小嫂子的味道

Running along with my parents to the back side of our house toward the lawn, I stopped at a place that looked somewhat safe. Looking around I saw the demon beasts raging all over the area. 

It was only a few minutes before they came here. 

'Req, I'm leaving the safety in your hands for now.'

The Requiem sword in my hand shone and soon turned into a girl that stood beside me. My parents looked at her with amusement but that didn't really matter right now. 

"You can count on me for that," Req said as she formed a sword in her hands. 

She glanced a look at the demon beasts all around us, held the sword up, and took a posture. Once I was done with that I turned toward my parents and took out Ryfin's book from within my cloak. 

***

After reassuring Zero that she would take care of all the demon beasts, Req dashed and stood near the boundary of the house. A hell of demon beasts was coming toward them, and it didn't take much long for them to close the distance. 

One of the demon beasts was headed straight toward her. She gripped the Requiem sword swiftly and looked at the monster and when it was only a few steps away, her body moved. 

With minimal movement, she got close to the beast and drilled the sword deep into its chest. Before the beast could do anything else she slid the sword across as she moved forward and sliced the beast in two. 

Its body fell numb on the ground with blood around it and a core that was also cut in two parts. 

Soon the rest of the demon beasts joined and met with the same fate, they were getting slashed and killed like they didn't pose a threat at all. In fact, that was precisely the case. 

These monsters were nothing for her to be afraid of, to the point where she was not even killing them by herself and was just letting her instincts do all the work.

Right now with a dead look in her eyes, her body was moving like a machine, every movement and attack was calculated and to the point. 

The demon beasts were not a threat, that was one thing. But at this moment there was something else occupying and weighing down her mind, something much more important. 

It was regret. 

Ever since she and Zero came back in time a certain scene was playing in her mind. It was the moment when Zero saw the death of his parents and sister and lost control over his powers which resulted in him almost killing himself by freezing to death. 

Had it not been for the future Zero, the current one would have died. And it would be no one else's but her fault. 

After all, all that happened because he saw the death of his family. He was badly injured to help them and she was already occupied by tens of thousands of demon beasts hence was not able to help them in time. 

However, that was not the truth. If she wanted, she could have saved them and killed all of the demon beasts present there without breaking a sweat. But she didn't. She didn't and let his parents die, which ended up almost killing him too. 

Although it was not like she let them die simply because she was evil or anything like that, she had a good reason for choosing that. 

Her master and the one who freed her from the labyrinth was Zero, he was the person whom she shared her soul with.

Therefore it was not wrong for her to think that he was the only one she needed to protect. To her, he was the only person she cared about in the entire world. To her, he was the one she #$#%@.

Thus it didn't even occur to her once that seeing the death of his family would affect him so much to the point where he would lose the will to live. Had she known this beforehand she would have done everything in her power to make sure that his family was safe. 

Only if she knew beforehand...only if she had given it a bit of thought...only if she had thought things from the perspective of a normal person rather than the perspective of a thousand-year-old warrior with blood-stained hands. 

If only...

But she didn't, and now she was regretting it to the point that it was hindering her from functioning normally. 

"Huh?" 

Right when all these things were going on in her mind one single demon beast managed to escape from her side and dashed toward Zero and his parents. 

She turned, and her eyes widened when she saw the sight. 

The beast was only a few yards away from them and if it managed to reach there then...

Zero was busy setting up the magic circle, and even if he noticed there was a good chance that the beast would harm his parents. 

'If that happened again..' she thought. 

The tragedy was going to repeat itself and this time there would be no future Zero coming to save the day. 

Zero will die again. He will die. And just like before it would be her fault. The weight of his death...she won't be able to bear it. 

Just as she was thinking about it, more demon beasts rushed from her side and headed toward Zero and his parents. 

That was the moment it clicked in her mind. A realization. 

She instantly became aware of how stupid she had been acting, and that the answer to her problems was extremely simple. 

'If I wasn't able to save his parents last time, then all I have to do is make sure that I absolutely don't let them die this time around. After all, that's why we were given a second choice—to correct the mistakes we made.'

A smile appeared on her face. 

She raised the Requiem sword high and supplied it with her mana. 

"Eclipse," she said, and the sword grew darker.  I think you should take a look at

A dome of shadow expanded from the sword and swallowed the demon beasts along with her. Inside the dome, there was complete darkness—a place where shadows ruled. 

"Been a while since I used this," she said to herself.

