"Holy shit did she kill him?!" Someone whispered to another worker.

The people who were around Sharla quickly bowed their heads or fell to the ground scared to death.

Her brows were furrowed tightly and the once cute and adorable woman who always made their meals was no where to be seen. She was now an enraged housewife who would explode at the slightest disturbance.

She used her magic to burst open the kitchen door causing everyone around her to jump in fright. When the cooks saw her currently state they all shrunk in their spots not daring to move an inch.

She was like a predator now and silently looked at everyone before continuing forward through the kitchen.

"Get back to work." She growled before bursting open the dining room door.

The pale employees quickly got to cooking again with shaky hands. No one knew why she was like that but no one had the gall to ask.

When she burst into the dining room, everyone had the same reaction. The room went completely silent and several things dropped to the floor as they stared at the state of the "dead" man in her arms.

Some even threw up into their mugs and some of the workers fell shattering several plates in the process.

Sharla couldn't be bothered with these people.

"Get back to work. Get back to eating." She growled again and her aura flared up. To most of the normal people here, they didn't know how strong she was, but for the adventurers who had spent a lot of time around evolvers,

They could tell how many rings she had.

The demon woman in front of them was a 3rd Ring which was enough to kill most of the people here with one strike.

She may be a healer, but that didn't mean she didn't have attack spells.

When she spoke the people around her quickly got back to work or shoveled food in their mouths before leaving. They wanted to get out of there, but it was also prime time for rumors to spread about the "Sweet wife who killed the freeloader."

Sharla moved up the stairs and almost broke down his locked door before gently placing him on the bed.

She gazed at him with pity and tried to make him as comfortable as possible. She then looked back at his arm and sighed in defeat.

The only one who could probably get the sword out right now was her husband but he was in the dog house now. She tried one more time to pull it but it still didn't budge.

She thought for a moment before putting her hands in front of her and making another weird symbol out of her fingers.

This time her hands flowed a pale blue light before the air around her chilled. Mist slowly formed around them before it started to condense over his wound and left ice crystals to cauterize it.

They slowly built up over time before his entire arm became frozen solid. The sword and shield were completely covered in ice and were frozen to his cauterized wound.

Sharla sighed in defeat. She didn't want to do something like this but it was all she could think of right now. Until the sword came out, she wouldn't be able to fix his arm completely.

The blood had frozen a bit and slowed the blood flow a lot. It also served to act as a temporary cast and help reduce swelling. It still wasn't safe to do but until she had a long talk with her husband about his attitude, Alex wouldn't be able to get treated fully.

She wasn't sure if Alex would be able to fish out the sword on his own or not. For even the toughest adventurers it was a difficult thing to remove dangerous weapons from their bodies.

Nobody wanted to willingly inflict pain on themselves. Many times it would be a third party to remove and treat their wounds rather than doing it themselves. It just made it easier to get treated efficiently.

Sharla sighed and moved his sweaty hair off of his forehead. She then held her hands out in front of her before a tray of items appeared out of nowhere.

She took a cold towel from the pile and put it on his head before laying the rest down on a nightstand.

There were stacks of gauze and bandages as well as some alcohol of wounds. Although a heal spell worked the same as a disinfectant and increase the natural healing of the body, it wasn't omnipotent.

There would undoubtedly be some infection in his open wound so either he or someone else would need to remove the sword and shield soon or he may lose his arm for good.

Sharla knew he still had time though. Essence was a wonderful thing and even though Alex couldn't use essence, if Sharla or anyone else used enough force, they could get essence into his system to heal him.

She had noticed how his body seemed to reject her magic so she ended up using a lot more magic in order for the healing to hold.

She sighed once more before getting some towels and laying them on his bed before getting up. She gave him one last full body heal for good measure before leaving.

The door wobbled a bit on its hinges but she managed to close it. Her aura had calmed down a bit but her anger hadn't quelled yet.

"Now it's time for that talk Alan Gregory Setter."

She turned back down the stairs and made her way to the basement as her aura grew again.

While Alex was deeply asleep, she went down into the back room of the 4th floor. When she stepped in she saw her husband sitting on a couch. The room was a complete mess like a tornado hit it and broken beer bottles were everywhere.

Old pieces of armor and rusted weapons were thrown about haphazardly and Alan was sitting on an old leather couch that was dusty and full of moth holes. He only stared at the wall in front of him with glazed eyes and a few tears had fallen down his cheeks but were long dried.

He very rarely showed emotion but even he still had them. On the wall, he stared at were two sets of armor in a horrible state. There were holes where there shouldn't be holes and cracks had formed out of the dents in the armor.

The set of armor on the left side had a broken shield attached to it while the one on the right had a bow that was snapped in half and hung around the neck of the armor. The armor of Tony and Jaeger respectively were in the same condition that they were found in... dead.

After the people who tricked them ran off with the young girl they barely knew, Alex was able to get away somehow and make his way back to the guild of the town they came from. He tried to explain the situation at the time, but everyone seemed to ignore him.

He cursed and punched some random people for not doing anything to help before he was thrown out and banned from that guild branch. That feeling of hopelessness never went away and he used it to drive himself forward and get stronger.

The hardest part was probably going to his friends' families and telling them that their sons were dead. For both families, he was cursed and hit by the crying father or grandfather while he watched the weeping siblings and mothers in the background.

Alan couldn't get mad at them and it only served to make him feel worse. He took all the horrible feelings he had and drove himself to the top of B rank and managed to hit A rank after taking down the same underground organization that had killed his friends.

Many who praised him learned he didn't take the reward for it, which made him look like a hero. However, for Alan, he didn't take it because he never took the job in the first place. He was out on his own path for revenge and achieved it.

