* * * *

Mao walks full of attention to her surroundings following Shou who walks calmly as if there’s only a little danger around.

“… Mao.”

“HUH! What?! Enemy?! Where?”

Mao looking around relentlessly while readying her spell. She got startled quickly lately. After Blaze died, she gets a little too jumpy.

“No it’s not. Calm down a bit!”

“How can I calm down? That zombies can attack at anytime right? I can’t drop my guard down.”

Shou scratch the back of his head and sigh.

“Nah, no need to be so wary. I’m sure nothing will come to us for now, at least until we reach the center.”

“Is… is that so..? Okay then.”

Mao sighed a breath of relieve. Then she speaks up again.

“I-If you’re lying I’m going to freeze you, okay!”

‘… Here it is. Her ‘Tsundere’ line.’ Shou looks up to the sky and sighed. ‘But, somehow this makes me felt calmer. That’s right, I also need to get myself straighten up.’

“Thanks, Mao.” Shou smiled to Mao. ‘I won’t let anyone got into the anymore.’ Shou thought with determination.

“Uh… What? You thanked me because I’m going to freeze you? No way… to think that you’re such a--”

“Okay~~ Stop~! I don’t want to hear that word from you. And what’s with that disgusted face?! It’s not like that okay!”

* * * *

“What’s that..?”

Mao and Shou are hiding behind some rock while observing something in the middle of the empty field. There’s something that looks like an icon graphic defended by a see through barrier.

“That icon… isn’t it the icon for this game? Mao, I think we need to get that thing inside. And the barrier that surrounding it, is an Alien from this world. But this one… such a troublesome one.”

“So? What should we do?”

“I guess we need to defeat the alien first. But we need to be careful, that thing is quiet strong.”

Shou takes out his sword and grip it firmly.

‘The one who helped me last time were you right? Please, could you help me again?’ ”… There’s no reply? Hey… Mr or Mrs ‘Sword’ are you there? Could you help me once again?”

But there was no reply. Shou was sure that the one who talked to him before was this sword, so why does it didn't answer now.

“What are you doing idiot?”

“um… nothing.” ‘That weird… I’m sure that time was from the sword.’

Shou resheathed his sword into it’s scabbard and sticks it to the equipment belt.

“Anyway, all we need to do is to destroy that right?” Mao gets out of hiding and advance forward to the center while casting some magic.

“No, wait! … too late…” Shou tries to warn Mao but she already halfway there. He quickly runs trying to catch up with Mao. “!” ‘Somehow, it felt like I become slightly faster in running.’

“!!”

Mao released lump of electricity from her hand. As the lightning hits the barrier, it neutralized. Suddenly, a tentacle rose up from under the ground. The tentacle was almost see-through yet thick, with a red glowing ball in the center of it.

“Mao! Get away!”

As Shou warns Mao, the tentacle is charging up some electricity on its tip and going to struck Mao down.

“MAO!”

Shou couldn’t get to Mao in time and he become a little desperate. That time, just before Mao got struck by the tentacles, Shou hears another voice again.

‘Hey kid, shall I help you? Leave this to me!’

It was Blaze’s voice that rings in his mind.

“..? B…Blaze?”

Shou suddenly felt that someone guided his body. He jumped upwards and takes out his gun. While in mid air he shoots around 5 times accurately to the red ball inside it. After the tentacle was hit with the last shot, it melted down. Mao, who was surprised, fell down on her knees.

‘No way… That one was… ? How did I do it? It just felt like my body moves itself… moreover, my accuracy seems to be better than usual.’ Lost in daze, Shou remembered about Mao 'Wait, I need to confirm Mao's safety!' “… Ma… Mao! Are you alright?”

“I’m okay.” She gets up slowly. “What was that?”

“That’s why I told you to hold it off. , an alien that could form a barrier, its true form is unknown. Can be defeated by wiping out the tentacle. However, you need to attack the red ball, that’s its weak point. If not, the tentacle will just grow back or multiply. Once the tentacles have been wiped out, the barrier will also disappear.”

The ground is shaking up again as more tentacles sprout out from the ground. In a few moments, the field is almost full of tentacles.

With their back facing each others, Shou and Mao are trapped near the center. Clearly outnumbered by the tentacles, Shou and Mao are cornered.

“This is bad. Oi Shou! Can’t you do something?”

“If only I can do it. If we attack it, we will get found out and attacked as well. If we just stay here doing nothing, sooner or later they will found us and attack us.”

“So you mean anything we do just end up the same?”

“Well yeah.”

“What about that thing you do last time?”

“Seems like I can’t. The sword doesn’t respond this time.”

“So now we can’t do anything? This really doesn’t look well.”

‘… What should we do? What should we do?! This is bad. This is bad! This kind of event is not good! What will--’ “!” ‘Oh yeah, so that’s how it is.’ A smirk shows up on Shou’s face. “Seems like, we just need to stay here for a bit. Very soon a help will come.” Shou become very confident suddenly.

