The Villainess and I, her Zombie

Chapter 21: Know your place

"Graough. (Master, they look weak, are they some rookie adventurers?)"

Zombie growled when five people stepped forward from behind the trees.

They all look rather plain, and as Zombie groaned, none of them had a particularly strong presence.

"Haa..."

Cranberry breathed out and rested the baseball bat on her shoulder.

"You bunch... just get out of this area before you get yourself killed."

She shooed them away with a tired wave.

The Dandelions looked at each other dumbfounded.

"Um... ah... First of all, I\'d like to thank you, miss, you really saved our backsides there!"

Rotte decided it wouldn\'t be fair to just leave without a word.

"...!"

Shanks, who has already turned his back away from the pair and was walking away looked at the warrior in shock.

"...Miss...?"

"Graough. (He\'s either blind or stupid if he dares to be so casual with a high-born noblewoman.)"

Cranberry frowned and glared at the warrior, while Zombie shook his head.

"As the leader of the Dandelions I would like to thank you for dealing with the griffin, now we can safely finish our mission. I\'m Rotte, a warrior, by the way."

Not realizing his rudeness, Rotte confined talking instead of walking away.

"The scrawny guy ower there is Shanks, a thief, the big girl is Uresha, a tank, Lairs is our mage with a nasty case of constantly cursing, and the last one is In\'re, a healer."

He even started introducing the rest of his group as if this was some sort of social event at the local tavern.

But as he did, Zombie flinched and started glaring at them even more fiercely than Cranberry.

"Graough! (Those names! All of them have unique names!) Graough? (But that means that they\'re all related to the story?) Graough. (We shouldn\'t get acquainted with them, master.)"

The blue boy got closer to the red-haired girl and started tugging on her shirt while growling in low voice.

"Graough... (And that healer woman is looking at me with creepy eyes...)"

Zombie added hiding behind his master.

Cranberry was tall for a fourteen-year-old, so her servant who stayed the same since the first-kill party could easily disappear behind her.

"That little guy is surprisingly shy for someone so strong. What are your names? Are you a newcomer from some strong group? This guy is a corpse puppet, right? So do you have a corpse puppeteer in your party or is he a stray undead that someone subdued?"

Rotte smiled friendly and took a step forward, only a step because he was stopped by Shanks.

"What the hell are you doing?! That YOUNG LADY told us to leave!"

The rat-faced man quickly glanced between Cranberry and Rotte, putting a huge emphasis on the words \'young lady\'.

"Oi, Shanks, you\'re too stiff, adventurers should stick together even if their ranks are different! We should get to know each other!"

But Rotte completely missed the thief\'s point.

"No! No we should not! Can\'t you see that you\'re annoying this young lady and her companion?!"

Shanks was desperately trying to pull Rotte away, but with the difference in weight, height, and the distribution of status points, it was futile.

In the middle of that little internal struggle, In\'re came forward with a somewhat uneasy expression.

Shanks instantly got a bad feeling.

"Please, give me that little undead!"

In\'re closed her eyes, clenched her fists, and said in a shaking voice.

"...!"

"Oh, shit...!"

The red-haired girl froze and Shanks cursed.

Even though she didn\'t even blink, Shanks felt a wave of pure aggression coming from the girl and crushing against them.

"You\'re with a group with a corpse puppeteer, right? You\'re all probably very strong, right? So they surely have lots of corpse puppets like him! Please, just give him to me! I have a skill that can make him mine! You won\'t even notice the difference whether he\'s there or not!"

The healer\'s face became flushed as she spoke.

"We can go meet your group if you can\'t make that decision by yourself."

Added the warrior.

It was a disaster...

The rat-faced man instantly realized that Rotte and In\'re made a grave mistake, he had a gut feeling that those two in front of them weren\'t a part of any group, and the small undead wasn\'t just some pawn, but rather someone extremely important to the girl.

Then, the small blue boy came out from behind the red-haired girl and approached the healer.

"Ah! So you want to join me on your own?!"

In\'re gasped excitedly and her eyes shone.

/A subtype of charm skill detected

/Warning

The skill level is higher than the magic defense status of the Servant

/Calculating...

/Rotten brain title is active

Charm skill: Failed

"Ah! It failed! Wait a moment, I\'ll try again!"

The healer yelped after a message popped in front of Cranberry and Zombie\'s eyes.

"What the hell do you think you\'re doing?!"

Shanks shouted at In\'re and blinked.

Before he closed his eyes, In\'re was standing in front of the serious blue boy.

After he opened his eyes, In\'re was crawling on the grass, her face a bloody mess, and the blue boy was putting down his leg.

"Graough. (How dare you.)"

Zombie groaned coldly staring at the healer spitting up her broken teeth at his feet.

"You fucker!"

Lairs shouted and her hand started glowing, a fireball formed in front of her and shot out at the blue boy.

When it connected, the undead instantly became a torch - the fire was the greatest weakness of the undead aside from the holy magic.

"Shit!"

Rotte cursed while drawing his sword and charging at the red-haired girl.

"NO! YOU CRETINS! STOP!"

Shouted Shanks, throwing himself at Uresha and grabbing onto her head blocking her vision before she could jump into action too.

The next moment both Lairs and Rotte flew past them and crashed into trees.

Lairs crashed into the tree and fell on the ground beneath, but Rotte smashed into the tree, broke it with his back, and tumbled deeper into the woods while his sword, broken in half, got lodged into the ground a few steps from Uresha and Shanks.

"...the audacity..."

Cranberry shook her head with disgust and rested the bat back on her shoulder.

"Graough. (It looks like they were actually just some thugs.)

Zombie patted down his clothes, charred here and there, and put down his leg.

"You, a thief making out with the tank, you seem to have a working brain."

Cranberry turned towards Shanks.

"Uresha, no matter what, don\'t attack them!"

Shanks whispered into the blushing woman\'s ear before jumping down and facing the angered girl and her servant.

"I beg for your forgiveness, young lady!"

He fell to his knees and started to kowtow.

"Nice apology..."

Cranberry nodded her head.

"But do you think that an apology is enough after attacking a member of the Pride family and her servant?"

She added and her ice-cold voice made Shanks\'s heart sink.

"The P-Pride fa-fa-family...?!"

He stuttered and started trembling.

He heard approaching footsteps and felt that something touched the back of his head and started pressing his forehead into the ground.

"How are you going to compensate for disrespecting me?"

Cranberry asked stepping on Shanks.