The Villainess and I, her Zombie

"Fucking hell... young lady... him I can understand, but you... are you an idiot...?"

Lairs gasped, sitting back on the road, staring wide-eyed at the red-haired girl.

While the blue undead was using his venom cannon skill to destroy every living organism within the walls of the Envy's estate, Cranberry was casually seated by the said wall and in the middle of writing something in a sketchbook.

"What exactly do you mean? Because I might get angry if you're just trying to pick a fight."

Cranberry asked without either looking at Lairs or stopping her hand.

That certainly didn't help the black-haired elf's morale, but she decided to respond.

"You... you must fucking realize what you've done, right?"

She gulped down her saliva and asked, looking at the translucent vapors raising into the skies like hot air in a desert.

"Even that fucking kid has said it before. The fucking seven main families are the fucking backbone of the kingdom, and you... you just fucking killed the head of one of those families...! A fucking scum - sure - but an important fucking scum! And not to mention the unspecified amount of his fucking clansmen! How the fuck are they supposed to function as a fucking family sporting the Fruit Salad now?!"

Since Cranberry didn't make any hostile movement, Lairs continued speaking, getting more and more agitated with each word.

"Haa... first of all, you're overdramatic."

Cranberry sight and responded while continuing to write.

"And how the fuck am I supposed to act?! I'll be sentenced to fucking death by the royal decree just for being in the fucking vicinity and not stopping you!"

The black-haired elf shuddered and hurried her face in her hands.

"Nah. Envys were never a part of that whole backbone in the first place. Not those Envys, at least."

Cranberry casually dropped a bomb like that into the conversation, glancing meaningfully back at the crumbling mansion.

"...the fuck...?"

Lairs slowly raised her head and looked at the girl taken aback.

"Since you're an adventurer and not a high noble, I can't blame you for not knowing. That misinformation is a key point to the success of the plan after all."

The red-haired girl explained with an indifferent expression.

"You know that the Envys are supposed to be spymasters gathering the information and keeping an eye on the movements of the other nations, right? Well, that role actually belongs to their distant relatives. They share the same surname, but actually, their branches of the family tree split centuries ago. The surname is the only thing connecting them... Once as a kid, I even overheard my father talking with his friend that the Envys doing the spying are looking for a way to get rid of the main family ones..."

The red-haired girl's face darkened.

"Though that was before the..."

She furrowed her brows and looked at the bewildered elven mage.

How was she supposed to tell her that the world has reset and many things changed completely...

"...before what? The fucking lull? It changed something...?"

Lairs asked.

"...!"

Cranberry flinched and her hand stopped.

She raised her head and stared at the black-haired elf, as if she realized something important.

"Wh-what...?"

Lairs fidgeted uneasily, was it something she shouldn't have asked after all?

"Say. Lairs, since during the lull everyone has lost the connection to the system and couldn't use skill - how did main family Envys manage to keep their appearances....?"

She asked furrowing her brows.

"Because the fucking skills they've used before the lull started were extremely fucking proficient against us elves? Though they couldn't fucking use them during the lull and that's why we had the few years when no young children from their family went out in public?"

Lairs answered with a shrug as if what she said was totally obvious and not suspicious at all.

"Ah. I see."

Cranberry nodded and wrote one last thing in the sketchbook, and then tore off all the pages she was writing on and folded them neatly.

"Anyway, since even the corrupted guards that the Envys had bought should come soon to check up on what the hell that noise was... here."

She said, standing up and offering Lairs the folded pages.

"...?"

The black-haired elf glanced at it and then up at the red-haired girl.

"I have a mission for you. Since I've told your friends that you will all meet in the capital, you might as well hand it to the guild and ask them to show it to the royal family."

"Fuck me... I mean, sure, going to the capital sounds like a good fucking idea to me, but what makes you think that the fucking guild will do any-fucking-thing about this, other than throw into the fucking trash?"

The elven mage waved the folded pages.

"Well, mostly because it's a report about what happened here and I even admitted to killing all of the people inside the mansion. Since the adventurers guild doesn't like me very much, they should take the bait."