“Huh?”

Mao couldn’t grasp what Shou means by that. Suddenly becoming confident like that in just seconds.

As Shou expected, suddenly people from the teams that was left behind the boulder before, shows up.

“Hey, I’ve just begun to waiting for you people.”

Shou welcome those people as if he knows that they will come. No, in fact he knows that they will surely come.

“Everyone, ready your weapon!”

“““OOOOOOOOH!”””

All of them shouted with all they got. And because of it they catch the tentacles attention.

“CHARGE!!!”

The remaining team charges forward. Some of them agilely use knife or axe to cut down the tentacles that tries to attack them while the others use firearms to shot down the tentacles from afar. There’s also some that stay behind and support the others with sniper rifle or plasma artillery.

“Hahaha! This is it! ‘Boss War’ Event! Let’s go Mao, we will also help them!” Shou sheathe the sword and change his weapon into a military knife and plasma handgun. “I’ll show you what I learned from ‘Games’!”

“I only have a little magic power left but… Let me join the fun!”

Mao summoned some fireballs and gathered them in her right hand and the fireballs cover it.

“Come, !!”

The fire that was covering her right hand becomes a glove with one sharp blade on it. Rather than ‘Blade’, its appearance is closer to ‘Katar’ type dagger.

Shou’s body movement isn’t very sharp, but he can skillfully change his attack between gun and knife. Mao’s movement is quiet swift and agile, but her attacks is rather clumsy and sometimes missed as she isn’t used to close combat. Despite that, the two of them defeated many of the tentacles with the help of the remaining team.

‘Somehow my skill with knife got better… well whatever, as long as we can win this!’

“HA~~~!”

* * * *

“SO TIRED~~!”

Shou let his body falls down on the ground just like that. Near him, Mao sits down and lays her body on him.

“Me too…” Mao continues the conversation. “Not bad. Rather, that was pretty good! You’re doing a good job finishing the ones I missed.”

“Heh, same goes for you. Thanks for covering my back, Mao.”

The other is also resting not too far from the two of them. The field that was almost fully occupied by alien tentacles is now almost empty and only they and the barrier which surrounds the icon remain on the field. Little by little the barrier slowly disappears. This barrier is product from those tentacle alien, as they already wiped out, the barrier also slowly erased.

“Good job you guys. Your skill was pretty amazing!”

A bald guy comes over and greets them. The guy has a big build and pretty buff, his armor also looks better than the others, meaning that this guy has a higher rank.

‘This guy is… Steve Hart, Blaze’s close friend.’

“I just realized now but… where’s Blaze?”

“Ah… that’s… sorry but, he is…”

Reminded of what happened to him, Shou face shows a regretful expression.

Seeing Shou’s expression Hart also seems a little depressed.

“Is that so… I see, so he also becomes a zombie.”

“HUH?!”

Shou suddenly reacted to Hart’s words.

“Huh? I thought you already know. I mean the one who got killed by those zombies or got bitten, turned into zombie right?”

“… I FORGOT ABOUT THAT!!!”

Shou screamed frantically when he suddenly remembered about that.

‘That’s right! How could I forget?! Those zombies can infect others and turn them into zombies! In ‘Left 4 Dead’, it said that the survivors (the 4 people) have immunity against the virus but the people here shouldn’t have it right?! So does that means… around now Blaze would have already become a wandering zombie?’ “HUOOOH! Damn it, how could I forget?! Ah that’s right! Mao, you also got touched by (tongue)! What if you’re also infected?”

Shou suddenly become desperate about the situation, probably worried about Mao as well.

“Oy Shou, calm down.”

“I mean, even one touch could be dangerous you know! We don’t have immunity towards the virus. To think that we managed to get here untouched by those zombies directly--”

“Calm~ yourself~~ DOWN~~~!” *Bam!* Mao hits Shou into the ground.

“O-Ouch…”

Slammed hard into the ground his body ached so much.

“Ah! So…sorry…”

Realizing she used too much power, Mao apologized to Shou.

“No, I’m sorry. Now I’m a bit calmer. Thanks. Mao, are you sure you’re okay?”

“Well, don’t worry too much kid. Some of the team was also got caught by those tongue but no one got infected from it.”

“Is that so? That’s one problem out. Now, the next problem is about Blaze--” seeing something, Shou stopped his words midway. “Though, seems like there’s no need to worry about that too.”

Shou pointed his finger uphill. Where he pointed out, there is someone standing on top of the hill.

“That’s… Blaze…”

Hart shocked seeing the figure of the one who is standing there.

“Well, at least he didn’t change into another troublesome one like and such. But he's still wearing his armor... this is going to be a tough fight.

“I’ll finish him off.”

