The Villainess and I, her Zombie

"I can't believe it took so long...!"

Zombie was kicking off the ground so furiously as if the soil had done something horrible to him and he was taking an act of bloody revenge with each step – he was so dissatisfied with himself that he didn't just think the sentence, he had growled it out loud.

|It is your fault, you know? Who told you to already start putting Baron through training? He is your subject already, wouldn't it be enough to just order him to go train by himself and call him only when he would be needed?|

Patience asked in a sour voice that certainly didn't make Zombie feel any better.

|That would be because he needed at least the very basic skills to be useful! Being adorable isn't a valid strategy unless it is weaponized by a lust-based skill! He wouldn't be a very useful subject as he was when we found him, would he?|

The blue boy scoffed at her internally, focusing on dodging the people appearing from time to time in his way – he was returning to the Pride's mansion using the shortest possible way: cutting through every single road, field, village, or town, without caring about anyone or anything that he scared with his sudden appearance and reckless speed.

|At least we know that he can fly – let's hope his tracker that he apparently put on you will work well and he will come to the mansion after he'll gain a few more levels like you have instructed him to...|

Patience sighed inside Zombie's mind, sounding as if she was shaking her head in defeat.

|We left him with Kopia, he will be fine.|

Zombie shrugged his shoulders while caressing the empty sheath at his side and jumping over a cart driven by a panicking peasant screaming some gibberish.

|No. Kopia is one of the reasons for my worries – we left them both close to the Gluttonys territory, what if Arion shows up and they will kill him? The whole secret true ending hangs on having all capture targets alive!|

The sealed overseer wasn't giving up worrying about every single detail, though whether there was something to actually worry about or not was a different matter altogether.

|Pati, we have explained to her to not harm any wolves that come their way no matter what and to just run away instead. Kopia might not be very bright but she isn't stupid. And she definitely isn't a rebel.|

Zombie sighed internally and rolled his eyes as he dodged someone crossing the road without looking at both sides.

|You put way too much faith in... wait... what did you just call me...?|

Patience sounded pissed off but then she froze and asked in a changed voice.

|Pati. You know, short for Patience. We know each other for some time already, I think a little nickname is in place.|

The blue boy giggled and smirked quite evilly.

|You... you're awful! You are doing this on purpose to make me stop talking!|

Patience cried out sounding extremely embarrassed while stuttering.

|Oh no, Pati, you figured me out – you are so smart, Pati. Nothing hides away from you, Pati. You are so amazing! As expected of my Pati!|

Zombie thought and his smirk grew wider and wider until it became a full-blown grin that scared a staggering amount of people gathered at some random town's square tuned into a marketplace for a day before he jumped away leaving everyone in the dust.

Although Patience expected that Zombie was teasing her for the sole purpose of taking pleasure from making her embarrassed but the truth was that the blue boy was just trying to take his mind off of the lonely red-haired girl whim he left or longer than he promised her...

Will he be hated once he comes back?

He didn't share the messages with the current Cranberry so he had no idea what she was up to and vice versa, so he could only hope and pray for everything to be alright – as far as he remembered, during the first playthrough nothing important happened in the span of the corresponding days, even lady Raspberry didn't call for her daughter once, but would that stay the same considering how different the situation is this time around?

|Sh-shut up! You rotten-hearted playboy! If you will continue going down that path you will surely start getting lust-based skills in no time! You should be focusing on pride-based ones first!|

The sealed overseer cried out in a cutely bothered voice, calling out the blue boy's behavior.

|Yeah, I know – I actually might have a knack for it too – I clearly remember getting a lust-based skill, jealous rage or whatever, before I changed forms in the first playthrough.|

Zombie responded in an unperturbed voice, shrugging his shoulders innocently.

|Wh-wha...?!|

The answer for that was just Patience's baffled gasp.

|Suberbia leveled up after the system tried to give me Ira, wouldn't the same happen if I receive a core skill from another sin branch?|

Zombie asked and this time he was at least half-serious with his question.

|...yes... that is indeed how superbia levels up, but I don't appreciate you testing it out on me...|

Patience grumbled in response, still sounding very much embarrassed to hell and back.

|Oh, you know, I would nev...|

"COME AT ME, MONSTER!"

Zombie's thought was interrupted by a loud roar of some adventurer that he was about to pass – and it wasn't just a normal voice – it was a targeted taunt skill aimed at the dashing blue undead.

In any normal situation such skill should easily tear through the magic defense of any basic undead forcing them to charge the skill user, but, well... Zombie wasn't just any basic undead, was he?

/Warning

/The owner of the superbia skill is being attacked by an inferior skill

/Calculating...

/The attacking player receives a penalty

/MDF, MAT, LUC, -75% for the next 5 hours

Time remaining

(04:59:59)

(04:59:58)

"Wh-what the hell?!"

The messages that popped up must have been just as surprising for the blue undead as they were for the unfortunate adventurer who thought that he would lead an odd undead monster to his party members lying in ambush.

|-85% just because of the first use, and for just the taunt too? Superbia level 3 is pretty brutal, considering I'm only level 1 myself.|

Zombie laughed leaving the utterly confused, staggered adventurer behind.

|That just shows how broken the sin-based skills are. While it boosts your physical defense based on your skill points, superbia's true potential lays in defending against mental damage – if that guy tried to use a control-type skill, he would probably be hit back with -99% skill points debuff for a whole week or something.|

Patience laughed triumphantly, happy to change the subject to something less embarrassing for her.

|Huh... cool. Could be useful for the future.|

Zombei smirked and instead of dilly-dallying, he increased his speed by kicking the ground even more ferociously than before, causing the gusts of winds behind him to form into small whirlwinds truly portraying the essence of the whirlwind kick.

/skill level up

whirlwind kick (level 14)

And there was no better proof of that than a message that popped up for the speeding blue undead.

|Seriously... No one with a sound mind would have believed that your agility is below 10...|

Patience sighed sounding as if she was smiling softly at the little undead.

|Well... it should be a little bit higher now with as much running around as I did past those few days, actually – though I guess that continuously using the skill and mana increases my MP and MAT instead, huh...|

Zombie tilted his head and admitted.

But then all talking came to a halt as the shape of the Pride's mansion came into existence over another hill that Zombie was scaling – and now all of his focus turned towards it.

|Zombie, slow down – you want to enter stealthily, or else Cranberry might get in trouble for letting you leave like that.|

Patience warned him, but the blue boy did not listen at all.

Instead, he kicked off the ground with both feet propelling himself high above the walls, out of all the things he could do he did a somersault and landed softly on the grass right in front of a worried maid walking back and forth near the rose garden, displaying his high-level acrobatics skill.

"...huh...?"

Zombie furrowed his brows and tilted his head looking at the maid before she even realized who appeared in front of her.

"Ah! Zombie! Thank the system!"

...the blue undead was so surprised because the maid turned out to be none other than Fig, the maid that Patience asked him to be nice to and who Cranberry actually liked - and she looked extremely relieved to see him too while still being worried about something!

...this couldn't be a good sign...

"Zombie! Hurry! Lady Raspberry just called Cranberry to her room and since she went without you, lady Raspberry got really angry at her and...!"

"On it!"

*BOOOOOOM*

Fig didn't have to say another word – Zombie already rushed to the mansion with enough explosive speed to cause a small-scale explosion that blew away a good chunk of the perfectly trimmed lawn.