at that moment nor did he understand the things that happened after that. He couldn’t see things properly nor could hear them.

“Ren... Ren, can you see me?”

The only thing that he could hear was his brother’s cries and screams.