There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL) novel Chapter 754

Chapter 754: Side Story 4. Endless Journey - 37

Kar rarely cursed, but he had been cursing a lot during his training sessions with Han Joon.

"Dad, you’re a liar..." he mumbled to the pillow at the end of yet another rigorous training.

At least, he had the time to grumble first instead of immediately falling asleep. It seemed like he had finally adapted to the strain that the training placed on both his physical and mental state.

"Am I too greedy?"

He trained his close combat skills and mana control at the same time, thinking that he already learned them separately enough at home and in the academy. But doing it together was another matter altogether. Trying to maintain his mana circulation while concentrating on combat technique felt like moving sluggishly while everything around him became several times faster.

It messed with his head, it messed with his body, and his Uncle was merciless. Kar thought his fathers were already whipping him hard, but Han Joon...Han Joon was a demon. The amount of time Kar heard the word ’again’ made him think he would hate hearing it at the end of it all.

And Han Joon said it was only the first level. Only a training level. There was a real combat level and then the real field combat level. Before he reached that level, Uncle Joon wouldn’t give him a pass for the dungeon practice. _{freeweɓnovel.cøm}

Kar had no idea how long it would take to even pass the first level.

At least he stayed in his uncle’s nice mansion, though. The basement training ground was almost as big as the Academy’s, but since no one was there except him, it felt even bigger. Definitely bigger than the one back home.

Oh, he wondered how Asa was doing over there. He had heard from Aunt Dheera and the others that his father’s training was also known to be hard.

But it wasn’t like he had a leeway to wonder about someone else.

"You look miserable," Radia arched his brow when Kar dragged himself sleepily to the breakfast table one day.

"Thanks for the update, Uncle."

"He’s getting used to it," Han Joon gave a brief assessment.

"Good job."

"Ugh..."

Radia chuckled when the older twin drank his black sesame milk in a daze. "You said your Dad told you about it already."

"Uhh...yeah, but..." Kar glanced at Han Joon.

"Uncle, you didn’t purposefully make it harder for me, did you?"

Han Joon leaned toward his husband instead. "What do you think, darling?"

"Hmm..." Radia, who had seen both Bassena’s training in the past and Kar’s recent one, compared them in his mind while rolling a goldenberry on his tongue. "In my eyes, Bassena had it harsher."

Kar widened his eyes. "No way?!"

Radia chuckled. "But I also don’t think he was lying to you," he said. "It’s just that you have different conditions."

"What do you mean?"

"When your Dad met us the first time, he was like a wild beast," Radia smiled as he reminisced. "A wild beast who had to survive getting beaten and starved every day--not to mention the constant mental torture."

The boy blinked slowly, looking even more in a daze.

"Of course, for such a beast, Joon’s training wouldn’t be very hard--at least, not as hard as you found," Radia explained. "No matter how hard your parents trained you before, they never did it until you passed out, or let you starve until you were thinking of eating bugs, right?"

Kar narrowed his eyes. "Of course?"

"Well, that’s why," Han Joon said. "You were in a different state of mind already."

"It’s like giving stale, hard bread to someone who usually ate coarse bread and someone who usually ate fresh, pillowy bread," Radia lifted a butter roll and pulled it apart. "The former would think the stale bread is not tasty, but edible; while the latter would probably question whether or not the bread was fit to be consumed by humans."

Kar looked at the food in front of him. All nice, fresh, delicious food. Just like the food he got back home. And clothes, and toys, and access, and the love he didn’t need to ask for but received already. Of course, he knew how good his life had been, but at that time, it was down on him how big of a privilege it was to have those things he thought were normal to have.

"But that’s okay," Han Joon patted the dazed kid. "After eating it a few times, you can’t help but get used to the bread."

That might be so, but at that point, Kar also thinking about something else. He looked at his uncles, asking cautiously. "Was Dad...really experienced all that?"

Han Joon tilted his head. "Hmm? Did he not tell you about his family?"

Kar chewed the inside of his cheek. "Uhh...I knew about the Vaski, but not the details of what happened to Dad there..."

"Hmm...you don’t really have to know all of that--at least not now. Just know that they were assholes and he had a harsh childhood after your grandma died," Radia said.

"I see..." the boy rolled the salad fork between his thumb and forefinger, frowning slightly. Looking at the salad reminded him of his other father, who loved fresh fruit and vegetables. "Then...what about Father? I only know he used to live in the red zone, but I don’t really know what it’s like since there’s no red zone..."

"Right," Han Joon smiled. The boy’s generation rarely knew there used to be another tier below the orange zone. "Thanks to your fathers, we no longer have red zones."

"Well, I can’t say I truly know what Zein had gone through, but according to Bas, it was worse than what he experienced," Radia said.