"Graough... (That avatar of sin thing must be a huge annoyance...)"
Even though Claymore left two whole days ago, Zombie was still bothered by the side effects of her powers.
"What is it...?"
Cranberry put down the knife and fork and glanced at her servant curiously.
The two of them were in the dining room alone and, as always, Cranberry was having a meal and Zombie was observing her.
"Graough. (Ah, no, it's nothing, sorry for bothering you.)"
The blue undead waved his hand dismissively and grunted an apology.
"Graough. (I was just thinking that life must sucks for those with the avatar title.) Graough? (Maybe even your mother is how she is because of some side effects?)"
He added tilting his head and furrowing his brows which indicated great focus.
"..."
Cranberry gritted her teeth and took a deep breath.
"Haa... Let's see..."
She then breathed out and everything seemed like she was going to directly answer the question that she shouldn't be able to even understand when...
/Global event begins
/Calculating...
/Preparation complete
/Servant receives a role
The proudest corpse/capture target
/Master receives a role
Backstory character
With no fanfares or even any reason whatsoever, a short series of messages popped up.
"Graough?! (Huh?!)"
"...!"
The master and servant both stared at them in disbelief.
The writing itself looked a lot fancier than the usual one, but aside from that, there was nothing special about them.
Well, aside from their meaning...
*crunch*
"...?"
At the sound of something getting crushed Zombie turned towards his master and saw her slowly putting down two halves of the table that she just broke in half.
"Graough... (Master, this...)"
Zombie stood up and stepped towards her.
His groan obviously was referring to the messages about the global events...
"Backstory character...? Backstory character... So I'm not even supposed to partake in the global event...? Me...? Me?!"
Cranberry clenched her fists so hard that her knuckles turned white, and was shaking with fury.
She suddenly turned towards Zombie and stared at him as if she wanted him to deny what she said.
"Graough... (Master...)"
Zombie murmured sadly.
This was exactly what he expected.
After all, that world was the world of some unknown, at least to Zombie, otome game with a rather obvious quirk that even the undead with a rotten brain title could realize.
The important characters all had names that didn't follow the common rule.
All of the unimportant characters had names that followed that rule.
Yes.
Unimportant characters in the nation of Fruit Basket were named after fruits.
Cranberry was obviously one of them.
Though until now Zombie was hoping that he would also be counted amongst the unimportant ones.
But even the dread of being the capture target in a game he had no idea about couldn't compare to how worried he was about Cranberry at that moment.
Unimportant in the game or not, Cranberry was an actual living person in that world.
A person with the amount of pride several magnitudes higher than other people.
The chance of her calmly accepting such a derogatory role as a random background character was even less than zero.
"Grao... (Mas...)"
"Global event! An event happening once every few hundred years that changes the fate of the world! A thing like that wants to push me away from my rightful spot?!"
Cranberry shouted over Zombie's attempts to calm her down.
She seemed ready to blow up at any moment.
But instead, she reached up to Zombie, grabbed his left arm, and stormed out of the dining room pulling him along.
"Graough?! (What are you doing, master?!)"
Zombie growled in confusion.
"Shut up! We're going to the library! I'm going to find a solution to this shitshow before it gets too late!"
Cranberry growled furiously not looking back.
"G-graough...? (O-of course I'll help you but...?)"
"No! Shut up! You're coming with me! I will not allow you to be captured by anyone, ever! You are mine and mine alone! Forever!"
Once again she shouted over him.
Before Zombie could open his mouth again they were already in the mansion's library and Cranberry locked the door behind them.
Then she pulled Zombie between the shelves and started pointing at the books.
"From here to here, you grab all of those, I'm taking those."
She slid her hand across multiple books and then started picking up many others by herself.
She did all of that while using only one hand since she was using the other one to hold on to Zombie's left arm.
"Graough... (Um... master, I would love to grab those, but...)"
The blue undead growled awkwardly and raised his right arm presenting the totally stiff hand and immobile fingers.
Cranberry glared at him as if he spit in her face.
"Haa?! What, am I supposed to let go of you and let you get captured?!"
She basically barked and stuck to him even harder.
"Graough...? (Then, maybe at least you will hold this hand...?)"
Zombie growled apologetically and shook his right hand a little.
"Don't be stupid!"
Cranberry scoffed at him and returned to pick up any book of which the title suggested any connection with the global events of the past.
"If someone will barge in and grab you, the stupid stitches can give out and I'll be left with your dumb right hand! No! No way! I'm not letting you go unless I find the answer I want!"
She shook her head like a stubborn child and desperately clung to Zombie with all her might.
Thankfully she wasn't using any skills or else even Zombie's insane defense stats wouldn't save him, since he didn't even consider activating any skills himself.
"Besides, you don't need to actually be grabbing anything. Just put your arm forward and I'll stack the books on top."
It seemed that having as much physical contact as possible was reassuring enough for the red-haired girl to ease her nerves a bit so she came to a sensible solution for that particular problem.
After a few minutes, they got to the desk with a tall stack of hopefully relevant books.
"Here, let me know if you'll find something."
Cranberry went ahead and opened one of the books for Zombie and then quickly started reading through a different one herself.
She was flipping the page before Zombie even started reading his first one.
At least now that they were sitting, Cranberry settled with linking arms so Zombie could use his left hand.
Unfortunately, the book that he had didn't go into much detail about any system events, but it delved quite deep into skills and titles.
Surprisingly, Zombie found a description of the one title that Cranberry was often using as an insult against him.
Rotten brain - one of the high-grade titles, boosting MDF and providing immunity to most charm and control type skills up to the high-level ones.
It isn't recommended since it comes with major demerits of lowering the intelligence of the bearer, and also lowering their MAT.
Most commonly obtained by high-level corpse puppets but it is possible for a living human to received it or be born with it.
In such cases it was recognized that the skill dulls the common sense and intuition of the bearer, making them unable to recognize sarcasm, jokes, and romantic interest of others towards them.
"Nothing in this... one...!"
Cranberry put away her book and reached for another one, while doing so she rubbed against Zombie.
Her face became slightly pink and she sneaked a peek at him.
"Did you found something...?"
She asked carefully gauging his reaction.
"Graough...! (No. Just some baseless accusations...!)"
He shook his head shutting the covers.
"Graough! (Hmph! The only joke here is this book!)"
He frowned and pushed the book away.
"Okay...?"
Cranberry raised her eyebrow, but since Zombie didn't look like he was going to growl anymore she cuddled up to him, rested her head against his shoulder, and opened another book.
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