The Villainess and I, her Zombie

|What the hell are those guy's doing here?! Weren't they spending most of their time between the Prides and Greeds territories?|

Zombie squinted his eyes at the younger versions of the adventurers he had come to know quite well during his first playthrough.

|They are just low-level adventurers at the moment, they aren't actually bound to any territory – but they sure need money to realize their goals, that is why they traveling throughout the whole kingdom in search of work.|

Patience explained patiently.

|You know exactly what I have meant! Why are they searching for a job in this awful territory where basically everyone tries to scam every last penny out of everyone else? They look so naive too, they'll get chewed out and spat out by the first merchant they'll talk to!|

Zombie scoffed internally and furrowed his brows – which caused the five adventurers to flinch.

|If that's the case then why don't you gain their favor by helping them out? You surely know that completing their questline is necessary for the secret true ending that we are aiming for, don't you? Even though it's not time for any of that to happen yet, it won't kill you to make them ow you.|

Patience came forward with a very convincing argument that Zombie had no reason to refute.

|Fine. We will do it your way. As long as they'll recognize me later once I'll turn into an undead.|

Zombie sighed internally and straightened his back, losing the threatening aura.

s

|Guess what, if you introduce yourself to them, it should make things even easier later on too.|

Patience was undoubtedly mocking the boy, and while it didn't sit well with him, it wasn't also the end of the world so he just let it be.

|Go on, start a friendly conversation.|

Patience encouraged the boy with a passion equal to a parent making their toddler approach another child.

"Sucks to be you, Marshmallow, the damned armor, right?"

Zombie took a deep breath and ended up smirking mischievously at the large woman in a low-quality armor best suited for her level at the moment, who had the guy she secretly liked – at least in Zombie's memories – on top of that very armor.

|You could use their actual names, you know?|

|Nah, I will mock them relentlessly.|

Patience sighed and Zombie giggled inside of his head.

"Marshmallow...?"

Shanks tilted his head and looked at Uresha in confusion.

"Ah! Sorry!"

That has also made the rat-faced man fully realize his position, and he hurriedly got off the party's tank with a bright red face.

"Shiv, you could use being a bit bolder too, at this rate the two of you will get together in thirteen years or something..."

Zombie turned to Shanks and sighed in disappointment.

"Moldde is still a leader too now, I guess? Cool."

He moved on to greeting or rather commenting about the others while waving his hand at the person he was talking about.

"Huh..."

"Oh, fuck!"

He leaned forward and since his height wasn't impressive at all – since he was still under six years old – he had no trouble peeking under Lairs's hood before she could curse and move away.

|She doesn't look any different.|

Zombie pointed out to Patience.

|What else did you expect? She's an elf. Elves age up like humans only until they are around eighteen, up to twenty-one years old, then their aging process basically stops – or so it seems to humans since their lifespans are too short to actually witness any real difference.|

|Hah... I see.|

Zombie nodded indifferently since he actually wasn't that interested in the first place.

"Lairs didn't really change."

"...! Hey, he knows my actual name? Why only mine...?"

He ended up smirking at the elven mage who instantly turned pale.

|Could you be more considerate? You know in what territory we all are, Lairs must be extremely careful or she might get herself and her friends in trouble. Come up with something that will calm them all down or the rest might attack you to protect her.|

Patience sighed and made sure that Zombie would realize the why all the others tensed up.

"Oh, and there's Aren't."

"Aren't?

Zombie only scoffed slightly and glared at the confused In're, making her lose focus and gasp in confusion.

"You're the Sunflowers, right? No, Daffodils! You've helped out a carriage I was traveling on a couple of months back. I'm still grateful about that."

He added and nodded his head with approval, beginning creating his story by coming up with just a random lie.

"Greeds territory... or was it the Prides one? Did that guy at least pay you extra as he promised?"

Zombie added and turned to Rotte.

"H-huh...?"

Rotte went wide-eyed and tried to back off.

"Huh? You say that he didn't? What an asshole!"

Zombie scoffed and shook his head in disbelief.

"...?"

He somehow made his voice sound completely sincere too and maybe because of that, In're flinched and perked up while frowning her brows as if trying to remember something slipping her mind.

"Wait... Could it be that you were on the carriage with those merchants...?"

She asked cautiously.

"Of course I was! What, don't tell me that you thought I was some human kid back then?!"

Zombie nodded but ended up flinching and frowning in the middle of his sentence.

"No, no, no! Of course, we did not, right everyone?"

In're hurriedly raised her hand trying to calm down the angered boy she thought was a dwarf.

"Now that I think about it... There was a ki... someone similar to him that one time..."

Even Shanks was furrowing his head, as he swallowed the bait, hook, and sinker.

"But then why do you remember only one name correctly? Why Lairs's specifically?"

...or so it seemed but in fact, there was still some work to do.

"Are you seriously asking me why a constantly cursing hooded girl did get my attention more than every single one of you combined?"

Zombie tilted his head and asked in disbelief.

"Ah..."

Shanks gasped in a realization and looked to the side with a sour face realizing that indeed Lairs does causes a lot of situations when she gets called out by name by the rest of them near other people – which cannot be said about, for example, Uresha, who also coincidentally got her name twisted the most.

|You know what? Your LUC stat might actually be incredibly high the way you keep getting away with those things...|

|Who cares? It's not like I'll be keeping those stats anyway.|

s

Zombie and Patience smirked at each other.

The boy looked around the messed-up battlefield and then back at the Dandelions.

"Say, you all want some easy money and help me get all the monster parts that still are worth something and get it to the guild?"

"Well..."

Zombie asked and the five adventurers looked at each other, clearly interested in the 'easy money' part.