The Villainess and I, her Zombie

"Cranberry?"

Mary looked at the red-haired girl in confusion.

"Haa... all of you, try whether the invisible walls are forcing you to move."

Cranberry sighed and asked, in annoyance.

"..."

Mary, Arion, Claymore, and Roan, all stopped and managed to stay in place without any trouble while Cranberry and Zombie were being pushed forward even though they weren't actually trying to walk.

"What is going on? What are those invisible walls?"

Roan furrowed his brows and asked.

"Hey, wallet, don't act dumb! Invisible walls, the same thing that showed up during the first kill party and closed off the adults when Cranberry and I were facing the dragonewt."

The blue undead scoffed at the blond prince with disbelief.

"Zombie, he can't remember it. The reset happened, tight?"

Cranberry furrowed her brows and shook her head.

"You better watch those four distorted life signatures instead of playing around teasing Roan. What are they doing?"

She scoffed at her eternal servant and started looking around herself.

"They keep on circling around, hiding from my normal vision. It's annoying. It's like they know about life signature detection."

Zombie frowned and grumbled in annoyance.

"Haa... That's because they most likely do know about it, or at least know that abilities like yours exist and they doing their best to counter them."

Cranberry breathed out and explained, gripping her baseball bat so hard that her knuckles turned white.

"...it really is the worst option, huh...?"

Zombie's expression turned dark as he folded his arms and glared intently at the distorted life signatures within his line of vision as if that would help in this situation.

"Yes. Haa... Caramel didn't come alone."

Cranberry breathed out and moved her bat so it was now resting on only one of her shoulders, in a position from which she could strike at any moment.

"Zombie, check whether the invisible walls cover the entire area, but do so without going so far that you would have to cause damage to others to make it to my side."

The red-haired villainess instructed her blue-skinned corpse puppet and flicked her wrist as if she was shaking off a speck of dust.

"I'll try no check on at least one of those people with the odd life signatures - actually, one of them is oddly familiar. Too familiar..."

He added, squinting his eyes and tilting his head.

"Oh, also. That weakling trash who dared to hurt Blueberry is attending this party too."

The blue undead added lightheartedly, without actually paying much attention to his own findings.

"Ha? She is? Already? That's a bit odd..."

Even if Zombie wasn't taking the ashen-haired girl's presence seriously, Cranberry flinched and tilted her head.

"What's so odd about it...?"

Zombie stopped himself half-step and turned curiously towards the red-haired girl.

"If she traveled with conventional methods, she should have arrived just yesterday. Therefore she should have learned about her father's death around the same time - what is she doing here while she should be mourning? Ha...?"

Cranberry spoke slowly, looking around - and ended up flinching once she saw the very recognizable ash-colored hair of the only daughter of the late head of the Wrath family.

The girl was standing by one of the walls - staring right back at the villainess.

"...ha...?"

Cranberry frowned and pushed forward her chin almost subconsciously, challenging the ashen-haired girl to approach her.

"..."

But there was something odd about the young miss Wrath.

...she wasn't feeling wrathful at all...

It was so odd that intrigued Cranberry didn't even realize when Zombie left to complete her first command and check whether the invisible walls simply follow the two of them or rather are encircling them.

But back to Cranberry's confusion about Mika's act - not only did the ashen-haired girl didn't show any signs of hostility at the sight of the red-haired girl who undoubtedly brought forth the demise of the avatar of Wrath - she didn't even look bothered by that very death either!

Her dress was crimson for system's sake!

Both the color and the style of the ashen-haired girl's clothes were as far from the rules of mourning practiced in their kingdom as possible.

Still, it was possible that Mika's feelings towards her father were similar to Cranberry's feelings towards her mother - but still, there was this feeling in the aura surrounding the ashen-haired girl.

The aura of something being off.

It was... unsettling.

"Haa... Maybe I should have killed her back in the north, after all."

Cranberry sighed to herself.

"Maybe you should have, young lady Cranberry."

"Ha...?"

Funnily enough, someone answered her mutter.

And that someone turned out to be none other than the ex-wolf monster turned back into a human, Arion.

While Mary was fidgeting nervously at his side, the tanned young man was standing tall, and his wild black hair with orange luster bristled just like the fur of a cautious wolf.

"This whole room is reeking with blood. And I'm not talking about the blood of monsters - because you and big brother Zombie could be smelled from another continent when it comes to that - it's human blood. Way, way too much."

Arion frowned, glaring at the calm ashen-haired girl standing by the wall.

"And it all comes from her - she wasn't like that when we left her in the Sloths' territory..."

He squinted his eyes and growled cautiously.

"That's so wrong though...! In my dreams, Mika was just a heroic side story character that could be used as a party member after completing her questline. Heroic! Not murderous!"

Mary cowered and hugged Arion's arm a bit tighter.

"Haa..."

Cranberry breathed out, making eye contact with Mika.

The ashen-haired girl didn't seem to be bothered in the slightest - there was absolutely no anger in her eyes, she even ended up smiling and raised up her left hand and waved towards the red-haired villainess...

"HA?!"

"!!!!!"

Cranberry tensed up and activated all of her skills at once, causing many nobles to gasp in panic and get away from her as soon as possible.

That hand!

Mika's left hand!

She had the ring finger back! The very finger that Zombie poisoned and tricked her into tearing off!

There should be no way for the ashen-haired girl to recover naturally, no matter what healing potions, salves, or skills that she should have access to!

And that meant one thing - she had someone helping her.

"..."

Seeing the furious reaction of the red-haired villainess, the ashen-haired Justice's Wrath's smile became much wider, and she started walking towards her as if intending to meet up like two good friends who agreed on it beforehand.