The Villainess and I, her Zombie

"Yes. I do. Honestly, it's a waste of money.

Cranberry shrugged her shoulders and smiled with melancholy.

"Money is certainly nothing that you should worry about! I will...!"

Lord Blackberry stood up and declared with determination, but before he could finish, Cranberry raised her hand stopping him.

"Father, that's not what I meant."

She said calmly and motioned for him to sit back down.

"When I said I think it's a waste of money, I simply think that such parties aren't to my liking. I find more fulfillment in hunting down monsters nowadays."

When lord Blackberry was seated again, Cranberry explained.

"You don't mean...?"

Lord Blackberry raised his brow in suspicion, which caused his daughter to smile mischievously.

"Ha ha... it seems that you've seen through me already, father. I want to ask for your permission to temporarily become an adventurer."

Cranberry tilted her head and smiled happily completely disregarding the panic settling in, in her father's eyes.

"You... WHAT?! Why?! It really is about the money, isn't it?! Cranberry, I know you are a grown-up now, but a fragile..."

As one could guess, lord Blackberry wasn't happy about his daughter's request.

Far from it.

But still, the words got stuck in his throat.

Was Cranberry really a fragile little lady?

Could he really say that after she executed the butler for being too servile to another noble?

She also had been training diligently all the time in recent days, as if she was a completely different person than the daughter in lord Blackberry's memories.

"Father, I realized that spending money on trivialities isn't a proper way of showing off my pride. Trying to impress some weaklings that are content with what they have been born into is nothing more than pathetic. I want to aim higher. Much, much higher..."

Cranberry's voice was cold and precise like a blade ready to pierce through any obstacle.

"Ha. You're sounding as if you've set your sight on the whole world."

Lord Blackberry said jokingly trying to lighten the atmosphere.

"Essentially, yes, but for that, the two of us need to keep getting stronger. And we won't be able to do that if we stay inside the Prides' territory all the time under your watchful eye."

"Graough! (Definitely won't be able to!)"

Cranberry nodded with a serious expression and even Zombie echoed after her, while still hiding behind her back.

"Wha... you... you're serious...?"

There was no way that anyone could hear a declaration like that and remain calm.

Lord Blackberry wasn't an exception.

He looked as if he got slapped in the face and was looking at his daughter as if he hoped that she was joking.

"...haa..."

Cranberry breathed out and looked her father in the eyes.

"Of course there is a way for us to get stronger without needing to leave."

She said in a matter-of-fact voice.

"We just need to leave the griffins' corpses laying around and in a few days, or at most a few weeks, something much stronger will arrive. Sadly the local taxpayers will most definitely end up as their secondary meal, so that gets a no in my books. But the decision is yours, father. I'm packed and ready to go, but also have a couple of wagons filled with the monsters' meat prepared just in case you would choose the latter option."

She smiled innocently after boldly setting up her father with a rigged choice.

"...You know that as the head of the family I have all rights to just refuse both of those so-called options, right?"

Lord Blackberry sighed, removed his glasses, and started massaging his forehead.

Without them, his sharp eyes become three times as fierce.

"Of course, father, I simply prepared all that to show you my conviction."

Cranberry smirked shamelessly.

After all, she got her father's eyes, she wouldn't lose in terms of fierceness.

"Ha! Just what I could expect from the daughter of the Pride family!"

Lord Blackberry laughed and smacked the table.

The atmosphere changed completely.

"I see that I was foolish to still treat you like a little girl. Forgive me for that, Cranberry."

The man bowed his head slightly, but a bold smile never left his face.

"As for your request, you are free to go, tell me if you need any financial support."

He said nodding his head.

"Graough! (Wow, master, you were right!) Graough! (He really wasn't taking you seriously before!)"

Zombie gasped in shock.

"...told you..."

Cranberry turned to her servant and winked.

"Oh... Right..."

Suddenly lord Blackberry flinched and his expression became awkward as he reached to his chest pocket and pulled out a folded letter written on a beautiful, rose-scented paper.

"This makes thing a bit awkward... Cranberry, do you think you can postpone your departure for a few days?"

Lord Blackberry asked putting his glasses back on, opening the letter, and glancing at the content.

"Graough...? (Did something happen...?)"

Zombie, hidden behind his master felt that the girl was tensing up.

"What it is about, father?"

Cranberry clenched her fist under the table so hard that her knuckles turned white.

"You see, I go this letter from the castle... it seems that the little prince wants to see you. This time he wrote a proper letter asking me, the head of the Pride family, to grant him the permission to enter the Prides' estate and have a talk with you."

Lord Blackberry took his eyes off the said letter and turned to his daughter.

"The little prince had written it in such a polite way, that I had to double-check if this letter was really written by anyone from the Greed family... do you think you could postpone your departure until his arrival?"

The man smiled, as if he was expecting his daughter to refuse, and was already envisioning the surprised or infuriated face of the young prince.

"Sure. Why not? Since he went through all the necessary procedures, it's only appropriate to encourage a proper behavior like that in the future."

But Cranberry simply shrugged her shoulders and nodded, losing all the tension that had built up in her muscles.

"I need to tell him that the whole engagement business is canceled after all."

She added with a mischievous smirk.