The Villainess and I, her Zombie
chapter-11

The unexpected message left the Master-Servant duo petrified.

"..."

"Graough?! (Critical danger to the story?!) Graough! (Master, doesn't that mean that you can die?!)"

Cranberry was silent while Zombie started panicking.

"Graough?! (This is terrible! Master is it because of what I did?!) Graough! (But I only sneaked in some healing herbs to our monster's pen, as you've asked me!) Graough...! (I've even stayed behind to check if it eats it and gets better...!) Graough?! (So why have the message showed up only now?!)"

The blue boy was so loud that other children in the room, that up until now were either talking to each other excitedly or fidgeting with anticipation, started to stare at him.

"Graough! (Master! This is terrible, master!) Graough! (Have you seen the rewards?! It's so much better than even the special reward you got!) Graough! (Something is so wrong, I can't even describe it!)"

Zombie kept groaning and growling while pacing back and forth.

"Uuugh...! Ghuuugh..! Uuuu... Ghuh...! Uuu..."

The blue boy was the loudest, but he certainly wasn't the only loud one in the room.

Just as Zombie was continuously growling on Cranberry's right side, there was someone else on her left side crying very obnoxiously and very loudly.

"Ughy...! Uuu...! G-g-ghuu...!"

It was the brown-haired girl with a staff, that piqued Zombie's attention earlier.

Well, she didn't have a staff anymore...

Instead, she was holding on to some broken wood that had shards of red crystal stuck in few places.

"Graough! (Master! We have to do something!) Graough? (Can we ask someone for help?) Graough...? (Or... or maybe to stop the ceremony...?)"

"Uuu... Gh...! Ghuuuu..."

"CAN'T BOTH OF YOU JUST SHUT UP?!"

It didn't take long for Cranberry to blow up.

"...!"

"I-I'm s-so-sorry... uuu... ghuh!"

Zombie instantly shut his mouth but the crying girl didn't have his experience, and thought that she should apologize.

Cranberry closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

"Haa..."

She breathed out and turned to her servant.

"Your groans aren't helping my concatenation, understand?"

She explained in a low voice.

Zombie quickly nodded in silence.

"Uuugh...! I-I'm sorry... ghuu! I-I'll stop... uuu..."

Meanwhile, the crying girl was bad at reading the warning signs and started bowing to Cranberry.

"..."

Cranberry clenched her fists so hard that her knuckles turned white.

"...graough... (...master, lady Raspberry will scold us if we start a fight here...)

Zombie delicately tugged on his master's sleeve and let out a tiny growl.

She glanced at him and...

"Haa..."

Relaxed her hands and breathed out.

"...ughuu... uuu..."

At least the brown-haired girl was trying to keep it down.

She was unsuccessful, but at least she was trying and was so focused on that that she hadn't even noticed that the blond boy, with an oversized sword on his back, was sneaking glances at her until finally he gathered his courage and started walking towards her.

The blond boy approached the crying girl and shyly reached his hand towards her.

He glanced at the growling undead and the scary girl, but they seemed to be busy, so he gulped down his saliva and opened his mouth to call out to the sad girl.

"You! Why are you wailing like this? Do you know how irritating you are?!"

Cranberry suddenly turned to the sobbing girl and pointed at her face.

She was almost touching the brown-haired girl's nose with her index finger.

"Ughee...?"

"...!"

The crying girl gasped and took a step back and the blond boy got startled and hurriedly turned away to avoid the confrontation with the scary girl.

"Well?"

Cranberry asked while staring down at the other girl.

"Ah... um... gh! Um... m-my staff b-broooookeee...! Uweeeeee...!"

The girl broke into a full-on sorrowful cry halfway through the explanation and made Cranberry look to the side and sigh.

"So what happened? Were you attac- oh, I get it..."

"Uegh?!"

Cranberry asked but suddenly clapped her hands in realization which surprised the other girl enough to make her shut up for a moment.

"During the initiation, you unlocked a class, right? And it turned out to be something that has a ban on the equipment like a magic staff, so yours broke?"

Cranberry asked with a confident smirk.

"Ah... um... yes... exactly as you've said..."

The brown-haired girl nodded.

