The Villainess and I, her Zombie

"...and what, you just left a fucking six-year-old all to himself? In a fucking vacant house?"

Olive asked in disbelief, shaking his head while walking side by side with the village elder, Mirabelle.

"Don't give me that crap! You aren't any better! Without me, you wouldn't fucking even believe that he was actually that young! I'm running the whole village, you know? I think I can be pardoned for overseeing feeding one human – that you have brought in, fucking mind you– for fuck's sake! Taking care of him should be a part of your fucking responsibilities too!"

She scoffed and glared at him in response.

"Really? And who will make sure that all the fucking illusions are set up properly? What, did you suddenly forgot who the fuck set it all up and maintains it so that Envys won't just march in and throw us all into their fucking dungeon to pick and choose the elements of our appearance that they want to steal and made themselves into a fucking aesthetic collage?!"

Olive wasn't to just take it and responded with an equal amount of sass.

"Besides, you know I am not good with others, I never spent much time around children before, so how the fuck am I supposed to be prepared for taking care of one, and one so unusual one at that?!"

He added defensively.

"Oh, so now you fucking come to a realization that you should have made children with me when I still could, nine hundred years ago? Fucking great, impeccable timing, you old fuck..."

Mirabelle spoke in a mocking tone but at the same time, she clenched her fists behind her back, out of Olive's sight.

"We talked about it, Mira, I'm not a family man, for fuck's sake! The things I suffered under the Venomancer made me not trust others no matter how close we are. Fuck... I'm not meant to have a happy family, alright? I'm sorry for disappointing you, but on the other fucking hand, you could have chosen literally anyone else. You are a great person, and you could have married anyone you wanted."

The village's guardian made a bitter expression.

"Yeah, sure... fucking idiot... the only one I ever wanted was and still is you..."

The village elder looked away from the old elf and muttered under her breath.

"...!"

Which made Olive flinch and grit his teeth.

"Fuck... Maybe it really is better this way. As you have pointed out, I would be a bad mother anyway – I left a six-year-old alone in a house and didn't prepare a thing, no set of clothes to change into, no for him to eat... I'm fucking stupid..."

Mirabelle sighed, completely dispirited, and hugged a clean set of hand-me-down children-sized clothes she had borrowed from one of the families in the village.

"Oh, no – no one said anything about your cooking. You fucking suck at it. That one part is something I take full accountability for. I could at least make him a fucking meal – but for our defense, he really doesn't feel like a child, right?"

Despite Olive's previous words, he was now clearly doing his best to lift up Mirabelle's damped-down mood with jokes while he raised up a small basket filled with easy-to-digest foods that would please a child's palate, and shook it with a cheeky little smirk.

"Pffft...! Fucking asshole..."

Mirabelle snorted and looked away, unable to hold back a smile.

The two of them had known each other for so many years, that it was useless to try to measure it in anything less than centuries, both of them knew each other's boundaries and how to act to lift their spirits, but at the same time that near-perfect synergy was the very same thing that kept them apart all this time.

"Hey, you think the little bugger is still asleep? He acts as a dwarven adventurer amongst humans so he probably doesn't sleep in too fucking much."

Mirabelle asked, looking at the window of the house she left Zombie in the previous night and glanced at Olive by her side.

"Well, I think that since we still can talk about those fucking Envy's even though we are so close to him means that he is still completely out. Must have been dead tired, I was way too harsh with my speed yesterday... but, fucking hell, I really thought he was a dwarf and not a child, all the scars didn't make it any easier to fucking tell either."

Olive scoffed and grinned while shaking his head.

"...uck, I must be overworking myself... I thought I saw a human child walking around..."

"Huh? You too? So I wasn't fucking hallucinating?"

"Hold the fuck up! You saw him too?!"

Because Olive and Mirabelle were taking their sweet time before actually entering the house, they managed to accidentally overhear the conversation between two villagers passing by on their way to their work.

"...no fucking way..."

Olive hurried inside the house muttering under his breath while putting the basket with food right next to the door...

"Fuck...! You two! That kid! Did you see where he went?!"

...while Mirabelle cursed in disbelief and called after the two villagers, waving at them to stop.

"He's really not here!"

Olive opened the window and called out to the woman interrogating the passerby.

"His armor is still here so he probably isn't trying to get out of the village on his own... for fuck's sake..."

The old elf looked back over his shoulder and added with a worried face.

"Pitahaya and Orange saw him near the tavern!"

The village elder called in response.

"Fuck! Did he woke up hungry and followed the smell of food or something?!"

"What if he will get lost? Oh, fuck...! Olive, what if he will encounter Gooseberry?! We haven't told him that there's a friendly human in the village!"

While Olive was wondering with a worried expression, Mirabelle had straight-up panicked once she realized that the guardian of the archives – the second most powerful elf in the village after Olive – who also happened to be the biggest human hater, could have a rather explosive reaction to meeting the unannounced guest..."

"That...! Huh...?"

Olive bit his lip and gulped down his saliva – when suddenly he raised his head and looked towards the direction of the old training grounds partially turned into a playground for the younger children – though, the only child using them recently was Goosberry's son, Cranberry.

"What the fuck...?"

But before anyone else, even, Mirabelle could say something, Olive himself muttered in disbelief while his eyes spotted a half-transparent red and black dome forming exactly on the spot where the old training ground was.

"...I do not have a good fucking feeling about this..."

Mirabelle looked between Olive and the red and black dome in the distance.

"Mira, go get Gooseberry, I'll check what the fuck is that supposed to be!"

Olive commanded, jumping out of the window and rushing towards the newly araised object exuding a threatening aura.