The Villainess and I, her Zombie

"Hey, you! Stop! You forgot to pay the fee for entering the city!"

One of the city guards called after the hooded figure that simply passed by the queue of people waiting to enter, completely indifferent as if they owned the place.

"You! I said...!"

"I don't care."

The guard frowned and walked after the hooded person, shouting at them - but in response, the person of interest simply shrugged their shoulders without looking back and...

*BOOOM*

...kicked off the ground with enough strength to cause a small explosion that caused panic amongst all the rest of the queuing travelers - which in turn required the attention of the other guards.

No one wanted to miss on the toll that more than half of was going straight to their pockets after all.

"What the hell?! Did anyone see how that bastard looked under the hood?!"

The one guard who was walking after the now escaped traveler gasped and looked back at his colleagues.

"That's your business - either think of something and write a report or forget about it - you don't want to get in trouble over some bastard... Oi! Don't you dare to do the same shit like that smart-ass back then unless you want to have a close look at the hospitality of our cells!"

One of them looked back and called out while shrugging his shoulders, before grabbing the shoulder of a plump gentleman trying to sneak past him without paying.

"...fucker..."

The first guard cursed under his nose and went to join the others with keeping an eye on the new arrivals.

He had no intention to write any report - after all if he did, and the unknown hooded person commits any sort of crimes, he as the person who failed to stop the criminal, would get fired or even put on trial, depending on the severity of the crime committed by the escapee.

"That was way too easy..."

Zombie furrowed his brows, pulling the hood over his face a bit more, making sure that no one would notice his rather easily recognizable complexion, and jumped down from the roof of the nearby building right to a cozy little dark alley – a perfect place with only a few life signatures in sight.

"Huh...?! Hey, when did you get here?!"

...a few life signatures certainly did not mean that there was no one there...

A dirty, unshaven man who looked and smelled like he hadn't had a bath in... his entire life... pulled himself up from the weird nest that looked like he made for himself from old clothes and trash like some sort of human pigeon, and glared at the disguised blue undead.

"This is a private alleyway! Pay up for passing or else...!"

The man pulled out a makeshift shiv and his hand began glowing white as he pointed it out threateningly in a fluent motion that showed it wasn't his first time extorting people.

Poor man, if he didn't fail to notice that the new person came from above and not from the main road, he might have lived.

"..."

Zombie raised his brows underneath the hood, very much confused.

"Did you say private alleyway...?"

He asked with the amount of mockery so high that it was almost corporeal, tilting his head so much that he almost turned it horizontal.

"Fucking country bumpkin... of course that it's priv-URGH!"

The homeless man scoffed and waved his shiv around making sure - in his own mistaken opinion - that Zombie will not retaliate too scared to get shanked...

/Low-level player defeated

You receive EXP

Well... considering that the next second the dirty man was sliding down the wall, leaving a trail of blood behind like a gory slime was enough of a proof that it was an idiotic idea.

"That was a rhetoric question. Moron."

Zombie scoffed and shook his head at the ragged corpse of a dirty man and pulled out the handkerchief from his own pocket to wipe off the fool's blood off of the glove before it would leave a stain.

...yes, he was wearing gloves as a part of the disguise...

"Now..."

Zombie looked around.

It wasn't like he knew the plan of the city well enough to navigate through the back alleys to get to the Envy's mansion, but at the same time the mansion itself wasn't very hard to find – yet the original plan of his definitely had to be changed if each and every side road and back alley would have a guardian like that.

Zombie could clearly see the fancy high roof of the house of the main branch of the ruling family of the territory but he couldn't just run over there jumping from roof to roof without getting the attention of half of the city - and he certainly did not need that kind of attention, especially considering the delicate and stealthy approach he should implement according to all the information gathered and given to him by the queen's spymaster, Pitaya.

...but... if he wasn't alone... wouldn't it be better to get the attention?

The blue undead smirked to himself.

"We have time and no new spies from either side had shown up as of yet... Kopia, do you want to hang out with me in your humanoid form?"

The blue undead asked with a confident smile.

"A date!"

Which prompted Kopia's immediate reaction of jumping out of her scabbard and turning into a long-haired girl in a fancy dress - even more fancy than she would usually choose to create – and call out in excitement.

She then proceeded to wrap herself around Zombie's right arm and leaned her head against his shoulder.

"Good, as long as neither side will send someone with the smell detection skill, we should be fine."

The blue undead nodded his head with satisfaction, glancing between the signet on his finger and the excited humanoid sword at his side and making sure that each piece of his clothing is properly covering his blue skin before setting out before stepping over the body of the unknown man and set on going for the main road.

"...? Master, we aren't going to stick to the sideroads?"

Kopia asked in confusion going on her tiptoes and whispering conspicuously into Zombie's ear...

...while stepping on the corpse with no remorse whatsoever...

"And be forced to leave a trail of corpses in our wake? Nah, no thanks. I would prefer to stay incognito."

The blue undead shrugged his shoulders and respond casually.

"But..."

"I made the plan with back alleys because I thought that it would allow me to stay in the shadows, but I honestly doubt that this guy was the only self-proclaimed owner of the alley in this place."

The girl fidgeted and was about to ask a question but Zombie simply shook his head and explained his reasoning before she could properly voice out her sentence while pointing his thumb back over his shoulder at the dead body.

"But I suppose it's okay to go wild while shopping since no one expects someone like me would like to show off in that way."

"Nnnn...?"

He said, and his words caused Kopia to furrow her brows and tilt her head as if she realized something but did not want to jump to a conclusion.

"Let's buy you some nice expensive food – I haven't strengthened you for a while, right? Let's diversify your arsenal a little bit."

Zombie made himself clear by tapping on the coin pouch at his waist on the opposite side from Kopia's luxurious scabbard.

"Eh?! You will?! Master! Really?! You will?!"

Kopia gasped and hugged him, bouncing up and down - which reminded Zombie about a certain important detail.

"Since we would be posing as a master and a servant it would look weirder if you kept calling me master, and you can't call me Zombie either since that would ruin the disguise in the first place..."

The blue undead spoke up with concern when suddenly...

"Ssss! (Termas!)"

A voice hissed out between his ear and Kopia.

"Huh...?"

Zombie frowned and frowned.

"Sssss! (She can still call you master but no one will notice!) Sss! (It's clever!) Sssssss...? (Master, can you get me some snacks too...?)"

The voice belonged, of course, to the golden snake posing as an earring Could around Zombie's ear, Monty.

"Termas...?"

Kopia's face scrunched in a grimace.

"Termas, Termas, Termas - Ah! I get it! It is good! Good idea, gold!"

But as she voiced it out repeatedly, her expression brightened and she nodded as if she found enlightenment.

"Termas! You should buy gold some snacks too!"

"Sssss! (Snacks! Snacks!)"

Kopia declared proudly and Monty started hissing a chant into Zombie's ear as if trying to hypnotize him.

"…"

It took a lot from Zombie not to roll his eyes out of his head, honestly.

Since the blue undead was aware that Kopia was reading his mind whenever she was touching him, he stopped himself from thinking a mean comment, but deep inside was well aware of what a certainly sealed overseer would comment about the two at his side if she was available.

...

The level of intelligence of those two lovable idiots was perfectly matched.

...somewhere in between the level of the nursery and preschool children...