The Villainess and I, her Zombie

"No, not really. Sorry."

The red-haired girl shook her head and lowered her head apologetically which was already a surprising improvement in her acting skills - or maybe just the result of mixing of three personalities in one body.

"..."

The ashen undead's expression soured - she looked like she was on the verge of straight-up asking Cranberry whether she was from the Pride family or not, but ended up deciding that it wasn't worth it.

"Alright, you bothered my cute pet, now it's my turn to ask you something."

"...!"

Zombie figured out that letting the ashen undead knight question Cranberry more wouldn't be a good idea and black made the red-haired girl turn around so she was facing him, while he hugged her and focused on the shocked undead elf.

"What do you want to know...?"

The ashen undead in her current, well-fed with the lust-basked skill, form was laughably easy to read and her hesitation very clear.

"Well, to start, why didn't we pass any more villages in a while? Were the driads the last settlers? Oh, and while we're at it, I'm pretty sure I've heard something about two or three outposts but we passed only one. Why is that? Are you taking us somewhere else than we agreed upon?"

The blue undead throw the ball right back at the ashen undead and completely changed the subject while looking around at the walls of trees growing on both sides of the speeding wagon.

"..."

Cranberry moved slightly in his arms, Zombie felt her taking her head against his neck.

She didn't want him to either press the ashen undead too much or keep asking about the villages.

"Ah... that..."

Whatever the cause of her action was, it seemed that the undead elf didn't particularly mind that question, although she tilted her head looking as if she was considering whether it was alright for her to respond or not.

"You see, it wasn't like there weren't any more villages at the beginning... the thing is that since the apostles started popping up left and right around fifteen years ago, the settlement project had to be altered."

She explained straightening her back and waving her hand around as if she was trying to add her words to the right tempo with only the power of that gesture.

"It's not that the villagers in the lizardfolk village have lied to you - I'm pretty sure that they believe that there actually are more villages there as well as outpost's, but the truth is that a good few of them got destroyed when a guard or a random villager suddenly fell to the corruption of the Eternal and ended up transforming into apostles and destroying everything in their surroundings - wiping out the settlement after settlement until they were brought down."

The ashen undead pointed at the spot with relatively young trees growing out.

After a closer inspection, the blue undead and the red-haired girl noticed the elements of the houses that got completely destroyed and which nature had already reclaimed as if it was nothing.

"The lizardfolk must have told you that the ruler's focus has shifted from the peaceful coexistence into a more radical stance with the humans - they said that because I told them about it."

The undead elf explained with a shrug.

"What I didn't tell them about, was that the settlement project got changed straight into the food production project, and honestly, those few settlements bring so little compared to the large farms close to the monster city, that no one wants to resettle the destroyed areas.

The monster's already living here aren't even treated seriously since their non-aggressive nature, so they are basically left as something akin to an early alarm system, or maybe a buffer for when the monster ruler will decide to begin the large-scale conflict with humans.

Anyway, what I originally meant to say was - the villagers from the villages we passed don't leave their settlements. Those who got to live long enough to remember setting out to settle the area still think that there are at least fifteen villages and three outposts."

The ashen undead went on quite the same rant, going off-topic, bringing it back, and then going off-topic once again.

it was also the moment when Zombie started regretting using the lust-based skill on her so much in order to completely awaken her personality, as it turned out that her personality was rather all over the place and very, very talkative.

"Though there is one more outpost on the way to the monster city, and we are going towards it. Although, it's not an outpost so to speak, but rather a landing ground for the wyvern. You see I am going back and forth grabbing crates from each village one by one because of the guy who's riding it."

The ashen undead knight suddenly got all conspicuous for some reason and leaned in lowering her voice.

"He's really proud of himself because his mount is a flying monster, but said flying monster isn't too impressive and can't carry much in one trip between here and the monster city, plus it needs some time to rest too. At the beginning of my duty in this place, I would just grab everything in one trip and just wait for him to go back and forth, but that guy was getting furious that he was working so hard while I was slacking around, so I got instructions to just work less efficient to boost that guy's morale. Isn't it annoying?"

"Haa... Very annoying."

It looked like once the undead elf started talking, there was no stopping her - her endless banter caused Cranberry to breathe out and mutter, although thanks to the impeccable timing her complaint ended up sounding as if she was agreeing with the ashen undead instead.

"Pffft...!"

Even so, her real intention did not escape the blue undead and he snickered, shaking his head while glancing at the red-haired girl.

"NEIGH!"

"...oh...?"

One of the horses made the alarming sound and the ashen knight turned back to face the road.

"We're almost there, actually."

She added without turning back.

"..."

Zombie furrowed his brows and his eyes shone with murky red light as he scouted the area ahead.

He noticed two life signatures in the sky approaching from the opposite direction so it was reasonable to assume that it was the prideful raider and his mount.

"Say, why did the lizardfolk tell us this guy will refuse to carry us no matter what?"

Zombie asked curiously.

"Oh, it's because his wyvern is too small to properly carry anyone else than him on its back, not strong enough to carry anything exceeding a certain weight, and doesn't have enough endurance to make more than seven trips in a day."

The ashen undead explained with a mocking scoff.

"Just don't tell him I've said that! Though... you two don't have to worry about any of that."

She added with a mysterious smile that instantly set out the alarms in Zombie and Cranberry's minds.

"Huh... alright."

"..."

The blue undead shrugged his shoulders dismissively not letting her know that he noticed that something was off, and Cranberry simply stayed quiet since her acting skills weren't suitable for the situation.

Then, one second they were going through the road surrounded by forest, and the next one they were riding through a massive clearance in the trees that was leading them straight to two guard towers built right at the edge of a massive cliff.

The ashen undead pulled on the reins and the zombie horses slowed down before stopping completely, slightly before the two towers but perfectly in the middle of them too.

"There he is."

The ashen undead pointed at the sky where the Zombie already saw two life signatures approaching from a distance...

"...?"

And he raised his brow.

There was a wyvern flying towards them...

But it actually had a dark-green-skinned undead in steel armor with a jade crystal in the middle of his chestplate.

...the wyvern was alive but the raider was an undead without a life signature - then, to who belonged the second life signature, and why they were hiding...?