Elizabeth Zalenski (Christopher's Mother)

"Gabriel, are you here?" She shouted as the light came back and the nauseating feeling of being transported wore off.

Before she could take in the state of the house around her, she heard Gabriel's reply, "I'm here. My chair came with me."

Hearing that eased her worries a bit. Gabriel needed that chair to get around and without it, she would have to carry him.

Bits of things began to appear around her and she recognized them as the prizes she had chosen in the white room. A variety of different things she thought would be needed rained to the floor around her.

Her first order of business was making sure Gabriel was okay before figuring out what she was going to do.

She held little doubt that her family would be coming for her but if they were in a bad spot they wouldn't be able to stay put forever.

She only spared the surroundings an initial glance before rushing to where she heard her son's voice.

Outside the decrepit house they were returned, she heard shouting and fighting in the distance. The fight to end the tutorial must have restarted after everyone had returned.

The sounds came from near the town center, where most of the people were likely returned.

Allen and Jack were going at it again. If they were already fighting, their followers would soon join in. She needed to lay low until Thomas came for her.

She didn't doubt for a second he would move heaven and earth to get here.

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Hours passed as she waited inside the ruins of her old home. Gabriel waited with her, practicing magic as he usually did. She had gathered everything that came with them and huddled inside the most intact bedroom left.

The roof was mostly intact with only a few beams of sunlight penetrating through. It was in the center of what was left of the house, making it the most secure of what was remaining.

Gabriel's light blue magic lit up the dark room as he weaved it in various shapes and sizes.

A smile always made its way on her face watching her boy's eyes light up at the arcane. When the tutorial started, she had been scared and lost, without her husband or kids, without the knowledge of their wellbeing or location. She didn't know what to do.

She was glad she had Gabriel with her. It would have been unbearable to be alone.

Her baby, the youngest, countered her worry and fear with wonder and excitement. He rambled on about magic and games. Of class builds and which skills to take.

He spent almost every day going down into the dungeon the tutorial had made for them. To reach deeper and get more levels, pushing his skills and abilities further. Forcing her to go with him, she wasn't going to let him go down there alone.

All until the accident.

She still clenched her teeth when she thought about that day.

As the tutorial went on, people became increasingly hostile. What began as normal transactions and bartering, turned slowly toward exploitation and worse. The stronger someone was, the more they could take from those weaker than them.

Factions rose up, groups of people who gathered together for strength. Those factions grew in power, reaching farther with their influence.

Two of the biggest were led by Allen and Jack. Heads of the Knighthood faction and Adventurer faction. The two men hated each other and they fought over everything. Butting heads whenever they met. Both guilds constantly battled against each other during the tutorial.

She was unsurprised they met up to finish what they couldn't in the tutorial.

"How long do you think they will be at it?" Gabriel asked from beside her.

His question startled her slightly, she hadn't noticed the glow of his magic fade, leaving them in the shadows of the room.

"I don't know, honey," She said, "Probably for a while."

As their levels rose, they fought for longer periods of time. Both were evenly matched and neither were able to kill the other. Everyone else in the tutorial had learned to avoid the two when they were around. Both were rushing toward E-rank, trying to get there first.

"How long until Dad comes?" He asked not for the first time.

"I'm not sure. It's been a few hours and he should be here soon." She answered.

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They waited for a while longer before something made Gabriel shudder in his chair. He started looking around wildly with a franticness that worried her.

The only thing that made him like this was strong monsters. Ever since his accident, he became extremely sensitive to their auras.

"What? What is it?" She asked looking around herself and readying what she could.

This wasn't the first time they had done this and she started moving her mana in preparation for a fight on instinct. The wind started to pick up around them as her skills filled with mana.

She had long overcome her aversion to combat, overcome the unsettling feeling of drawing blood. She needed to be strong to protect her children and combat was the only way to do that.

It would be a mistake to underestimate an older woman like her. Many had done so in the past and weren't around to do it again.

"I feel it coming," Gabriel said in a hushed whisper, "It's the strongest thing I've ever felt."

Sweat glistened on his forehead and she became increasingly worried as time elapsed. The moments following were smothered in a still silence as they both tried to hide their presence. Working together to be as unnoticeable as possible.

As they hunkered in silence, the clashes of weapons rang out from the area down the street. She could only hope that the beast would hear it and go towards them instead of their house.

"It's getting closer," His whisper barely audible, "It's coming right toward us."

She pumped even more mana into her waiting skills hearing that. They wouldn't be able to avoid the fight if it was coming right toward them.

While Gabriel's sensitivity was better than hers, she could feel the aura as it entered her range. The heaviness it carried and the might of it bearing down on her.

