Ash looked at the old woman and saw how terrified she was. Being tied to a chair wasn't something most people would prefer, apart from those who were into that kind of stuff. But this was an old woman, and from the looks of it, she seemed to be precisely around the age of sixty, close to seventy.
The reason Ash just looked at her and didn't rush to help was because he wanted to be sure she wasn't part of the ice cream men. From his experience doing this for who knows how long, he knew almost every little trick these monsters would often pull.
He went to her, not even bothering to untie her just yet. He was carefully looking at her—more like inspecting—to see if she was really an innocent victim and not one of them, possibly the boss.
The old woman was not just terrified about being tied up. She had seen those innocent-looking ice cream men turn out to be those kinds of things, and now here was this stranger of a boy, busy being a creep.
She was really terrified. She didn't know what Ash's intent was. Maybe all of this was just a show, and he had killed those men just so he could be the one who stayed with her and did whatever he wanted.
Each time Ash touched her, the poor old woman tried not to make it obvious, but she was really uncomfortable with the whole thing.
The way she was tied was on another level—not just serial killer level. It was so precise, like they knew what they were doing. They knew where to tie the rope and how to even tie it. It was so creative that even Ash was actually impressed for a second.
Not only was the old woman tied to a chair, but the chair itself was the type one might find in a dentist's office. Next to her were different kinds of surgical equipment, and the part that almost made Ash puke his lungs out was the fact that he not only saw the old woman's clothes torn but also her old and wrinkly body.
Ash gagged. "Don't worry, ma'am. I'll get you out of there in no time."
He was also trying hard not to actually puke. All he did was gag, but he didn't want to make it obvious to the old lady, so he covered his mouth with his elbow.
After confirming that she was nothing but a civilian who just got unlucky, Ash continued with his main mission—to untie this poor old lady and set her free.
"So how should I deal with this, huh?" Ash circled around the old lady, trying to figure it out.
Though his hair covered his eyes, it wasn't hard to see that Ash was actually using some kind of magic eye power.
"Ah, there you are." He finally spotted where the rope needed to be loosened.
He crouched and checked under the chair, where he saw some kind of brown paper placed over the knot.
Ash tried to remove the paper and got stung. "Argh!"
That wasn't just a normal piece of paper—it was actually a seal. A seal was some kind of magic technique that almost everyone in the magic world used in order to secure something they didn't want undone.
There were different kinds of seals: the ones used by assassins to protect and forbid against these monsters, and then the ones used by the monsters themselves. The latter varied in power level and mostly circulated in black markets, and usually weren't that strong.
Ash stopped trying to unseal it, since it had just stung him, which was weird. These seals were so fake, the lowest-ranked magic items, they couldn't even hurt a simple fly.
But this one definitely did something to Ash. His finger stung like crazy, and all he could do was suck it better.
Realizing the old woman was growing impatient and anxious tied in that chair, Ash had to come up with another plan to remove the seal without getting hurt again.
He sat back and relaxed for a bit, thinking. "What can I use against that seal?"
Not even ten seconds passed before Ash figured it out.
"Uh-huh, that one is bound to work. Why didn't I think of it in the first place?" he said happily.
Ash then took out some kind of band made of plastic. He put it around his wrist, then muttered something silently in a whisper.
The plastic band changed. It stretched itself and covered Ash's whole arm, creating a plastic black glove.
After that, Ash reached under the chair. "C'mon, please work," he prayed hopefully.
As soon as his hand touched the seal, there wasn't anything to be concerned about. His plastic glove lit up, causing a temporary fire burn like how a piece of paper does when it burns up and turns into ash.
Ash managed to unseal it and took it out so he could see what kind of seal had stung him like that. After the seal burned up, so did his plastic glove, its fragments remaining stuck to the seal.
"What kind of seal is this?" Ash asked himself as he looked at it.
It wasn't like anything he'd seen before. From his profession, he had seen his share of different seals, but this one stood out on its own. It was unclear what type of seal it was, but it left behind some kind of ash that Ash had never even seen before.
And the brown paper had completely burned off. The only thing remaining was this strange ash.
Ash was smart enough to put it in an evidence bag so maybe later it could be tested. He got up after that and saw the old woman looking at him funny.
"Alright, alright, I'm getting you out," he said as he untied the rope at its main source.
Just as he was focused on setting her free, something else was happening behind him—but he couldn't see it. The woman was the only one who could.
Her eyes widened, and Ash saw that she was trying to tell him something. But from the way she moved, flinched, and muffled under the rope in her mouth, Ash mistook her for someone just trying to yell at him.
"Hey, hey, could you hold still for a second? This is delicate stuff," Ash requested.
But his request was something she simply didn't care about. She was actually looking at what was happening behind Ash. Whatever she was seeing made her act up all crazy.
She kept kicking and muffled screaming. Whatever she was trying to tell Ash definitely wasn't getting through, so she had to come up with another plan. She even tried pointing it out to him using her head, since her hands were still tied up.
What she was really desperate to tell Ash was that something was happening with the bodies of the four ice cream men.
Right after their bodies melted, their remains became some kind of creepy goo. The goo crawled toward one another and fused together. As they fused, they molded themselves into something.
Ash was clueless about the whole thing. The goo was now taking a more physical form. Their formation wasn't obvious at first, but after the transformation was complete, they had become one giant creepy monster.
It had long thin arms, long thin legs, a deformed body with its ribcage visible, long strands of different-colored hair, and pale, completely white skin.
The monster slowly walked behind Ash, who was busy untying the woman. From the way she was acting, he thought she was just throwing a tantrum.
The monster got close to him and stood in silence right before it opened its mouth. Its jaw stretched out as wide as it could, teeth so sharp and pointed they looked like construction nails. Its tongue wasn't long—it was actually cut.
Ash wasn't aware of any of this. He was busy untying the poor old woman, who eventually blacked out after seeing the monster up close.
Slowly, it got closer until it was about to swallow Ash whole. Just as it was about to close its mouth—
BOOM!
The creature suddenly exploded into bits.