Pause System: Harem In The Apocalypse

'What I should cook today?' Aurora wondered as she looked at the ingridients.

With the amount they had, she should be able to create 7 more sets of food which could last up to two weeks if they saved up and ate reasonably.

But there was no telling when the power would cut and the fridge would turn useless. In that case she knew her ability would come in handy.

"My ability..." She muttered as she raised her hand.

A sphere of ice manifested just inches above it after doing so.

The sphere floated above, remaining in position no matter how exagerate of a movement she made. This was her ability, Ice.

She picked up the knife, chopping up the ingredients whilst the gas stove heated up the pans which were sprinkled with onions.

Her legs still trembled slightly with every movement but she did her best to ignore it.

"Damn Gray... Didn't you know how to take it easier on someone's first time...?" She asked with narrowed eyes as she chopped up the carrots.

*RIIIIING* *RIIIIING* *RIIIING*

Suddenly, a loud alarm, originating from the other room resounded across the hall and throughout the building. It was so loud that even Aurora could tell that it spelled bad news.

Not wasting any time, she quickly began to prepare. Letting go of the knife as she rushed to their rooms, placing everything they would need into their hiking bags.

All this noise concentrated on one spot. Last time Gray was filled with blood when he descended, she could only imagine how many zombies would climb up the floors after this.

But the problem wasn't solely the zombies inside, it was also the zombies outside. Although it would be unlikely, what if there was a zombie which could blow the building away? Like one of the abnormals which Gray had mentioned.

Either way without thinking much, she gathered the things.

Suddenly-

The door slammed up, Aurora, reflexively reacted and launched a shard of ice at whatever was there. However, she seemed to freeze it mid-air after seeing how it was only a pair of children.

"G-Gray told us to come here!" He spoke, desperately, forcing even more air out of his dried out lungs.

Upon hearing this, she understood.

"Help me get things ready, put your sister on top of the couch and gather anything you'd find useful to place in the hiking bag." Said Aurora, as she glanced at him before continuing.

The young boy nodded and did exactly as he was told, making sure anything they could need based on his understanding went straight into the back.

In an instant, a horde of zombies suddenly crashed into a two by two, paused air rectangle which Gray had formed.

There hands could be seen struggling to fit through the gaps around the rectangle, doing everything they could to grab Gray. However no matter how much they struggled he was unreachable.

The sounds of groans filled the floor as Gray counted down, it was this key moment which would change everything, his focus needed to be unparelled. One mistake and he'd die.

He grabbed his kitchen knife and counted down with the timer whilst looking the zombies straight in the eye as he stood ahead of the staircase which was going up.

There pupils were all a dilated white.

3... 2... 1..

[Unpause]

Simultaneously as the notification rang inside his ear, Gray swung his knife horizontally, just about at their waist, instantly pausing the slash as he did so.

[You have slain a zombie- You have- You have slain a zombie!]

Without wasting a second second, he rolled to the side, washing as pieces of their corpses went crashing up into the wall, before he quickly leapt up the stairs.

The notifications rang like crazy.

The trap would only last for five seconds, there was no way it would be able to kill all of them either. Gray now stood on the 16th floor, waiting to repeat the stratergy, when all of the sudden-

*CRASH!*

From the window at the end of the hallway, a strange type of mutated bird came crashing in, with its mouth wide open, as it flew straight at Gray.

It happened so fast that he could barely react, with widened eyes, Gray leapt up the staircase, watching as it did a sharp turn, thrusting itself at him, however it's wings caused it to crash against the staircase

'What the fuck is that?!' Gray questioned as he inspected it.

From it's shape and the way it looked, it's appearance was strangely similar to that of a pteorodactyl.

It was around a meter to two meters in length and it's wings spread almost grazing against both sides of the long hall as it had flown towards Gray.

He didn't know what it was, but there would be no better time to kill it than now. A flying zombie? There was no telling what sort of troubles it could cause.

Gray leapt from the top of the staircase, down on it, watching as it thrust its bloodied peck at him. It's speed was also over the top for the zombie, Gray was barely able to react.

But he did-

Mid-air he rotated his body, with his knife positioned directly in front of it. Using his blade, he drifted of the side of it's peck, taking some of it's skin as he fell right past it.

The monster which had it's wings stuck on the staircase, struggled to turn around and at that moment-

*Pierce*

Gray didn't hesitate to thrust at it from behind, piercing the back of it's head as he held it down.

On top of the notifications from the zombie on the floor beneath being killed, Gray received another notification after killing this one which overlapped the others.

[You have slain a Mutated Level 1 Flying Zombie]

[You have earned 8 exp]

[XP required to level up: 192/200]

After killing the bird, Gray's eyes fell upon the exp required, he was already at 192.Just a few more figures from levelling up. Excitement began tao boil from his heart, as he was about to leap up to the stairs to get in position, when all of the sudden-

*Swoosh*

A zombies bloodied hand swiped past him just before he could. He hadn't noticed it before since he was distracted but, an abnromal had managed to get past his trap.. It was currently on the ceiling above him.

[Unpaused]

Gray's heart sunk, the timer had ended.

From the ceiling, it lunged at Gray, causing him to leap away from the staircase to avoid it. Although he had dodged, it was only the beginning of it's barge of attacks.

It constantly applied pressure, staying on Gray, trying all sorts of moves to attack him.

Gray had to focus all of his efforts into avoiding it, swaying from right to left, leaping from back from side to side, he had many close calls where it just about grazed his skin.

During that moment-

Time seemed to slow down as one by one masses of zombies poured into the floor like flies, some heading striaght towards Gray while others heading up the stairs where the alarms were still ringing.

In that instant, Gray's eyes dilated.

'NO STOP-'

He didn't buy them enough time.