The Villainess and I, her Zombie

It was a busy morning in the adventurers guild eastern territory branch, it was hard to believe that less than a month before the place was closed down due to lack of available work.

But of course, everything had to return to normal with the end of the lull.

Both the requests and adventurers willing to register were pouring in almost endlessly and the reinstated staff had their hands full.

"Good morning, we've come to register as adventurers."

When the queue moved and it was her turn a tall red-haired girl followed by an even taller blue-skinned companion approached one of the receptionists.

"...but... but my break was supposed to start ten minutes agoo..."

The receptionist, a gnome girl that had to stand on a chair to be able to peek over the counter sighed pitifully looking at the clock ticking on the wall.

"...?"

The red-haired girl tilted her head and raised her brow.

"...please don't mind me... Hello and welcome to the eastern branch of the adventurers guild!"

The gnome girl sighed pitifully, took a deep breath, and showed a professional smile.

"If it's your first time registering, please take one of the documents available on the table in the right corner of the room and fill it in. If you have a note with an appriser's signature listing all of your stats and skills please add it to the filled documents to speed up the registration process."

She explained with a polite bow.

"Here."

The red-haired girl pulled out two sets of documents filled in with neat handwriting and put them in front of the receptionist.

"Ah...! Someone actually came prepared...?"

The gnome girl took the documents and skimmed them, checking whether every necessary info was filled in without focusing on the information itself.

Everything was in check, even a note with the signature of a reputable appraiser.

"...!"

Meeting first-timers who actually checked beforehand what they should do to register, do it, and bring everything correctly filled in, got the receptionist to get teary-eyed.

"Thank you for your cooperation, young lady!"

The gnome girl felt such a relief seeing that at least one newbie won't start shouting at her because - 'they think the paperwork is absurd', and 'they only want to kill monsters, what's the big deal?' - that she started addressing the girl in front of her very respectfully without realizing it herself.

"Everything seems to be in check, I will pass these on for our staff to confirm the credibility of the information. I have to inform you that currently, the waiting time for that is between two hours to a day, we're terribly sorry for the inconvenience."

The receptionist bowed and apologized as was her contractual obligation even though she had nothing to do with the delay.

After all, the specialist mage that was in charge of confirming the information with the system was already going half-mad from all the overwork, which greatly lengthened the otherwise quick process.

"It's alright."

The red-haired girl waved her hand dismissively and pulled out another set of documents.

"While we're at it, I would also want to register a new party. I haven't seen any rule that banned registering a party before an adventurer got officially registered, but I guess that's not logical, still, can I at least leave the documents with you?"

She asked placing the papers in front of the gnome girl.

"Ah! Young lady... Pride! It would be a pleasuuuuuuuu... Wait, what...?! Pride?!"

The receptionist bowed and hurriedly glance at the papers to check for the name of the girl to thank her for being so considerate...

...and then she realized what name she just read out loud.

"...the Pride...?"

"Wait, did she just said... young lady Pride?!"

The name quickly got picked up by the other people in the room and made rounds amongst them.

"...y-young lady P-Pride...? C-Cranberry Pride...?"

The gnome girl was trembling so hard that the chair she was standing on started making rattling noises against the floor.

"Yeah. Haa... don't tell me we got banned from registering as adventurers for winning that little duel or something?"

The red-haired girl sighed and rolled her eyes.

"There's no way that the adventurers guild would be that petty, right? The duel was approved by the vice-master of the capital's guild and all."

Cranberry opened her arms and made a disappointed expression.

"She...! She said it! It's them!"

Someone gasped.

"No way! They're the Swordbreakers?! They're adventurers from this branch?!"

Someone else shouted confused.

"Look at the documents! They're registering only now?!"

"Shhh! Maybe they re-register like us?"

"No way...!"

The whole guild busted into murmurs and whispers of the scared and excited people.

"Graough? (Master, why are they calling us the Swordbreakers?)"

Zombie lowered his head and growled into Cranberry's ear.

"I'd like to clarify that we're not going to register as Swordbreakers. The proper name is written in the documents and will be waiting for the approval."

The red-haired girl sighed and shook her head, glaring at the gossiping crowd but it just caused them to whisper even more.

"...haa... It will be Superbia, by the way - our party's name."

Cranberry shook her head and turned back to the receptionist.

"Miss receptionist, do you know can we register or not?"

She asked politely.

"O-o-o-of course you c-can, young lady P-P-P-Pride...!"

The terrified gnome girl started bowing repeatedly, with each move she was getting closer and closer to slamming her head against the counter.

"Good. Well then..."

Cranberry smiled brightly and reached towards the gnome girl.

"Eeek! No! Please! I'm sorry!"

The receptionist yelped pitifully and jumped off her chair and hid behind it.

But Cranberry wasn't reaching for her in the first place, instead, she picked up a small wooden plate with 'window closed' engraved on it and placed it on the counter.

"Miss receptionist, you should go on your break."

Cranberry said looking at the cowering gnome girl.

"E-eh...?"

The small receptionist gasped.

"You've said that you should be on your break, right?"

"Ah!"

She perked up when she saw Cranberry pointing at the clock.

"Ah...!"

But she got down just as fast when she noticed a long queue of the adventurers waiting in line behind Cranberry and Zombie.

"Thank you for your consideration, young lady, but as you can see it's not really the right ti..."

"That's right! We don't have all day!"

"Yeah! Do you know how many monsters are out there? People are counting on us!"

The gnome girl couldn't even finish her sentence because some rude adventurers behind Cranberry decided, for whatever reason, that it was okay to butt in on the conversation.