小嫂子的味道

At a distance in the Blanks family household, the condition were not so well. There neighborhood had already been surrounded by the wild demonic beasts, and most of the people they knew had been killed—some right in front of their very eyes.

They had no place to run, nor a place to hide. All they could do was hold out and surive until someone adventures or a military unit arrives for help. Ron was aware of this, and of his powerlessness as well.

He had seen some of his friends try to fight those beasts with the sword art skills they had, and he had seen all of them get killed before he made the decision to take her wife and escape to the roof of their house.

As of now it was the safest place since they at a place where the beasts wouldn't notice them normally. But he didn't know until how longer it will be a safe place; those monsters were falling down from the skies, after all.

There he stood, at the corner of the roof with his wife, Ainge. Both of them were stressing out and they knew the seriousness of the situation. However, out of the two Ainge was more worried than scared.

Leaving aside the sorrow she felt to see some of the people she knew for years get killed and devoured right before her eyes, her heart was aching and worrying about the wellbeing of her children. Right now she was more worried about Zero and Anya than her own life; like any mother would be.

She was worried and clenching around her heart tightly. But as fate may have it, that was when a portal opened right above their house and a beast jumped out of it.

It landed on the roof and the whole house shook from the impact. It was big and scary, anyone could tell from looking that one swoop of its hand was enough to rip apart the bodies of both of them.

The beast turned toward them and prepared to assault, it pressed itself down and locked its eyes at them.

Instantly Ron came and stood in front of his wife, hiding her behind himself as he held his sword straight toward the beast.

"Still haven't given up on playing the hero, have you?" Ainge said. It was one of those lines to ease the tension of the moment.

"You guessed it. I haven't, and I don't plan to," Ron replied as he stood rigid and glared down at the beast.

As a matter of fact, his hands were not trembling, even though he was scared from the inside. His legs were not shaking, even though he wanted to run. His mind was able to think properly, even though his heart was screaming to take his wife and kids and run away somewhere far from here.

A bead of sweat appeared on his forehead, and dripped down. The beast roared and dashed toward him at a speed that was almost impossible to dodge.

"Haaaaaaaaa!" Ron let out a battle cry as he raised his metal sword against the beast.

Deep inside his heart, he knew that he won't get out of this alive. Deep inside his heart, he knew that even when he was buying her time and wanted at least her to get out alive, her wife would not run and leave him behind. Deep inside his heart, he knew that he was going to die here.

He knew all of that, and it didn't matter the least to him. He was going to die, so what? He wanted to go with a bang. If this beast right here was going to kill him he wanted to at least deliver one slash to him before giving out to death.

Thus he swung his sword, as hard as he could, as hard as he had ever did in his entire life.

But the beast was already close, he was going to miss. Quite clearly. He began to close his eyes when he saw the beast's claw come toward his face.

—BOOM!

The beast was smacked down flat on the roof as big pieces of ice fell on it one after another until they had completely crushed it and its corpse was nothing but a mess of flesh and blood. Even then the rain of ice did not stop.

The shards fell, again and again and again they rained upon the creature. They stabbed and tore and cut the demon beast's body until it was completely covered beneath a pile of freezing cold and sharp ice.

Once the rain of ice had stopped it did not move again.

Both Ron and Ainge were taken aback by this. Something completely unexpected had happened. They looked at each other, and then back at the dead beast.

Eventually, they weren't going to die anymore. Though what came next was even more of a surprise.

A figure of boy landed right on top of the beast's corpse. There was no denying it, he was Zero.

His hands and legs were starting to go white due to the overuse of ice element. He looked down at the corpse and opened his mouth to let out a breath, as he did, pale mist escaped outside.

"Don't you even dare bastard," he mumbled, and stabbed one more long shard of ice right in the center of the beast's chest.

He made sure to push it deep inside until he heard a faint crackling sound. Finally, when he was sure that the demon was completely dead. He stepped off its corpse and headed toward where his parents stood.

"Zero?" Ron said in confusion; it was going to take a bit of time for him to realize that this wasn't a dream he was having in the last seven minutes of his death.

"Oh, mom," Zero said almost unknowingly when Ainge ran straight to him and wrapped him in a tight, motherly hug.

"Dear god, you are fine," she said, a stream of tears going down her cheeks. Zero smiled, and hugged her back.

"Yeah, I'm fine. And I'm here," she replied.