Mutagen

Mei asked, hearing the grave thought that Mark had as a child.

"Of course, it\'s not true." Mark shrugged. "If I\'m not their child, I wouldn\'t have been a Blood Demon and never had weird powers. I might have died since the outbreak started. Well, probably not. I still have Freed at that time, I guess."

Mei glared at Mark. She was not comfortable with Mark talking about his death jokingly. Smiling bitterly, he could only sit up and pat her head.

"I realized when I grew older." Mark continued. "When that thought popped up in my mind, it is pretty much a bad sign."

***

Children were feeble and innocent creatures. Their minds were simple. It was not because they were incapable of thinking of slightly complex things. It was just they lacked the experience and knowledge.

These experiences and knowledge would be supplemented by their surroundings. And the first source that children had would be their parents or guardian.

Thus, the first people for the child to trust the most would be the people that raised them.

For Mark to start thinking that he was adopted...

It meant that he began to lose that trust.

Mark began to question things more. At times, he would complain and ask why he had to do everything while his siblings did not. At first, it was because he was the eldest and had the responsibility to take care of his young siblings. But when his younger siblings had grown up enough, these questions mostly fell to deaf ears.

The worst thing that happened was when he received the answer.

"Because your siblings did not want to do it."

They answered with a complicated expression.

Mark could not accept that answer. In his mind, he wanted to ask why his parents did not forcefully push the responsibility to his siblings, pretty much like how they pushed these things to him.

The first time, his parents told him that he needed to learn about these things. It was because when they were his age, they already had it harder. And then, it suddenly became all his duty.

Why did his siblings not receive the same treatment?

However, Mark was already afraid of his parents could not muster the courage to ask such disrespectful questions.

Slowly, Mark found staying at home less and less enjoyable.

Unlike at home, he barely had anything hard to do outside.

Unlike at home, he would not get scolded unless he did something bad.

Unlike at home, he could play with other children.

Mark began to try to spend as much time as possible outside the house, specifically, at school. Studying might be boring. At least, it was something that kept him away from home.

But then, spending more time outside, Mark realized something. He began to learn more about things that he would not learn at home.

And...

Compared to other children, he actually had it a whole lot worse.

In terms of daily school allowance, he actually had a lot less than other children. Well, he did not question this part too much. He knew that compared to other families, his was not that well off.

However, that topic became a huge issue to Mark in the future.

Unlike private schools where school tests were paid beforehand, photocopied texts and test papers on public schools were paid on the spot. Scheduled and announced tests were fine. Mark could ask for money from his parents before the schedule.

But for surprise tests and other study materials, Mark\'s allowance was never enough. He learned how to endure hunger and how to earn debts this way in school.

Mark mentioned this issue to his parents several times. However, he never had a raise until he grew tired of asking. It continued until college, where it went to the point that Mark would only eat twice a day because his allowance was not enough for daily expenses school. After all, studying at college needed a whole lot of money.

Because of this, Mark learned to leech off from his richer classmates, even just to get a stick of fishballs for lunch during days when the subjects needed more stamina to attend. Physics and Trigonometry on the same day for the whole day were the worst.

It all happened with another occurring issue.

At the same age, his siblings had several times larger school allowance than him.

When Mark was in the fourth year of his college course, Michael was already in the first year.

Michaels daily allowance was way higher than he had, even if they were attending the same school and he was older.

Mark could only swallow that in as he already asked the reason for this, years before.

The answer he got was that because the prices of things now and then were higher. Of course, it was nothing but an empty excuse. The prices of things in and outside school barely changed in the years. The only time the prices actually rose was when he already graduated college.

Mark, who already lost trust in his parents, did not bother asking anymore. It was not like anything would change, anyway.

As Mark seemed to stop caring about home and spent a lot of time outside with all sorts of school-related excuses, it was not surprising that at one point, he got caught. His father was a tricycle driver, after all. There would be a time that they would accidentally see each other on the road.

Mark received another level of scolding at that time. He felt it funny when his mother started with the topic of not caring about his family and spending time with his friends. She proceeded to tell him that they were bad influences and stuff. That he needed to stay away from them in the future.

Unfortunately, Mark had no choice but to reduce the time he spent with them. He valued his friends, but it would be bad if his raging mother just went and confronted them unreasonably.

However, it had a bad effect.

Mark\'s relations with his friends started to drift away.

It reached a point that Mark did not know what was going on anymore. Once he met with his friends from time to time, they could talk about things he had no idea about. Furthermore, new people would keep popping out into the group with Mark having no idea who they were.

Mark began to lose his place in his circle until it reached the time that he thought that they were his not true friends at all.

Well, in the least, he had some good times with them in the past.

Unable to keep up with his friends any longer, Mark finally decided to stay away for good.