A few moments later the dome disappeared and all that came out except Req were the dead bodies of the demon beasts that were cut in multiple pieces along with their cores. 

She turned and looked back at the remaining demon beasts and the new ones coming from the portal. However, this time around she didn't have that dead look in her eyes, she was smiling instead. 

Sometimes internal battles are much harder to fight compared to physical ones. After all, they are psychological and the one you are fighting against is yourself. 

This was one of those cases. 

But now Req had resolved her internal conflict, thus there was nothing to worry about on that front. 

***

"Father, Mother," I said. "I'm gonna send you two to a safe place now. It may be possible that there won't be that many people there when you arrive, or people you don't know. But soon Anya will come and find out, so just stay where you arrive."

"Zero, what are you talking about? How are we going to get out of this? There are… all these monsters running all around," there was a sense of worry in my father's voice as he said that. 

"Aren't you coming with us?" my mother asked. She must have picked up on the words when I said that I would be sending 'you two' to a safe place. 

"No, I will come. But I can't go with you right now," I replied. "However, Anya will be there, so you don't need to worry."

"But… why aren't you coming?"

"It's more like I can't…" I said as I looked at the book in my hands. 

A blast was heard nearby and looking in that direction I saw Req engaged in battle with three demon beasts at once. Her movements were fluid, and she didn't seem to have any trouble. 

And it was understandable. This girl had fought the army of millions of demon beasts alone in my last life. Three beasts were nothing to her. 

"We don't have time to waste," I said, hurrying them.

"But…"

"Mother, believe me. I will reach there, and I will be fine," I was trying to reassure her but I knew my words couldn't console her much. 

"Dear, see there," Ron said as he pointed toward Req. Then both of them saw how mercilessly she was slaughtering the beasts as they came one after another. 

"You saw how our son fought back then. I think he is capable of protecting himself. So let's believe in him and don't make this hard for him?" he said. 

"Please, mother, father. We are running out of time," I urged. 

"We are ready, send us where you want," Father said, hugging my mother from the side. She probably was still not happy with this decision, but for now, had decided to stay quiet. 

Looking at them I nodded and then flipped through the pages of the book and got to the center page. There a magic circle was printed on both pages. 

I went and put the book down on the ground near their feet with those pages facing toward the sky. I bent one of my knees and sat on the ground and put my right palm above the magic circle drawn on the pages. 

I closed my eyes, visualizing all the mana within my body. Then I opened them back and pushed the mana down in the magic circle. 

The circle on the book that was dark black slowly lit up as it absorbed mana from me. In my mind, I set up the number of people that have to be teleported to two, and some of the runes on the magic circle changed shape on their own. 

Then with a strange sound, the magic circle expanded outside the book and onto the ground with the book at its center. The circle was the same as the one in the book, just that it had grown big and was now activated. 

The color of the circle was blue, and it was shining rather brightly. I stood up but let the book remain where it was. My parents were standing inside the radius of the circle so when I begin to step out of it my father put a hand on my shoulder. 

"Don't prove me wrong, and come out of this safely," he whispered in my ears and then patted me on the back. I passed him a reassuring smile and then stepped out of the circle. 

Then I stood a few steps away facing toward the circle and raised my right hand towards it. Then I started reading the incantation that was written in the book. 

The runes in the magic circle started moving and the circle slowly began spinning. There were three borders of it, two moved in an anti-clock direction while one moved clockwise. 

And as it happened, I felt my mana getting sucked up at a rather alarming rate. 

Then a very bright, blinding light came out of the magic circle that covered my parents within it. The last scene I saw was them smiling and waving goodbye to me. 

I smiled back, but before they could see it the light was launched up toward the sky and the magic circle closed and shattered into sparkles of small shining orbs of light. 

My parents were nowhere to be seen now. Only the book was lying there on the ground, and the light on the magic circle inscribed on it had dimmed down. 

I dropped my arm down and took my breaths. Just sending two people had consumed a hell lot of my mana. After that I went and picked up the book, strapping it back inside my cloak. 

'I hope they reached there safely…' I thought, looking up toward the sky. 

Then I heard a scream, no, there were many screams; the screams of monsters. Looking in that direction I saw a huge group of demon beasts, destroying the city buildings, and coming toward us. 

'I can't relax even a bit, can I?'

But it was fine; all was fine now. My parents were now out of danger, so I could now focus on doing other things. I was ready for whatever was coming.