Cranberry smirked and waved her hand dismissively.

"That said. Zombie, are you done?"

She asked looking back at her blue undead.

"...hmmm... yeah, I suppose so. The message didn't pop up in the end, but there's no point in continuing."

Zombie shrugged his shoulders and pointed at the harrowing ruins surrounded by the sea of black rot.

There was no natural way that anything was left alive in there.

"...ugh... fuck..."

Lairs shudder at the sight.

"...fine! Fuck! This may work, but why the fuck are you putting a target on your back? Even if you're correct about the main family Envys and those spy Envys, you still fucking killed a lot of important people! The next fucking avatar of envy will surely want to take revenge, and the royal family won't stay fucking quiet either. You seem to have fucking forgot that your family's status is not what it fucking used to be, young lady."

She turned back to Cranberry and said in a worried voice.

"Ha ha!"

But to her surprise, the red-haired girl only laughed cheerfully.

"Oh, you see..."

Cranberry calmed down and smirked mischievously, dodging the original question completely.

"The people of the Pride family think of the system as a convenient tool to get stronger. With strength, you see, comes respect. That's simply how our world works."

She shrugged her shoulders lightly and her smirk grew into a grin.

"With enough strength to back you up, you can get away with anything basically. That's why I'm going to follow my family's teaching and use the system to get as strong as possible."

She explained, slowly walking towards her blue undead.

"?"

When she got to him and wrapped around his arm, he tilted his head curiously and smiled back at her cluelessly.

"The two of us will go fetch ourselves an artifact and continue to train along the way..."

"That's still not fucking enough...! Do you know how many max-level players, equipped with the best fucking gear that the money can buy, are at Greeds command?!

Lairs interrupted the red-haired girl, and it might have been the first time that Cranberry had allowed it without getting annoyed.

The master of the eternal servant furrowed her brows as if deciding whether she should say more or not.

"Lairs, what would you do if suddenly the system offered you a quest that upon completion would allow you to accomplish your greatest, most ridiculous goal that you have ever dreamt about? System, show active quest."

She asked the black-haired elf and immediately after used a system command to look at her ongoing quests.

The special quest 'road to rule' was boldly displayed in a completely new section of the window called 'priority quest'

"I... what....? Fuck... well, truth to be fucking told, I would be kind of suspicious. I mean, I fucking only ever got quests that were essential for my survival or some trivial ones that would help me slightly..."

The black-haired elf responded.

Suddenly her ears twitched and she looked back, down the road towards the city below the ruined mansion.

It seemed like someone had finally realized that something was wrong with the building itself because a large group of armed people was coming toward them in a rush.

"Ha! Suspicious you say? Lairs. I believe that system is a thing, it has no will on its own and is only fulfilling its purpose in this world. It's not malicious nor cunning... and it's certainly not capable of subtly leading the players into a trap."

Cranberry also noticed the approaching group but continued speaking anyway, reminiscing about the time when the system bluntly gave her a guest telling her to die.

That time, with the help of her blue undead she managed to change the fate that the system had in store for her, but this time...

...this time she was going to follow the offered path...

"Haa... You've said that Greeds have strong players on their side."

Cranberry breathed out and nodded casually.

"There's always someone stronger no matter where you go. It's your choice whether you want to let that knowledge kill your drive, or to push you to reach for the greater heights."

The red-haired girl declared and jumped up dramatically.

"...!"

Zombie reached out and instinctively caught her into a princess carry.

"That said, I think those guys over there are both stronger than you and angry enough not to care for any explanation that you may have, so... you know..."

Cranberry smirked with an evil glint in her eyes and tightly wrapped her arms around Zombie's neck.

"You better start running."

*WHAM*

With Cranberry's last words spoken, the Master-Servant pair disappeared to the deafening sound of the earth splitting apart.

"..."

Lairs blinked a few times, dumbfounded, staring at the could of dust that the escaping duo had raised.

"...there! I see someone!"

"It's an elf!"

"Catch her!"

"OH FUCK!"

Hearing the voices of the agitated crowd, Lairs cursed loudly and used the speed-augmenting wind skill to run away as fast as she could.