Hart moves forward and takes his stance.

“!”

, a skill that Hart specialize in, the skill allows him to shoot through any bullet sized gap perfectly at any distance. In other words, it has almost 100% accuracy shoot.

As Hart shoot with his skill, Blaze moves his hands, using the armor in his arm for defending himself from the shot. The bullet that was shot by Hart got deflected by Blaze’s arm's armor.

“What..?” “No way!” “How could he?!” “That’s crazy!”

As everyone are standing still from disbelief, Blaze runs forward and closes his distance. After he come close enough, he suddenly jumped. While Blaze is in midair Shou realized something.

“Everyone, guard yourself!”

Just right after Shou warned the others, Blaze shoots many times and each of the shot is aimed at everyone’s fatal point. Luckily, because Shou has warned beforehand, no one got seriously injured. Shou himself only got some scratch on his cheeks.

‘Impossible?! He really used ? More importantly, I never even heard any zombies in ‘Left 4 Dead’ that can use guns.’

Wiping the blood that was on his cheeks Shou takes out his knife and gun.

“I guess this one is the real ‘Last Boss’ huh?”

He put up his stance, facing Blaze face to face.

“You’re the one who told me to finish the mission so… even if I have to face you, I’ll finish the task you’ve entrusted to me!”

Charging forward into Blaze’s zombie, Shou tries to plunge his knife into Blaze’s neck. As Shou almost his neck, Blaze’s jumped avoiding his attack. While in midair, Blaze aimed his gun at Shou.

By a sheer luck he managed to avoid getting hit by the bullets. But Blaze readying himself to jump once again.

‘?! Then… Please, let me do it just like last time!’

Shou also jumped and takes out his gun. At that moment, he felt like everything got slowed down and he could predict Blaze’s line of fire and ‘Fatal Point’.

‘This is it! The feeling just like I felt before.’

Blaze’s bullet got deflected by Shou’s. Both emptied their ammunition cartridge quickly. As they land, they throw away their guns begin to fight with knife.

Of course, Blaze’s skill on knife is better than Shou’s, but, Blaze movement is being hindered by everyone shooting at him, so Shou has the upper hand in this fight.

‘Are you kidding me? This is just like I’m really fighting with Blaze’s himself! No, even more powered up version of Blaze I guess. The skill is almost the same, yet the power output is really strong. Does that means the rumor about zombies can release more power than normal humans can is true? His attacks are too strong, many times stronger than before! I can only barely hold up. What's more surprising is that he retain a certain extent of an intelligence, far more smarter than normal zombies even the special type can't be compared to. I hope he can’t be more powerful than this.’

“Mao, can you help me with power buff? This Blaze is unbelievably strong as hell.”

“Eh, r-right, I’ll try to buff you. This is really the last of my magic power, so use it well, okay?! I’ll have you return my magic latter after all!”

Then she whispered to herself in a really small voice.

“Even if I said that… I wonder if I can stay that long… well, even if this is the last, I don’t mind.”

“Eh..?”

Shou heard Mao whispered something but he can’t hear it well. No, it’s not that he didn’t hear it well, he refused to.

Mao cast a power buff magic to Shou.

"GO! SHOU!!"

As Shou filled with power vigorously, as if all the power inside her got sucked by Shou, Mao collapsed on the ground lifelessly. Some of the other quickly check on Mao’s condition.

When Shou see Mao suddenly collapsed, he grits his teeth and put all his strength into this thrust.

Even though his thrust is blocked by Blaze again, this time his power has been increased. Because of this, he managed to crack Blaze’s armor even though it’s very hard. Because of Blaze’s armor’s hardness and Shou’s powerful thrust, his knife also got broken.

Shou then kicks Blaze’s body away and jumps upward also readying his plasma gun. He uses aimed at Blaze’s armor crack. Not just Shou, everyone precisely aimed at this crack to break Blaze’s armor.

“Hart!”

Signaling Hart to attack when Blaze’s armor broke, Shou also shoot once again to Blaze’s head. With nothing to defend the shoots from Hart and Shou, the shoot pierced Blaze’s head and heart. In that moment, Blaze's body falls down on the ground.

Shou quickly rush to Mao while Hart confirming Blazes zombie is done for.

“MAO!”

“…Shou..?”

“Hey, aryakay? Wat happened?!”

Worried sick about Mao, Shou talked too fast as result.

“Slow down… you’re talking too fast idiot.”

Taking his breath, Shou tries to talk calmly.

“Sorry. *cough* Anyway, are you okay Mao? What happened to you?!”

“Haha, I never thought that I would be this stupid to do this. The truth is… if I’m out of magic, I--”

Just before Mao finished explaining, Shou already can guess what’s wrong with her.

“Don’t say anything anymore…”

“…”

“Why are you so--” ‘Wait… magic? Then should I..?’ “… just you wait a bit Mao. I’ll do something!”

