The Villainess and I, her Zombie

"Wha...?! THE ONE WITH THE SIGIL! WHERE IS HE GOING?!"

"...?"

The sudden shout of the bespectacled lord Blackberry made Carambola rise his brow in surprise – so even seeing his daughter about to get ripped apart didn't blind him for everything else...

"YOU SEVEN – MAYBE RASPBERRY MANAGED TO GET OUT OF HER ROOM BEFORE THAT BLASTED BARRIER APPEARED! GO CHECK UP ON HER!"

The man shouted a command to the nearest servants and they listened to him only a bit hesitantly – all of them left sending suspicious glares at the jet-black werewolf by their employer's side.

"Hmm... now I see why little Rambutan wanted them all killed – it doesn't look like they are simply employed, it feels like they actually loyal to the house of Pride..."

The words of the older man who actually had the last name Loyalty were filled with a particular nostalgia.

While he was a child, long before the tides of fate had pushed him towards the Envy family, the young Carambola used to spend the long winter evenings together with his grandfather who used to tell him stories about the glory days of their family, of the times when the surname Loyalty was mentioned it was always accompanied with the title of Prides most trusted subjects.

Oh, how the little Carambola wanted to make his grandfather happy and reconnect the two houses again...

"..."

The steel-haired gentleman smiled to himself with a bit of melancholy and shook his head.

What use was for thinking about it now when his young lady was out of his sight?

He had to find her, not think about the things that were never meant to happen.

With no further delay, but with a bad feeling growing inside of his chest, Carambola hasted and got behind the shed...

"Ah...!"

...and he let out a relieved sigh once he spotted an unconscious sickly-looking girl with thin reddish hair wearing an oversized maid's outfit leaning against the shed's wall.

"Oh dear, you silly girl... did you get yourself knocked out on the sleeping potion you brought yourself?"

The steel-haired gentleman smiled softly and crouched by the unconscious girl, and picked up the small empty vial from her hand.

"This thing must have been really strong to make you deactivate the appearance steal skill you always boasted to be able to keep up at any time... or maybe the girl you were borrowing the appearance from was killed off just like happened to my target...?"

He murmured, furrowing his brows with concern.

Wasn't there too many coincidences happening all at once...?

What if... and only if... lord Rambutan wanted to get rid of Fillia – the daughter that he had with his official wife before she passed away, and should become his successor...

That would make sense...

If both she and Carambolla were left to die just like the disposable agents that Rambutan sent to the Prides mansion mixed between the group of Gluttonys?!

"...no, impossible..."

Carambola frown and rejected the idea.

It didn't make sense.

In the first place, no one besides him and Fillia herself knew that they were going to the Prides mansion after the attack group.

He certainly didn't mention Fillia's plan to anyone else, and Fillia herself – although she did spend a lot more time with her younger half-brother, Mason, than ever before– wasn't foolish enough to reveal that she was planning to use her unique magic steal skill on the red-haired Cranberry, to anyone.

But then... what was going on...?

Carambola squinted his eyes looking to the side while storing the empty vial safely in his pocket to not leave any evidence.

"Well then, my silly little master, with the obvious failure on our part, let us leave this place while we still can."

The steel-haired gentleman breathed out and gently picked up the unconscious girl into a princess carry.

"...nnnn...!"

His action made her flinch and twitch as her eyelids trembled with her being on the verge of waking up.

"...ha...?"

Then, as Carambolla was turning around to walk away, the sickly-looking girl opened her eyes and gasped in shock, staring at the old man's face.

"Hello, young miss. I'm afraid that our plans got foiled by a rather unexpected turn of events."

The steel-haired gentleman smiled softly while making an apologetic expression to the utterly confused girl.

"Your target, as well as Hope's girl, her wolf, and also, your fiance, the young first prince Roan, got trapped in a rather peculiar barrier that even lord Blackberry and Gluttony's best hound, Sapotle, are unable to breach."

He explained as gently as he could while the girl was massaging her head and squinting her eyes, disoriented and lost.

"And I'm afraid that will be the last we've ever seen or heard of them as they are stuck there with a rather unsavory bunch of bloodthirsty monsters. Once again, my deepest apologies – though if I remember correctly you've lost interest in the young prince a while ago, didn't you?"

Carambola added, trying to cheer up the gloomy girl.

"HA?! They are what?!"

The girl in his arms flinched and started kicking around so much that the older gentleman had to put her back down on the ground for her own safety – and once her feet touched the ground the sickly looking girl limped her way from behind the shed and put her hands against the red and black wall of the dome and trembled at the sight.

The blond prince was fending off the werewolves that had surrounded him surprisingly well, but past him, all the way back in the mansion, the oddly misshapen werewolf busted through the window of an upper floor, and after disappearing into the mansion for a little while he came out dragging the kicking and screaming woman, dragging her out by her hair.

"RASPBERRY!"

Not even a single sound escaped from inside the barrier but the panicked howl of lord Blackberry was enough to explain everything.

"----"

As if hearing the despair in his voice, the disfigured werewolf turned towards him and moved his jaws, saying something that no one on the outside could hear and...

*-----*

Bit into the neck of lady Raspberry and tore off her head in one fluid motion.

"NOOOOOOOOOO!- …?"

Blackberry shouted in powerless anger before suddenly going surprisingly silent as if some realization dawned on him.

The disfigured werewolf inside the barrier opened his jaws to undoubtedly release a chuckle of satisfied laughter, releasing the head of the dead avatar of pride – and to make everything worse, just at the moment when the head hit the ground, a single frenzy werewolf passed both the prince, the brown-haired girl fighting like a wild beast, and the black wolf fighting against his own family member – and jumped right at the stunned red-haired girl who was the closest one to the spot where Fillia and Carambola were.

The beast pinned her to the ground and sunk its teeth into her neck.

But the girl did not scream nor cry in pain – she looked back – as if she knew that she was being watched, reached out her hand and...

...smiled...

"Miss – you don't have to watch thi-"

Carambola grabbed the sickly girl's shoulders and tried to pull her away from the red and black dome but...

*SLAM*

"FIG! NOOOO! FIG!"