The Villainess and I, her Zombie

Zombie left the two behind and easily scaled the tall wall surrounding the mansion with just a simple jump enhanced only by the leg power affinity.

As he did so, the blue undead froze momentarily right behind the wall, carefully watching for any sign of the alarm getting raised – but no life signature in the reach of his skill seemed to react.

That meant that only a few guards – members of the subordinate branches of the main family – patrolling the surroundings were the ones that he had to watch out for.

That also meant that whatever skill that the avatar of envy was using to guard the basement wasn't extending any further than the entrance to the underground... or the mansion itself...

The blue undead cautiously approached the building itself and began scaling the wall using his maxed-out acrobatics skill to its full extent.

His target was obvious – the opened window on the western hallway of the second floor.

*thunk*

"...shit..."

Though that plan had to change considering that a life signature that must have belonged to a servant from the branch family suddenly came out of one of the rooms that they were apparently cleaning and closed said window, barely missing Zombie's hand extended on its way to grab the windowsill and climb up.

Yeah...

"..."

Zombie breathed out, trying to figure out what to do next.

...straight up abandoning the approach and getting out was certainly looking good as an available option, after all, he already knew that Fig was there – the only thing left for him was to find her once she will be out of the mansion.

...but what if the only time she will be leaving the mansion will be to go on another mission – she won't be able to get him inside without making it suspicious if she will have no reason to return for a while...

The guards were getting closer to his position and let's be honest, a masked figure was rather a suspicious thing to be sticking to the wall of a mansion right after it got dark outside.

There was no way that the alarm wouldn't be raised immediately once he was spotted.

"..."

Zombie gritted his teeth and looked around in search of anything that could help him get out of this pickle while letting him enter the mansion.

"..."

And there it was...

A life signature that wasn't Fig's but someone who he should be able to trick relatively easily as long as he will play his cards right.

...probably...

*knock* *knock*

With a new plan in mind, Zombie dropped a single floor on the outer wall and gently tapped on the window, assuming the least threatening stance he could take in his position, and peeked inside.

"...?!"

He did so with perfect timing and ended up face to face with a stunned ten-year-old brown-haired wide-eyed boy with a cute face that was destined to end up a handsome man.

Mason Envy.

Mason was in the middle of eating the evening meal alone in his room and when the masked Zombie suddenly appeared and tapped on the glass, he ended up stunned with a sandwich halfway to his opened mouth.

"..."

Zombie tilted his head in a non-threatening manner and waved his and the frozen boy...

...while the hood and the veil covering his face blacked the light blue eyes emitted by his jet-black eyes...

The blue undead looked back, making sure that none of the guards is there yet, and then beckoned at the future capture target, and pointed at the window, doing a pantomime of opening it to let him in.

"..."

Mason gulped down his saliva, looked behind him as if checking out whether he was really alone, put down his sandwich, and...

*click*

...opened the window just as the masked stranger asked him to – since for whatever reason the boy felt that the suspicious individual was not suspicious nor threatening in the slightest.

"Thanks, you're a good kid, Mason. Just a friendly reminder – don't ever let strangers into your house, never-ever."

Zombie climbed through and patted the boy's head...

*bam*

...knocking him out before the child could even open his mouth and ask about the identity of the mysterious stranger.

*click*

"...whew... just in time."

Zombie closed the window back up just in time as one of the guards showed up, and breathed out in relief.

Then he looked at the unconscious boy laying on top of his meal and nodded his head.

"You're lucky that you're a capture target and are needed – I would have ripped you to shreds for what you did in the first playthrough otherwise."

He scoffed, leaving the boy in a very uncomfortable-looking position, not bothering to at least move the child to bed right next to him.

With getting rid of the possible danger and distraction – momentarily at least – the blue undead scouted the are with his life signature detection skill just to find out that Fig's life signature went away from the room she was in previously.

"..."

Even if no alarm was raised with the blue-undead trespassing into the mansion, it didn't mean that it was okay for him to stay there system-knows how long – hence, the need to make a choice.

Follow Fig and talk to her in whatever room she'll end up with – or go and wait for her in the room that she was first spotted, hoping that she will return there.

Zombie made sure that no one was in front of Mason's room before opening the door and looking around the hallway.

"..."

He squinted his eyes looking at the stairway leading up – and the decision picked itself – the room that fig left earlier was really close, and with the stairway basically, right next to him, he could allow himself to risk it.

Having decided on that the blue undead stelathed his way up, keeping to the wall as he was climbing the stairs to reduce the chance of the stairs creaking under his weight, and got to the right place without any trouble.

"...not a toilet or a bathroom, good..."

As he opened the door and slid in, he breathed out with relief seeing the bedroom.

A fancy bedroom with a queen-sized bed and the big closet – the one with a full-sized mirror built-in – filled with clothes, though, it was worth mentioning that the mirror was carefully covered with a white cloth as if the owner didn't want to accidentally see their reflection if they weren't changing.

"Makes sense."

Zombie nodded with satisfaction noticing the small details that suggested that he was in Fig's room.

Though, probably the biggest hint for that was that the familiar life signature of the Envys spy was returning after whenever she went to before.

"Khaha... Wonder how will she react~"

The blue undead giggled to himself and removed both the hood and the veil, unmasking himself so that Fig would only get surprised at his sight and not freak out thinking that she was being attacked by an unknown disguised assailant – and he proceeded to take a strategic seat by the desk in front of the window while facing towards the door.

Zombie's need to tease an ally clearly triumphed the need to be cautious in that particular matter and would definitely earn him a scolding from the sealed overseer if she was available.

Seeing that no one else is even approaching the room aside from the returning Fig, Zombie relaxed and leaned back on the seat, with a huge smile plastered over his blue face.

Then, finally, after a couple of minutes, the doorhandle moved and the door itself opened and a girl with the life signature of Fig entered, holding a jar with water.

"...huh...?"

...but she wasn't Fig that Zombie knew, it was...

"Fillia Envy...?!"

The blue undead uttered in disbelief standing up feeling all the reason leaving him, replaced with pure anger.