"Graough! (Wow! That can happen?!)"

Zombie raised his brows and groaned.

"But normally, the banned weapon would just get ejected from your hands... How strongly were you holding on to it?"

Cranberry glanced at her servant and asked the girl.

"Graough... (Oh, yeah, she seemed to be holding on to it for her dear life before.)"

"Ughuu... I... it was a-a gift from my father..."

The brown-haired girl's shoulders shook.

"Father took me in because I awakened to magic when I was little... And... and he gave me this staff as a good luck... gh...! As a good luck charm...! H-he have said he was using it during his own initiation...! And...! And I broookee iiiiiiitt...!"

She almost managed to hold back the tears this time.

Almost.

"Graough. (That's tough.)"

Zombie tilted his head and made a sad expression.

Cranberry glanced at him and furrowed her brows a bit.

"Ah, I see, so you're sad because you don't have a weapon and they should be almost done with preparations for the fights, right?"

She suddenly smiled brightly and leaned her body to the side.

"Graough... (Master... I don't think that's her reason...)"

Zombie sighed.

"E-eh...? B-but my father's..."

The brown-haired girl looked at her with confusion.

"Riiiight?"

Cranberry's smile suddenly changed into a cold glare and made the other girl flinch.

"Y-yes! I-I don't have a weapow... a weapon now...! A-and that's bad!"

The terrified girl agreed so quickly that she bit her tongue.

"I knew I was right!"

Pleased Cranberry, smiling as if she never glared at the other girl, nodded at her servant.

"Graough. (I can't believe how amazing you are.)"

Zombie shook his head and groaned sarcastically.

"Then? What's your class?"

Cranberry turned back to the other girl.

"Eh?!"

Who got startled even more than before.

"Your class. What is it?"

Cranberry's voice dropped a whole octave as she stared her down.

"!!! Ah! A-a tamer! I'm a tamer! I'm sorry!"

The brown-haired girl started bowing repeatedly and apologized to Cranberry.

The blond boy, who still was around for some reason, flinched but didn't join in the conversation.

"A tamer you say..."

Cranberry touched the whip by her waist and smiled with satisfaction.

"...!"

Zombie's eyes widened and he looked at the whip, then at his master's face, at the whip again, and back at his master's face.

"Gaough?! (Don't tell me all of that was just so you can get rid of the whip your mother forced on you?!)"

Zombie growled utterly shocked.

"Graough! (I was wondering since when did you start acting so nice to complete strangers!)"

He shook his head in disbelief.

"What a coincidence! I just so happen to have a side weapon that I could give to you!"

Cranberry took off the purple whip and offered it to the other girl.

"I! I don't know what to say...! Thank...!"

The brown-haired girl tried to take the whip from Cranberry's hand but the red-haired girl didn't release her grip.

"...you...?"

The brown-haired tilted her head in confusion and looked at Cranberry's face.

"I do have one request though."

Cranberry smiled friendly.

"You see, I really hate your obnoxious crying, I'm giving you this weapon, so could you just..."

She got extremely close to the brown-haired girl, Cranberry was a whole head taller than the other girl, so she was now looking straight down at the brown-haired girl that stared fidgeting from the unease.

Suddenly the friendly smile disappeared and Cranberry opened her eyes.

Their icy stare completely froze the brown-haired girl.

"...shut the fuck up?"

Cranberry finished her sentence, let go of the whip, and stepped away from the other girl.

"...!"

The brown-haired girl started shaking uncontrollably as she held on to the whip.

"!!!"

The blond boy listening in on them flinched and started cowering.

"Graough. (Ah, so that's what it really was about.)"

Zombie nodded with a relieved expression.

...

...

The big door opened again signaling that it was time for the children to re-enter the prepared area that was turned into the arena.

"You calmed down?"

Cranberry asked Zombie all of a sudden.

"Graough? (Um... Y-yes, somehow...)"

The confused blue boy nodded.

"The emergency quest or not, nothing changes. We need to show off as much as possible so that my mother will have to accept my choice of weapon. And who knows? Since the fight is so much more dangerous that it caused an emergency quest to appear, maybe it's exactly what we need for that?"

She smiled and started walking with all the other children.