The Villainess and I, her Zombie

*clang* *clang* *clang* *clang* *clang* *clang*

At the western part of the training ground at the outskirts of the hidden elven village in the Great northern forest, an elf and a human were in the middle of a fierce battle.

*clang* *clang* *clang* *clang*

The black baseball bat with the handle tightly wrapped in the blue ribbon for better grip clashed against a saber with the pommel shaped like a head of a bird of prey.

The elf was a powder-pink-haired boy who looked around thirteen years old while the human was a dark-red-haired girl around nine years old.

Despite their young age neither their weapons nor the levels of their respective skills were something to scoff at.

*clang* *clang* *clang* *clang* *clang* *clang* *clang*

At the same time despite their age difference, the two seemed to be perfectly matched too – no matter who attacked first each hit was parried and countered just for that counter to be parried and countered and so on.

It was at the level that their duel looked more like a synchronized dance or a play the two had agreed upon beforehand.

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The thing was – it was most definitely not the case...

"Zombie will be practicing with me today! He promised me yesterday!"

The girl barked before unleashing a devastating thrash skill that made it look like her weapon multiplied and fell at the elven boy at the same time from each side.

"No way – he promised me two days ago that we will train together today!"

*clang* *clang* *clang* *clang* *clang* *clang* *clang*

The elf gritted his teeth and growled back, parrying every single hit with cat-like grace and fluently responding with a raising diagonal slash from below.

"Exactly! Two days ago! That means that the plans he made with me are more recent, therefore yours got canceled!"

*clang*

The girl scoffed and charged all in instead of backing off and took the hit head-on, countering it with a clear sound – pushing the elf out of balance, leaving him open for a devastating overhead bash.

"No! It does not! I was first so the plans he made with you do not count!"

The elf scoffed right back and dodged the skill with a graceful pirouette, twirling around and adding speed and damage power to the activated blade dance.

"Ugh...!"

The flurry of attacks that began raining down on the girl made her grunt and back off as she gritted her teeth in anger.

The fluent movement of the elven skill made it basically impossible to find a blind spot as there was no pause between the consecutive hits long enough for the girl to counterattack – she was forced to defend with the black bat, and she certainly didn't like that.

She didn't have the opportunity to counter – so she just had to create one instead!

"...!"

The girls grinned wildly all of a sudden and her body shone white as she charged backward without losing a rhythm and the elven boy wasn't able to follow her fast enough while keeping up the blade dance active – then the girl used the charge skill two more times, changing the direction she was going with each use and ended up right at the back of the scantily-clad elf.

"He is my familiar! If he promises something to me of course it will come before anyone else!"

The girl roared and pulled of a perfect swing that tore through the air with a terrifying sound – if that attack landed, there was no doubt that the spine of the slim elf would snap in half like a twig...

"HMPH! You wish!"

The elf boy pouted loudly and leaned back, bending his back so much that the bat passed right above his exposed navel, and he slashed at the girl's legs.

"You little...!"

The girl gritted her teeth and jumped away, losing balance which let the elven boy regain his essentially returning their fight back to the square one.

"(Master, is it really okay for us to be training together when those two are like this...?)"

At the same time at the eastern part of the training ground the young red dragon, Baron, looked over at Cranberry and Cranbie duking it out and asked sounding a little bit worried, as a fireball he shot out over an hour before flew at the blue undead in front of him.

"Don't mind them – they are already training anyways – I never promised either of them anything."

Zombie shrugged his shoulders and waved his hand dismissively and deflected the fire skill back at the dragon using Kopia in her shortsword form.

"(You didn't? Then what are they fighting about?)"

Baron looked back at the blue undead and tilted his head in confusion, and smacked the fireball back with his tail.

"With Cranbie, he did ask me to train together but I told him that it is unlikely that I will have time since you and I will be training the reflect. With Cranberry it was more or less the same. I have no idea why either of them treated my gentle refusal as if I promised them something."

Zombie shrugged his shoulders again reflecting the fireball that changed the color from orange to yellow, taking its destructive power to another level for the second time since the two of them began this particular exercise.

"(Wow! Master! Look! It got stronger again! Do you think we could use this technique in an actual combat once you will be able to hunt monsters?)"

Baron gasped and jumped up excitedly, smacking the empowered fireball back to the undead,

"Nah, this takes way too long to be effective – level 1 reflect just returned the skill back at the opponent, level 2 started adding 5% of the power – and it took us over a year this long to just get it to this level, not to mention how much longer for the next level up. It would be far more effective to just use more of the consecutive basic fireballs."

Zombie shook his head and perfectly reflected the attack at the dragon.

/Skills level up

Reflect (level 3)

Fire resistance (level 2)

"Oh...?"

A message popped up for the blue undead making him smirk with satisfaction.

"Alright, It's better than expected, it was a great idea to use concentration in tandem with it - make it 10% at level 3. And it looks like this one is actually getting a little bit hotter than I expected."

Zombie giggled and when Baron returned the yellow fireball at him, he did not reflect it back and instead sent it into the sky, where...

*BOOOOOOOOOOM*

...it exploded with enough power to send a gust of hot air all the way back to the ground.

"(Wooooow! It was so strong...! So cool!)"

Baron gasped, looking at the disappearing fireworks that he help to create, and wagged his tail like an excited puppy.

For the matter, even the great explosion did not stop Cranberry and Cranbie from fighting over who would be training with the blue undead...

"Khahaha! True – t might have been a little bit stronger than I gave it credits to."

Zombie agreed, smirking with satisfaction.

|Of course it was stronger, you lunatic – the 5% strength increase happens only when you pull off a perfect parry, and a perfect reflect, and a perfect reflect also happens to give you a greater amount of the experience towards the skill level up than the normal one. You might think that reaching level 3 in half a year after reaching level 2 is long but in fact, it's some insane stuff.|

Patience called out from inside of Zombie's head, sounding as if she was angry at the blue undead's lack of excitement.

|Yeah, I get it, I love you too. Now shush.|

Zombie glanced to the side and shook his head, not wanting anything to disturb his concentration.

|A...! Wha..?! Sh-SHUT UP! Rotten-hearted playboy!|

Patience shouted, sounding as if she got all red from embarrassment.

"Baron, go on, shoot another one."

Zombie ignored her and instead nodded at his beastly subject to unleash another fireball.

"(Yes! Let's make the next one even cooler, master!)"

The red dragon cheered and his throat and jaws shone with a reddish light.