* * * *

“… Which would be better, Her upper one or lower one?”

Shou is holding the now unconscious Mao in his left hand while his right hand holding a something.

“She usually takes ‘this’ from the ‘lower one’ but she could also takes it from the ‘upper one’ before… But it’s just inappropriate to stuck this inside her mouth while everyone is watching like this… in that case even the lower one is out of the question right..?”

Stunned from confusion Shou doesn’t dare to move his hand.

“… This isn’t the time to be like this! Mao is on danger! As I thought, the ‘lower one’ is better, and it’s concealed with skirt but this side is… ARGH! Whatever!”

Shou slips his right hand that is holding something inside Mao’s skirt.

‘… As I thought this is--’ “Oh wait, can she convert it into energy if she’s unconscious?”

Mao slowly reacted and regain her consciousness.

“HNGGGKUAH~~~!” Mao groans and wakes up from her unconscious state.

Shou quickly shove away his hand and throw away the thing he holds before.

“S…Shou..?”

“M-Mao! Ha, hahaha! I’m glad, really glad.” Shou holds Mao tightly in his arms, with his eyes on verge to spill tears, he hold her dearly.

“How could I…” Mao felt something inside of her then she blushed. “… N-no way… this… S-Shou… you did it in front of others…” fixing her clothes that were a bit messy before, Mao stands up.

“Ah no, I used--”

“SHOU YOU DUMMY~~~!” Mao hit Shou into the ground as hard as she can and then flee away.

“Hear me out first! Wait a bit would you?!” Shou stands up and chases after Mao.

* * * *

Finally catching up with Mao, Shou grab her hand so she wouldn’t run away.

“D-don’t touch me you pervert!”

Rejecting Shou’s hand, Mao slaped it away.

“P-Pervert?! I don’t want to hear that from you!”

“Uuu~~ once again, I’m being shamed… this morning was pretty bad, and now…”

Seeing Mao’s face reddened and embarrassed, Shou couldn’t but sighed.

“What the hell, usually you’re the one who is being aggressive but now, being meek just because you think you got seen by others, seriously what’s with you?”

“I can’t help it! I mean...wait what did you said? ‘You think’?”

“Yeah, of course! Who the hell would do ‘it’ in front of those bunches of people?”

“No wait, then how?”

“I use something to inject my… well, you know. And the others didn’t see it. Your skirt should conceal it after all.”

“Then…” Mao blushed a bit.

“Yeah, the others didn’t see a thing.”

“No, that’s not it about! Then… if you inject yours… does that mean… you… Mast--”

“Don’t say it! More like, that’s you're talking about?!” Shou cuts on Mao’s line right before she finished it.

“Of course! What do you use for the ‘material’?! If it’s not me I would rather die again! If you don’t say I’ll kill myself! If you lie I’ll go jump down from a cliff!” Mao creates a dimensional hole using and seemed to be ready to jump down.

“Damn it, so persistent! It’s you okay! Truthfully I imagined about you and well… some others girls…” Shou averted his eyes a bit.

“As I thought it really is impure! He used some other girls inside ‘this’!”

Mao acting like a housewife from soap opera that found out her husband had been having an affair.

“W-why you!”

“Good bye, this cruel world~! Shou is cheating on me… I would rather die right now!” Mao jumped down into the hole that she created.

“MAO!” Shou got surprised and quickly tries to catch her, but she already fell down and the hole she created instantly disappear. “oi… you’re… you’re joking… right..?” standing stunned from the shock Shou slowly falls into his knees.

“Come on… this is not funny you know… MAO!”

“Yaho~~ you called~?”

Slowly turned his head, Shou find Mao standing behind him.

“…”

“Huh? You really think I jumped? Of course not! I teleported right before your back before I fell!”

Shou begins to stand up “YOU--”

As he turned, Mao kissed him right on his lips.

“!”

Slowly letting go of Shou lips “Sorry…”

“You little devil.” Shou begin to extend his arms, holding Mao’s body.

“Sorry.”

“Do you know how worried I was?” Shou tighten his holds.

“I’m sorry.”

“Not just the jump before, I was really scarred and panicked when I saw you collapsed after you cast magic on me you know. Damn it, making me worries like that. Damn you little devil!”

“I really am sorry!” can’t hold her tears, Mao also tightly holds Shou and shouted out.

After holding each other for a few moments, Shou begins to release Mao. Wiping her tears, Mao walks away to the field. Just after she walked a few step she turned around.

“T-that kiss… I-it doesn’t have any special meaning okay! But if you want to think like that then… maybe it is… I guess.” Then she just runs away with her cheeks reddened.

“… Damn… I guess, I got conquered by her once again huh?” Sighed and scratching his head, “Seriously, damn you little devil.” as a little smile appeared in his face, Shou also walks following Mao.

* * * *