The Villainess and I, her Zombie

As it turned out, the new voice belonged to a distinguish-looking middle-aged butler kneeling down at an appropriate distance.

"Young lady, sir puppet, I am a member of the eleventh unit of the royal guards. My name is Persimmon and the queen has sent me as a mediator between herself and the two of you."

The man spoke with his head lowered, without showing even a bit of hostility.

"How did you get here? There was no trace of your life signature within miles when I checked a few seconds ago."

Zombie scoffed, glaring down the butler, as he locked the red-haired girl in a protective embrace.

"Sir puppet, that is because I teleported here. I am queen's personal transportation man... if I can describe my function so boldly."

Persimmon explained in a calm voice.

"Zombie, the eleventh unit of the royal guards is a special unit that does a lot more secret missions than guarding... that said, sir Persimmon, it's not a good time to approach us. I am very much not in the mood for a leisure conversation and neither am I going to discuss some undoubtedly bold demands from the royal family."

Cranberry straightened her back and responded in the most composed voice she could muster, without turning around and showing her face.

"Demands? Oh, it's not at all what you might expect, young lady. Even as greedy as she is, the queen isn't stupid. She wouldn't even dream about trying to make any sort of demands upon someone of your... strength..."

The butler raised his head slightly and glanced towards the edge of the humongous chasm that marked the edge of the former Prides territory.

"Oh...? Then it isn't about the engagement between me and Roan? I was sure that she will try to coerce me to join her family as soon as possible."

"...!"

Hearing Cranberry's mocking explanation, Zombie unleashed a threatening aura, causing the butler to flinch in panic.

"L-like I said! The queen isn't stupid! How could she ask for something so outrageous from someone so powerful...?!"

Persimmon hurriedly shook his head and explained.

"Haa... Zombie, I guess you can relax for now."

Cranberry sighed and put her bloody hand against the blue undead's stomach.

"...same to you, you're shivering..."

Zombie looked down at her and whispered before breathing out and releasing the pressure.

"...thank you for your understanding!"

Persimmon bowed down so low that his forehead touched the ground.

"Haa... Enough with that. Tell us what is it about."

Cranberry sighed, not reacting to Zombie's whisper whatsoever, out and turned around.

Her eyes were still a bit red but her attitude was back... or as much of it as she could force herself to show.

The butler straightened his back but didn't get up from his knees.

"Young lady, the royal family is hosting a grand ball in a week's notice and every single member of the main noble families is invited..."

"Ha..."

He declared and Cranberry let out a slightly mocking gasp.

"Sorry to break it to you - I am not a social butterfly that you all seem to remember me as. I really thought that I made it clear with killing so many people already - I don't like parties, too many people."

The red-haired girl scoffed mockingly but at the same time, she kept clinging to Zombie as if her life depended on it.

Only a mention of the ball that would undoubtedly be the condemnation event has caused her to tremble.

"Most of the members of the other main families wouldn't want to see me here either after I've dealt with the main Envy house... and the head of the Wrath family..."

Even though the first part of her declaration was spoken quite mockingly, her voice shook slightly at the mention of the freshly killed man.

"Those are just some trivial details, when compared to what you have to offer, there is no reason to pursue the matter."

The butler calmly corrected her in a reassuring voice.

"Ha! The real Envy family that supports the kingdom seems to have put quite the pressure on you all."

Cranberry scoffed and nodded, doing her best to not sound worried out of her mind about the possibility of the reincarnated savior using the event to her advantage.

She definitely didn't want to go - but did she even had a choice in that matter...?

"They declared your actions as long-overdue cleaning and went as far as declaring that if you will suffer any unpleasant consequences, they will defect to one of our neighbors. But, that alone was most certainly not the only reason for he highness's decision."

Persimmon admitted but clarified to cut any possible misunderstanding right in the bud.

"Certainly, after all, losing your best spies certainly isn't that much of a problem, right?"

The red-haired girl nodded with a convincingly mocking smirk.

"Young lady, I have said that it wasn't the only reason, not that it wasn't a reason at all..."

The middle-aged butler lowered his head and once again corrected the girl with exact same amount of courtesy as before.

"Then, what the rest of them might be?"

Cranberry asked, calming herself by keeping herself in close contact with her blue undead.

"We can use the ball as an excuse to get lady Goji and young Claymore in the same building as the queen - with that it will be easy to organize the transfer of the avatar of sin titles over to some insignificant people, criminals preferably, which would enable you to deal with them without the need to worry about your dear friend Claymore's life."

"...ha...?"

Whatever explanation did Cranberry expect - that one was certainly not the one!

The red-haired girl stepped aside from her blue undead and stared at the kneeling butler.

"Of course that would also assure queen's survival so you should see that it's not just some suspicious freebie. Yet of course, at it is common when dealing with the Greed family, there is a catch. Before such things could be done, the queen would like to have a talk with you - I was not given the details, but I was ordered to assure you that the deal our queen has for you will most definitely be to your liking."

"Cranberry! Did you hear that?! Isn't that amazing?!"

Zombie gasped and looked at the red-haired girl in his arms.

Even though even he got a feeling that the offer was literally too good to be true, even without the secret deal that the queen herself wanted to strike with Cranberry - he stayed quiet about it because he wanted the girl to stop forcing herself to ct unnatural.

"...fine... We can listen to what she has to say."

Cranberry didn't even sigh as she used to, she just pondered a little bit and agreed as if she didn't found anything particularly weird about the proposition.