The blue boy was standing in front of the door to her room.

"Go away."

She demanded a lot weaker than she wanted, but if she raised her voice even a bit, she would burst into tears on the spot.

"Graough. (First of all, here.)

Zombie already untied his right arm now he was offering it to Cranberry.

"..."

She looked at it, then back at Zombie.

At first, she didn't seem to want to take it, far from it.

Her face twisted into an angry grimace and she was about to smack it away...

"...Graough... (...master...)

The little blue undead growled with a worried expression.

"Haa... fine."

Cranberry breathed out and grabbed the hand.

"...are you done now...?"

She not sparing him even a single glance.

"Showing up right after I got chewed out by my mother, seriously, can you get any more obvious?"

Cranberry shook her head in annoyance.

"You're acting suspicious, to say the least, and expect me to just accept that as your goodwill? Seriously? Well, maybe if you didn't have the rotten brain skill I would believe that you've noticed anything that's going on, but with how you are now, that's very unlikely."

She smirked mockingly.

"Graough. (Please, read this and decide on your own.)"

But Zombie didn't let such cold reception affect him.

He knew best what he felt and was going to follow through with the plan he came up with after the talk with Mary.

And so, the second thing he offered to his master, was a stack of neatly written papers.

Cranberry looked at it and raised her brow.

"What is this supposed to be? A letter of resignation? You don't want to stay with someone like me even though we are bound by my magic?"

She laughed mockingly at her self-deprecating joke.

"Graough. (Master, you know that it's not like that.)"

Zombie bowed deeply, pushing the papers at his master.

"...I can't trust you..."

Cranberry clenched her fists refusing to take the papers from the blue undead.

"Graough! (You can! I am your eternal servant!)"

Zombie pleaded.

"...even if I did trust you..."

Cranberry trembled.

"She'll just take you away... just like always... just like everything I liked..."

"Graough...? (Master...?)"

Zombie gasped and started raising his head.

He knew that his master was crying in her room every night after she returned from the talk with her mother, but he has never before actually seen her tears.

"...fine, I'll read it, now fuck off...!"

And he still wouldn't be able to see them.

Cranberry took the papers from his hands, hurriedly passed him, and disappeared into her room.

"...graough...? (...what can I do to help you...?)"

Zombie groaned silently.

"Graough...? (I want to help you...!) Graough! (I am your eternal servant!)"

He unintentionally activated all of his skill and the light that his body started emitting engulfed the whole corridor.

Inside her room, Cranberry threw the papers and the hand that Zombie gave her in the trash and crawled inside her bed.

She wrapped herself in the cowers, fully intending to just go to sleep without a care in the world...

...as if that was possible...

The tears she didn't need to hold back any longer were already streaming down her face, soaking into the pillowcase.

"...I'm just trying my best...!"

She sobbed while burrowing her head into the pillow.

/Servant's affection increased

/Error

/Unable to increase the affection over the current level due to the current stage of the story

A message popped up in front of her eyes making her jump from shock and disbelief.

"...eh...?"

/Servant's affection increased

/Error

/Unable to increase the affection over the current level due to the current stage of the story

The same message popped up again. and she could only stare at it dumbfoundedly.

Even now after all this time she wasn't sure how the affection and bond meters actually worked because there simply wasn't any information on it available in any of the books that were available in the Prides' estate.

/Servant's affection increased

/Error

/Unable to increase the affection over the current level due to the current stage of the story

Then the same message showed up.

/Servant's affection increased

/Error

/Unable to increase the affection over the current level due to the current stage of the story

And again.

"...that rotten brain..."

Cranberry smiled through the tears and get up from the bed.

No matter how harsh her words were, they were only a part of the barrier that Cranberry had built around her heart to protect herself from her mother.

Even though she said that she can't trust her eternal servant it didn't mean that she didn't WANT to trust him.

He was her only support in this unfriendly place she had to call home.

...well, there was one more person, someone whom which she exchanged letters regularly and who also was slowly becoming something of a friend, but all the letters written by Cranberry were read by lady Raspberry before they were sent, and similarly, all the letters that came in had to first come though lady Raspberry too...

Still, at the moment, Zombie was all that the red-haired girl could think about

She pulled the blue hand and the papers from the trash and returned to bed.

"Haa..."

She slowly put the cold blue hand to her face, once it touched the burning spots that her mother hit, a pleasantly cold sensation caused Cranberry to sigh with relief.

Then she lighted up a candle on the nightstand and started reading them while wiping her tears.

After she finished she opened the small drawer and put the papers next to many handmade birthday cards and neatly written letters that were already stacked there.

Cranberry looked at all the birthday cards and smiled.

/Affection increased

/Error

/Unable to increase the affection over the current level due to the current stage of the story

"A-ah...! W-wait! No! It's not like that...!"

Cranberry, knowing that Zombie can see the same messages as she did, started blushing and panicked.