The Villainess and I, her Zombie

Chapter 451: Prolog: The griffin(s) (5)

"Ah! There really is one – it hatched already though!"

Roan approached the disoriented Cranberry and gasped looking at the second baby griffin – this one still slightly wet after just breaking out of its shell.

"No way! So it didn\'t hatch with the rest? It\'s so lucky!"

Mary left her griffin with the black wolf and ran up to the pair and looked at the baby chick stumbling as it was freeing itself rather awkwardly, mainly because it did not look away from the flabbergasted Cranberry even for a fraction of a second.

"Eh...? EH...?! Could it be?! Cranberry, it imprinted on you?!"

Mary gasped excitedly, grabbing onto the red-haired girl\'s arm and shaking it.

"...umm... even beyond that... it just... asked me to become my second familiar...?"

"Skwee!"

Cranberry moved her head to look at Mary, and raised her hand, pointing her trembling finger down at the joyfully screeching chick that managed to stumble its way out of the half-buried shell and was now nuzzling against the red-haired girl\'s leg.

"F-familiar...? It requested that?!"

Mary gasped wide-eyed.

"A system message popped up for me, so I guess yes...?"

/You accepted the request

/Newborn griffin had been registered as your second familiar

/Pick a name for your new familiar

"...ha...? HA?! Wait! Hold on! You dumb system, this wasn\'t an acceptance!"

Cranberry gasped and trembled when the system casually handpicked two keywords from the sentence that she just spoke and used them as a confirmation not taking the girl\'s will under any consideration.

"Haha... haa... Under the risk of sounding like an asshole... Weren\'t you the one who told us to watch for what we say once a system will send us a message with a choice...?"

Roan snorted and looked away, only to peek at the red-haired girl\'s reaction with the corner of his eyes.

"I... wha... I... Why is a newborn cheek requesting to become my familiar?! How does it even know what a familiar is?!"

Cranberry was so taken aback by the whole situation that she didn\'t even get mad at the blond prince poking fun at her.

"Didn\'t we read about it the other day, though? When a monster is particularly fond of a human, it can very rarely subconsciously request to be tamed – through a player character is required to have the right class or title to be able to accept it."

Mary stroked her chin and furrowed her brows trying to recall the information.

"...ah...! It was in Tomato Lust\'s book, wasn\'t it?"

Cranberry\'s eyes widened and she remembered it so clearly that she even managed to recall the book\'s author.

"Yes! Exactly!"

The brown-haired girl nodded vigorously, though that did not really calm down the red-haired girl.

"...haa..."

Cranberry breathed out rather heavily and leaned down, gently picking the small griffin with ease, and raised it up.

"Skwee!"

The yellow chick flapped its wings and screeched happily.

"Why does it sound different than the other one?"

Cranberry furrowed her brows and glanced at the Mary.

"Well..."

The tamer girl tilted her head and looked down, squinting her eyes – then, soon enough, she crouched and picked up two pieces of two different eggshells, and looked at them comparing one to the other.

"I think that it might have messed up its beak trying to break through... her egg looks so much thicker compared to all the other ones."

Mary raised up and approached Cranberry and the happily screeching baby cheek and showed off the egg pieces in her hands.

Indeed, one had a thickness of a silver coin, while the other one was nearly half of an inch...!

"I see... If I remember correctly when something like that happens, the parent griffin helps the chick to get out, but his one had to do it all on its own."

The red-haired girl nodded with a serious expression.

"...that\'s why this one didn\'t hatch with the other, and also wasn\'t killed during the infighting – this worked like an armor!"

Roan – carefully touching the growing bump on his head – pointed out while looking between the two samples.

"You heard that? You\'re lucky and strong."

"Skwee!"

Cranberry looked back at the excited cheek who by that point misunderstood the elevation provided by the red-haired girl as its very first flying lesson, and was giving its best flapping its wings.

"Ha. I got myself another familiar..."

Cranberry raised her brows and breathed out with concern.

"But I do not understand what it\'s saying... Say, Mary, go you know how do I get the skill that would let me communicate with a non-human familiar?"

She asked the brown-haired girl without looking away from the baby enthusiastic baby griffin.

"I... don\'t know... Such a thing is a passive ability for a tamer class – the higher my bond with a monster is the more I understand it..."

Mary answered with concern suggesting that there was no such skill.

"Haa... the telepathy I learned to call for Baron works only one way..."

Cranberry nodded with a concerned expression, but that didn\'t stop her from trying it out anyway, and tight after she closed her mouth, her eyes started glowing with a pale blue light.

"(Hello, little birdie.)"

"...skwee...?"

The red-haired girl focused on sending forth her thoughts and the yellow chick flinched, clearly hearing the voice in its head.

"Skwee!"

Then it bounced in its new master\'s hands and screeched all hyped-up.

"Whoa...! Hold up you little ra...!"

/Connection established

"Skwee! (Mommy!) Skwee! (I hear you in my head, mommy!)"

Cranberry was struggling to keep on to the bouncing griffin without crushing it so she called out to it, but the said call was interrupted by a peculiar system message followed instantly by the happy screech of the little monster – which was instantly translated in Cranberry\'s head!"

"Wha...?! She called me mommy!"

Cranberry\'s eye\'s widened as she looked around in disbelief, glancing at both Mary and Roan.

"Skwee! (Mommy!) Skwee! (Mommy, I\'m hungry!)"

The little griffin screeched, flapping its tiny wings and waving its legs.

"Well, what is it saying...?"

Roan asked staring curiously at the red-haired girl and her new familiar.

"Well. It called me mommy again and said it\'s hungry, so it definitely imprinted on me... Haa..."

Cranberry reported with a rather awkward expression, before tilting her head to the side and raising the griffin slightly higher.

"Skwee? (High?) Skwee? (We\'re flying?) Skwee! (I\'ll do my best!)"

The baby monster screeched all worked up and started vigorously flapping its wings again – before Cranberry lowered it and gently pressed it against her chest.

"Skwee? (Mommy, we aren\'t flying...?) Skwee... (I\'m hungry...)"

The yellow chick screeched slightly disappointed and stopped trying to fly away on the wings that had no right to support its weight at this stage of growth.

"Mary, guess what. Your griffin has a little sister."

Cranberry turned to the brown-haired girl and smirked while hugging the young yellow-feathered monster.