The Villainess and I, her Zombie

"What is going on here...? What happened here?! Wh-why do I...? Why do I feel like I'm back to normal?!"

Lord Pomegranate Wrath shook his head, looking around the devastated mansion and part of the city before glancing down at his own body.

"Did it really work?"

Cranberry tapped Zombie's chest and asked him while motioning at the confused middle-aged man with her chin.

"It sure looks like it did, his life signature got a lot stronger - still weak though, if you compare him to us that is."

The blue undead nodded and shrugged his shoulders.

"Good enough for me. Say..."

She nodded back but then furrowed her brows.

"If you can heal him like that, maybe I don't need to hold back as much as I thought...?"

She added and a tiny relieved smile showed up on her face.

"Haa. I actually had planned out how to get around trying doing something so outrageous as erasing a title when we were going for the avatar of sloth, but it all gone to hell once it turned out to be that wretched creature all along...!"

The red-haired girl's good mood disappeared almost as fast as it surfaced and she scoffed before walking towards the nobleman still too confused to be aware of the danger.

---

"How is that possible...? What... who did this...?"

Lord Pomegranate Wrath shook his head while clenching and unclenching his fists, not even trying to get up.

It felt like the sickness that had been gnawing on his life for so many years was completely removed and he was reverted back to his prime - but who and why did that?

As far as he was aware, there was no cure for the disease, and the only other person beside him who suffered the same fate - lady Raspberry Pride - was murdered almost four years prior before any real breakthrough could be achieved.

Still, it wasn't like anything changed since her death.

For many years already, the only thing that could alleviate some of the symptoms were the scarce special story quests that popped up for lord Pomegranate seemingly without any schedule or pattern.

The most recent example was the quest telling him to assure the meeting between a certain group of people with unique roles - including his very own daughter - in exchange for the additional full year to live.

...but going along with it was a mistake...

The quest only mentioned a year of life, not a year of a healthy life - in a few short days beforehand, lord Wrath had experienced death multiple times but each time a message -soul transfer disabled, attempting revival- would pop out and he would be forcibly reanimated by the system right back into the same sickness-devastated body.

But, scarily enough, that wasn't the only or the worst reason for regretting going along with the quest given by the system.

And just as with the one mentioned before, he learned about the consequences only after the fact - or more accurately, he learned about the terrible consequences from one of the people who he sent out to assure the quest's completion.

Just the previous night, Ti, one of the famous CriTiCal trio of the strongest people in the whole Wrath family - aside from lord Pomegranate himself - showed up at the mansion's doorstep in a terrible state.

The story she told to lord Wrath was a blood-chilling story that could only happen in a nightmare.

Even though the avatar of wrath knew that the copper-eyed woman was a trustworthy person, he had a hard time believing most of her story.

The loss of Cri and Cal was especially something that the ashen-haired man simply didn't want to believe.

Thankfully, it also looked like his daughter, Mika, was safe - she suffered many wounds, but her life wasn't in danger.

But also, there was one intriguing part - Ti told him that amidst all the hell they had to fight through together with the brave Sloth soldiers and a random group of adventurers, they managed to meet the one girl that the royal family was doing everything in their might to find.

Cranberry Pride.

From what Ti has told him, the red-haired girl spent all three months hiding away in the sea of mist, struggling to escape the powerful monsters inhabiting the place just to tire out the royal investigators sent out by the queen.

Yet that wasn't the intriguing part - because what Ti seemed to be most terrified about, was that the supposedly scared girl was in their city right at that moment, and she was aiming for him, the avatar of wrath - although she seemed to be unable to explain what would be the girl's objective in doing that in the first place...

"It's nice to meet you, sir Pomegranate Wrath."

"...!"

The cold voice brought him back from the depths of his own thoughts.

The very girl that the copper-eyed bodyguard has warned him about with such desperation was standing right in front of him...!

"Although, for you, it might not be our first meeting but... haa..."

The words, that even despite the semi-polite voice used, had so much underlining worry that it was impossible to not feel anxious...!

"Since you've been healed by my Zombie, you don't mind to return the favor and help us out with something very important, isn't that right, sir Pomegranate?"

The threatening aura that made every single danger detection skill go off inside the avatar of Wrath's head before he even raised his head to have a proper look at the talking person...

"I never wanted to bully someone who never wronged me, but desperate times call for desperate measures..."

"...!"

Her voice sounded actually sad - but the baseball bat that she had rested on her shoulder was already shining with pure-white light of some unknown skill that she had already activated - suggested rather strongly that she couldn't have any good intentions towards the ashen-haired man.

Next to the girl stood a blue-skinned corpse puppet with every bit as overwhelming aura.

All corpse puppets should be soulless husks without any emotion, only able to function because of the commands of their master, but there was something outrageously different about this one...!

With the looks that could put the most handsome of men to shame, the only thing that this one seemed to have in common with its soulless brethren, seemed to be the absolute hatred towards the living clearly visible in its glowing red eyes.

"!!!!"

Lord Pomegranate Wrath, the avatar of wrath himself - trembled and lowered his head to the young woman in front of him...!

That girl...!

It definitely wasn't the Cranberry Pride that he knew!

But!

For whatever reason, he could tell for sure that there was some insanely heavy burden that this girl was trying to carry all by herself...!

"Don't worry. I'm sure this living understands."

The blue corpse puppet reassured the red-haired girl and glanced at the ashen-haired threateningly - making sure that the avatar of wrath understands that nothing good awaits him if he refuses.

"Haa... you know? I actually feel envious about the naive spoiled girl that lives in the minds of people after the system reset filled their heads with false memories..."

"...?!"

Lord Wrath flinched at the next words spoken by Cranberry, as he had no idea what she was talking about.

"Apparently you had a favorable opinion of me for some reason - haa - I will do everything I can to make things work in one go, but if something goes wrong my Zombie will heal you, so please, bear with it."

"...w-wait...! What is going on? What happened to you?!"

Her next words - which were basically a pitiful cry - finally made lord Wrath speak up.

Unfortunately, since even the blue undead was unable to breach the walls that the villainess had build around her heart, someone like him didn't stand a chance.

"Nothing. Nothing at all. Brace yourself, sir Wrath."

The red-haired villainess bit her lips and closed her eyes as she readied the baseball bat.