She wasn't as well versed at reading auras as her son but even she could feel the magnitude of what was closing in on them.

Fear began to build as the feeling drew near.

"There's a Law there. Stronger than normal, probably a tier above Least. Something else is mixed in that I can't tell but the affinity is clear." He relayed what he felt.

He almost didn't need to say the affinity. It was clear to the naked eye that a chill built up around them. The temperature ticked down the closer the beast came.

It was the same affinity Gabriel had which made it easy to decipher.

Ice.

Her growing fear blossomed.

Thoughts of how they were going to live through this flashed in her mind as she tried to come up with a plan. The beast was coming right for them without deviation. It wasn't wandering around, sniffing the area, but like it knew they were there.

Like the house they were in was its destination.

She could feel as it drew closer, arriving in front of what was left of their house. She felt as it stopped to take in the crumbled walls and overgrown yard. Of the ruins it had become.

It stopped for only a moment before it continued closer. Walking inside a hole in the wall instead of where the door once was.

She didn't hear any claws or hooves. No indication of what kind of beast it was. There was no sniffing or grunting. Just heavy thuds of its footfalls.

Thud, thud, thud. As it walked through the house.

Wait, walked?

The more she heard, the more certain she became that this was a person, not a beast, but what kind of person had an aura like this?

She didn't have to wonder for long as a figure stepped through the doorway into the bedroom they were in. She fidgeted, trying to hide in the darkness but it wouldn't work. It wasn't dark enough and the scattered shafts of sunlight were enough to illuminate the area.

Placing herself in front of Gabriel, the winds whipped around her as she stood to face the intruder. Metal armor met her eye first as she evaluated where to strike. Wind wasn't good against metal armor, she would have to aim somewhere other than the torso. It took a lot of effort to burrow through metal plate. The thighs had metal covering them as well, making her direction of attack smaller.

The man's arms and head were uncovered and became the target she would aim at. Who would keep their head uncovered and not wear a helmet?

All of this flashed in the split second the intruder walked in. Hesitation could mean death and she had a family to get back to.

Before she had the chance to launch her prepared skills, the man stopped.

He was only a step into the doorway and he stood stock still, looking over her and what was behind her. His eyes stayed on the chair she was trying to hide for an unnaturally long time.

While the man stilled, she took this time to get more information.

The shaft of a weapon slung over his back peaked out from behind him but she couldn't tell what it was. Her sense of mana stretched out toward the man to search for any activity or threats.

There was nothing.

No mana building or skills she had to look out for. She was befuddled. The man was doing nothing that she could sense. While that wasn't foolproof, she had become confident in it over the tutorial.

As she looked over the intruder, something sparked in her mind, forcing her to look deeper at the man. The ruffled blonde hair that had months of wild growth. An unkempt beard that was in need of a shave.

A faint scar on his cheekbone that was nearly gone that he had received as a child.

She knew that scar and that face.

It was her son.

"Christopher?!" She said bewildered.

The man snapped out of his stillness and lunged toward her, "Mom!"

The sudden movement made her almost launch her skills on instinct but she managed to stifle them in time.

Her son bounded into the room and smothered her in a bear hug. One so tight her back cracked and popped, smashing her into the metal covering his chest.

She felt the skills Gabriel had powered up break apart and his mana fade back into him.

After breaking off the hug, Chris stepped back to take them both in. He looked them up and down before fixing his eyes to the chair Gabriel was in.

Eyes stuck on the missing limbs that made the chair necessary.

She watched his face harden as he looked it over. From the smile and joy of finding them and turning darker. Setting his features and narrowing his eyes.

"What happened." It came out forceful. The words hit her instead of being heard. It wasn't a request, but a demand to know why his brother's legs were missing.

As the change overtook him, she couldn't help but react to what she was seeing.

Her son was different. He wasn't the same man as he was before. Well, all of them had changed but this was more than that. It was like he was a completely different person.

He had never had such forcefulness in his voice before. Had never taken such a commandeering tone. Especially with her.

She began to notice other features that were different. His almost permanent smile or smirk was gone. A tightness in the face that contradicted the easygoing man he used to be.

His shoulders were set like a man on a mission. Of someone who knew exactly what was going to happen and march to make sure that came about.

The biggest difference, and the one that worried her the most, were his eyes.

They were missing that spark he had always carried with him. The playfulness they always had for a joke that was brewing or a sarcastic remark that would draw a laugh.

That playfulness was gone and she didn't like what replaced it.

A hardness and rigidity of a man who had been through too much.

The worst of all, there was something in it that scared her.

Something told her she wouldn't like hearing about his time in the tutorial.

She didn't think it had been kind to him.