The Villainess and I, her Zombie

/Justice's Wrath receives a special quest

- Final frontier -

Timed endurance quest to test the player's limits

/-

The kingdom of Fruit Salad is in grave danger.

The Sloth's forces protecting the northern border for hundreds of years will no longer be enough to stop the titan-class monsters.

-

/Objectives:

Fight on the frontline and protect the border

*complete the standard training course (48:00:00 remaining)

*push back the 1st monster wave (72:00:00 remaining)

*push back the 2nd monster wave (96:00:00 remaining)

*push back the 3rd monster wave (120:00:00 remaining)

*push back the 4th monster wave (144:00:00 remaining)

*push back the 5th monster wave (168:00:00 remaining)

*push back the 6th monster wave(192:00:00 remaining)

*push back the 7th monster wave (216:00:00 remaining)

*push back the 8th monster wave (240:00:00 remaining)

*push back the 9th monster wave (264:00:00 remaining)

*push back the final monster wave (288:00:00 remaining)

/Reward: (Depends on the contribution and % of completed objectives)

/Fail conditions:

Death (Justice's Wrath's)

Desertion (leaving the quest area during the waves)

Being out of the quest's area during the wave (any)

/Penalty:

The Sloth territory will fall and the Fruit Salad will be flooded with Titan-class monsters (titan-class monsters will become common encounters in the overworld)

"..."

Was there even a need to comment on that?

Mika felt her legs turning into jelly and she simply plopped down on her butt, unable to keep herself upright after reading through the messages that have popped up.

Especially the part about the penalty for failing the quest.

The happy until just a moment ago bodyguards, including Corvus, all became ghastly pale and started staring at the table in instant regret.

They all have received the exact same type of quests as Mika did, with the same type of penalty in case of a failure.

"...hurgh...!"

Ti covered her mouth with her hand and blocked the bile rising up her stomach from escaping.

A horrible mistake...

Accepting that quest was such a horrible, horrible mistake...

And not just for the people who received the quest, but for the entire kingdom.

...

That's what you get for underestimating a special quest of the global event.

...

But no matter how much regret they had, it was too late to change anything.

"...what's wrong with them...?"

The large woman in full plate armor asked in a worried voice and turned to her companions.

"Fuck if I know..."

The black-haired elf shrugged her shoulders.

"..."

The rat-faced man squinted his eyes and glanced at the bespectacled woman standing next to the door.

Her eyes were glowing as she was carefully examining each one of Mika's group.

"Tsk...!"

Suddenly she clicked her tongue and turned away.

"Idiots! Wait here until I'll return - that's an order!"

She scoffed, looking over her shoulder at the bodyguards, and stormed out of the room leaving the despairing Wraths and confused Dandelions behind.

The minutes were passing and the adventurers were still keeping their distance from the speechless Wrath's.

*WHAM*

"...damn it...! Why did you agree to that stupid quest?!"

All of a sudden, Corvus slammed his fists against the table and shouted at Ti.

"...wha...?!"

That question has literally made the woman took a step back.

"Why did I agree?! Why did all of you agree so eagerly without even considering what the consequences could be?!"

She shouted back, glaring furiously at the white-haired man and pointing at him and the two other bodyguards.

"But it was your vote that tipped the scale! And after all your high and mighty 'we should be careful' bullshit, too!"

Corvus didn't even try to deny that he instantly agreed for the special quest to start and scoffed at Ti.

"What are we going to do...?"

"...!"

Mika's weak yelp caused the quarreling pair to flinch and stare down.

"What else is for us to do? We need to complete that quest or everything will be over. If titan-class monsters were to roam free there would be no safe place left for the intelligent races to live in peace."

Cri sighed and leaned back on his chair.

"Judging by your reaction, young miss, you also received the same quest and agreed for it to start. Well, we're in the same boat now..."

He smiled at Mika and then looked at Ti and Corvus.

"So let's not place blame on a single person, alright?"

He said to the two.

"...nothing we can do now..."

Corvus shrugged his shoulders and looked away.

"Sorry for shouting."

Ti apologized but not to the white-haired man but to her two companions.