Mark managed to graduate in those conditions.

But then, Mark, who thought that he would be able to finally leave the grasp of his parents, found a dilemma.

That graduation was the start of his stagnated life.

Mark did not know at that time. He had long developed anxiety towards people. It became extremely hard for him to meet new people, not to mention actually applying for a job.

He did not learn anything useful in college. Mark was anxious about his abilities not up to par with the job and getting on the bad side of people.

In the first place, the school and college degree that Mark had was not his choice in the first place. What Mark wanted before was to take a two-year course at a certain Japanese-oriented school. Furthermore, the course was actually centered on computer programming and video game development.

It was something that Mark liked and would allow him to actually earn money in a shorter period.

Unfortunately, as Mark\'s parents had outdated outlooks, they saw a two-year course as trash compared to a four-year bachelor\'s degree.

They enrolled him in a newly opened state university in the area. It was too new that Mark\'s batch of students were actually the pioneers of the school.

And that was the problem.

A new school did not have experienced instructors for the subjects and courses they offered.

The course that Mark managed to choose was Computer Science. It was the closest to the course that Mark wanted initially.

However, who would ever think that instead of an experienced computer programmer, their first programming instructor was actually a pastor? Not to mention to actually teach programming, the pastor did not even have any programming experience. While he was teaching the course, the pastor was also learning the subject.

At first, no one paid attention to this detail. This issue persisted over the years even if the instructors were already replaced. After all, actual programmers were already earning bucks with their work. There would be no one willing a low wage work at a school that did not even have a good reputation.

The only time that Mark managed to get an opportunity to actually have the time to reasonably learn video game programming in school was when they were asked to start their thesis proposals. As a Computer Science student in a new school, the choices were a bit laxer.

Making a video game was one of the options and Mark and this groupmates immediately jumped on the wagon. Although there were some restrictions and rules to follow since it was a thesis, Mark managed to make an acceptable proposal that even their thesis advisor managed to approve off.

Unfortunately, the guest jury for the proposal defense was an old woman. There was no need to question her unreasonably strict look or her knowledge about video games. Without even starting the defense, Mark\'s proposal was rejected. There was no doubt that the jury was someone that viewed the video-game industry as trash. There was a whole lot of them in this backward country. Her unreasonable outlook towards video games was obvious. It was not only Mark\'s group that had that kind of thesis proposal. There was actually more than expected.

Not a single video game-themed proposal was approved.

The worst was that the dean gave that old hag full authority to judge the students. Mark\'s thesis advisor, also among the jury, could only apologize to him as she did not expect this to happen either.

Mark was forced to a thesis that he never wanted to do, nor actually had cooperative clients.

After Mark\'s graduation, those issues came to haunt him.

Mark did not have even slight confidence in facing people or landing a good job.

Of course, he managed to muster some courage to apply at some companies.

All of his applications did not make it. Most of them failed in the interview. It was a reasonable outcome for someone with anxiety towards facing people.

Mark gave up and stayed at home.

It was a bad idea.

Instead of getting encouragement, Mark received more scoldings for not getting a job. It became a daily occurrence for him. In fact, he received more sermons than actually being able to eat breakfast at home. He skipped breakfast most of the time since he had no appetite in the morning.

Well, it was not like anyone else would make breakfast for him. In the first place, Mark had already forgotten the last time that he actually ate breakfast that his mother made.

Mark\'s father managed to arrange some things and made Mark try out some jobs from people he knew. Unfortunately, none of it worked out at all. It was either they did not find Mark suitable for the job, or the job was just way out of Mark\'s field.

p In the least, Mark\'s father was better than his mother, who did nothing but nag at home, draining all that was left of his trust in them.

This made Mark realize.

What was happening to him at that moment was all that his parents paved for him. The worst part, they never realized it and always blamed it on Mark for being incompetent.

Mark was not incompetent. In fact, comparing the four siblings, Mark was the most talented.

He could draw, write stories, make crafts, and even had an excellent memory for things he was interested in. In fact, Mark\'s thesis advisor found him capable of writing good business proposals and other similar documents. His third-year high school P.E. teacher also praised Mark for his dancing skills.

Mark\'s siblings had no notable talents, in fact. They might appear smarter than him in terms of school studies but that was it.

Well, it was not like Mark was not smart at all. If he could, he could compete with the top placers in school. Mark even had the highest in high school during their National IQ and achievement tests. Though, no one seemed to know it since most of the teachers and students were focused on the grades of the star students of the school.

Unfortunately, none of Mark\'s talents managed to develop.

It was because Mark had to do all the chores at home alone. Not to mention that his parents were not that supportive in him developing his talents at all.

They told him to focus on his studies and do all those useless stuff later after he finished his studies.

That "later" was rather too late for Mark.