It felt good only for a moment before he realized he still couldn't bring them back. Killing the gang wouldn't make his relationship with his late friends' families any better and in fact, it brought more problems.

Nobles started contacting him and he had to "give them face" meaning he could no longer do as he pleased. It was around this time he was soon "awarded" a position in the army where he quickly grew tired of fighting.

When he was finally discharged for "medical reasons" he started his life with Sharla. If it wasn't for her, he might have gone and killed himself already. This world was a cruel and unforgiving place for innocent people.

He was forced to grow up by losing people close to him. When Alan first met Alex, he thought he was already a seasoned adventurer with the strength he could feel. However, he quickly learned he was nothing but a child.

Alan began to feel it was his job to ready this kid for the outside world. He ended up spending way longer than he originally wanted with him and hoped to get him out within two weeks. But that quickly turned into two months of hardcore training.

It was the kind of training he did with the army recruits since most of them were at least a 3rd Ring. He taught him all he could in the shortest amount of time and he only sped his training regimen up when he noticed how quickly Alex absorbed all the information.

Although he constantly told himself that he was doing this for Alex's sake, subconsciously it was for his sake. He didn't want Alex going through the same thing he did, and in the back of his mind, he thought that helping the kid would ease his conscious.

It got to the point where he could no longer teach him anything effective. He knew eventually Alex would leave and have to discover things on his own. His final test wasn't meant to be so difficult, but he hoped that by putting the kid in a wheelchair, metaphorically speaking, would deter him from adventuring.

His own feelings were constantly challenged by his wife over the last few months. She always mentioned he was confusing his own feelings with what was actually right for Alex. He always brushed her off which only served to drive a rift between them.

It wasn't until after the test when he had his sword partway in his neck, that he realized how insane he was being. His wife's words also served to separate his own feelings from what Alex actually needed.

He had cried for the first time since his friends died over 20 years ago. He didn't even shed tears when his daughter was born! He felt horrible for what he did but couldn't take it back now. He could only hope the kid would survive.

'Where did I lose my way, Tony? Jaeger?' He thought as he lazily looked at the suits of armor. He wasn't drunk, but the empty bottles were from the times he had drunk himself silly. When his nightmares got really bad, he would come here and drink the pain away.

Sharla who looked at her husband's condition sighed and walked in front of him. She blocked his view of the armor sets with her hands rested on her waist.

When she entered his vision his mind cleared up again and he quickly sat up wiping away the dried tears. He had a hard time looking her in the eyes and could only mumble a sorry.

Sharla smiled a little with tears of her own. She knew how much Alan had been through after his many stories but it still hurt to see the one she loved in this depressive mood. She held out a hand for him to take and he looked between her face and her hand a few times.

Eventually, he took it and stood up. Sharla opened his arms wide and he met her with a hug. He rested his face in between her shoulder and neck and he took a small whiff of her scent. She smelled like fruits from all the time she spent in the kitchen but it was a welcoming smell.

She was his home and it made him feel safe. He let one more tear fall from his eye before his eyes shut up for good. Sharla on the other hand was silently bawling as she tightly held her husband.

After a few minutes, they both calmed down and separated. Sharla smiled at him and Alan reached his hand up to wipe away her tears. Sharla did the same to him and she laughed lightly. He smiled and held her hand as they stared at each other.

"That was my apology for what I said. I shouldn't have said that. I'm sorry." Sharla looked down. She felt bad about it but it was all she could say in the heat of the moment to get him to realize his errors.

"Its okay. Thank you for helping me realized how stupid I've been." Alex smiled at her.

Just when it seemed they made peace, all of a sudden Sharla's hand was on his cheek.

*BOOOMMM!!*

The air whistled as she swung her hand wide and met his cheek with her palm. A small explosion occurred as her hand hit his face making it quickly turn to the side. The room shook as the power of a 3rd Ring hand struck a 6th Ring face.

For Alan, his eyes and mouth were wide open in shock. It may not have hurt much physically considering the huge difference in their strength stats, but it really hurt him emotionally.

He held his red cheek tenderly as he stared at his wife in disbelief.

"And that's for almost killing Alex! You had no right to go so far and you even ignored my opinion on the matter!" Sharla glared at him as she shook her hand.

It hurt her more than him, but she did it seem to mind. Her point had gotten through.

"You have been so selfish ever since you got back from the capital! I know what you saw on your journey wasn't paradise, but that doesn't mean you can bring it back with you! You forced your own ideals on that kid without asking for his opinion! What is he supposed to do? Talk back to his boss who is a 6th Ring? That's just a death wish for any sane person!

"What had happened if that was Emma? I know we talked about this already but she wanted to be an adventurer too once. I've always dealt with being the bad guy on that subject, but did you ever think that she could end up like how you made Alex if she went out into this world on her own? Or maybe even she would end up worse!" Sharla yelled at him.

Alan head his hung low and let another tear slip. He hadn't even thought about his daughter! He felt awful knowing that he originally allowed her to take her own journey. His body shook just imagining the awful scene of Emma being in Alex's condition.

Sharla sighed as she looked at him and felt a bit bad. Her husband wasn't a bad person, people make mistakes all the time. He just happened to put someone's life on the line and she needed him to see the error of his way.

Knowing she had gotten through to him she nodded.

"We can talk about this more in-depth later but now you are going to clean up the mess you created. There's blood all the way up to his room so that is your job.

"Also, I couldn't pull out the sword you stabbed him with so you take care of it. I'm tired so I will be going to bed early. I'll leave some blankets here for you." Sharla added coldly.

Just as she was leaving towards the door of his man cave, Alan scratched the bad of his head.

"Unfortunately, I don't think I can pull it without taking his arm off." Alan chuckled in defeat.

"What?" Sharla paused at the door.