That was the moment that the bespectacled woman returned to the room.

"What? You still can't get over some quest? Follow me. All of you."

She asked coldly, raising her brow, and then she pointed at all the southerners and waved her hand nonchalantly walking back out.

"Alright, it seems that they figured something out."

The rat-faced man breathed out and waved at his friends.

The Dandelions nodded and reluctantly followed after medic 7, but the Wraths' group didn't budge.

The black-haired elf was the last of the Dandelions to leave.

She stopped in the door and looked back at Ti and furrowed her brows.

"...fucking... Yo! Pretty-eyes! You all are going to get left behind!"

She called and hurriedly left.

"...if we'll try to run away, the quest will automatically fail..."

The scary-faced Cal sighed and stood up from his seat.

The others nodded.

Ti helped Mika stand up and in the end, their group also left.

"Ah! Hello again!"

There was already no sign of either medic 7 or the Dandelions, but the one person waiting for the Wraths' group was the buzzcut boy that Mika met before.

Once he saw the ashen-haired girl his face brightened up, but when he noticed how pale she was, his enthusiasm diminished greatly.

"I'm bruiser 97-F, medic 7 told me to take you to receive the equipment."

The buzzcut boy straightened his back and saluted to the group.

"Follow me."

He added and turned around and started leading them through the maze of the corridors.

Mika couldn't really recognize the path they took but they inadvertently ended up in the room where the Dandelions were waiting while the quartermaster was as examining their equipment.

"This is awful. How can you southerners even fight against anything in such poor quality defensive gear?"

The quartermaster shook his head and sighed as he was knocking on the tower shield of the large woman.

"...it's adequate for my level..."

The woman inside the plate armor sounded as if she was pouting.

"Maybe, but!"

The quartermaster sighed again, grabbed the left corner of the massive shield and...

*SCREECH*

...proceeded to bend it while only using his thumb and index finger which resulted in metal crying pitifully.

"...!"

The large woman visibly flinched and pulled away, so did basically everyone else in the room except for medic 7 and bruiser 97-F...

...and the rat-faced man...

The rat-faced man stepped forward instead of backing off.

"Since when is the quartermaster allowed to destroy the equipment of the visiting southerners? Don't you Sloth soldiers have a rule against that?"

He frowned and glared at the much taller man.

"As long as you will be helping us, we will lend you proper equipment maybe even give it to you if you'll do a good job so there's no problem, is there?"

The quartermaster flowed his arms and glared back.

The two men were staring at each other in silence for a good minute while the other people were straight-up confused - especially the Dandelions.

"We don't have all day. Get those people some fitting equipment, they all will attend the accelerated training course that the higher-ups are putting together right now."

Medic 7 was the one who stepped in and broke the staring contest.

"What do you mean by 'they all'? Why would we need some training?"

The rat-faced man raised his brow and asked without stopping glaring at the quartermaster, but got no response from the bespectacled woman.

"That's right."

The quartermaster took his eyes off of the rat-faced man, jumped back behind the counter, and looked at Mika's group.

"I see, good for you kiddo."

He smirked and winking at bruiser 97-F before turning around and disappearing in the door in the back.

"Tsk...!"

Shanks clicked his tongue and turned away still agitated.

The other Dandelions surrounded him and started whispering to calm him down.

After a few short minutes, the quartermaster reappeared holding much more boxes that it should be safe to carry at once.

"Get in line."

He ordered, putting the boxes on the floor behind the counter, and waved at both groups to come over, which everyone did with various levels of reluctance.

"Not you, the gear I gave you before is fine."

The quartermaster shooed Mika away when she stepped forward together with her group.

"Go talk with that kid or something while the rest is changing."

He scoffed pointing her at the buzzcut boy who looked like he wanted to hide but had nowhere to go.

The ashen-haired girl wasn't feeling that great, still very much shaken from the terrible quest she received, and since Corvus wasn't showing any interest, she did indeed want to bruiser 97-F.

"How are you?"

Bruiser 97-F smiled awkwardly, unsure how he should act.

"...are the titan-class monsters as powerful as the legends say...?"

The ashen-haired girl glanced at him and asked fearfully.