"..."

Zombie was sitting in front of the door leading to the basement in the hallway of the Envys mansion.

The whole mansion was quiet, only the occasional grunts of the people beaten up senseless would disturb the peace once in a while.

The unconscious as well as those nearly conscious humans were littering most of the floor space, as well as the lawn outside.

Using his skill, Zombie could see that there were almost twice as many living down in the basement as there were on the surface, but most of those below were melves, for once - and on top of that - the odd quest specified to not let anyone into the basement.

There was no need for him to worry about those below.

"...what is Cranberry doing...?"

Zombie muttered to himself, cautiously observing his master's life signature, gathering energy for unleashing her skills.

Some odd message about the administrator's request did pop up, but no matter what, Zombie couldn't notice another life signature beside his master.

Why was she activating her skills then?

Were there traps or something?

Zombie furrowed his brow and checked on the other life essences.

There were three energetic ones standing together - the annoying brown-haired guy who Cranberry took with her, then there was the avatar of envy with his distinctive greenish lifeforce, and then there was a third one, equally lively, but not really human.

Yes, the third one must have belonged to an elf, but differed from the other elves inside.

"...but why is there a single lively elf there, when all the others there are barely alive...?"

Zombie tilted his head in confusion.

Well, at least Lairs was in there too.

...her life signature was one of the weakest ones by far...

...and that weakness didn't look natural.

When his master was calmly asleep, Zombie used to observe the life signatures of others in the mansion as well as everyone's in reach, so he gained some degree of expertise So he could somehow tell...

None of the elves were actually close to death.

It's just that something was forcibly squashing their life force.

"I wonder if it's..."

*THUMP*

The blue undead was a step away from figuring out the reason for the oddity, when a sudden tremor spread through the whole building, causing the windows to tremble.

/Administrator defeated

-no EXP received-

/Secret achievement unlocked

Master receives a unique title

Heretic

/Ruthless (level 2) detected

/Calculating...

/Ruthless (level 2) - assimilated into Heretic

/Master receives a unique skill

No mercy (level 1)

"Cranberry!"

Zombie gasped and jumped up at his feet.

"There really was someone there with her?!"

The blue undead became so baffled that he didn't even realize that the timer for the rewardless skill disappeared even though it showed 0:32.

Instead, he stared down and focused on the life signatures below the ground underneath his feet.

His master looked to be in perfect condition, she was wandering around seemingly without a purpose, so Zombie assumed that she was looking for loot or something, and calmed down.

The actual change though happened for the elves.

Lairs's life signature was the first one that started to burn brightly right after she used some skill, and began moving and attacking the group of two Envy's and the mysterious elf.

Then another elf's life signature got revitalized and interestingly, the life signature of the avatar of sin diminished greatly.

Then the rest of the elves got stronger one by one, from Zombie's perspective it was like a domino effect.

"A-aahhh...!"

"Ugh...!"

"N-noo...!"

The few still conscious Envy clansmen cried while their bodies shrunk and changed.

And, of course, not only the conscious ones morphed, every single fallen Envy went through a metamorphosis.

The more elves regained their strength, the more Envys changed into completely different humans.

"...I don't get it..."

Zombie furrowed his brows and sighed.

Meanwhile, the elves in the basement had regrouped and started climbing the stairs, leaving Lairs behind to deal with the three that others.

That caused Zombie to frown.

After the avatar of envy got weaker, it indeed looked as if he won't be able to win against Lairs, but he wasn't the only person there.

While Lairs was the strongest amongst the four, as far as Zombie could predict, she would not be able to win against three opponents.

But the other elves left regardless?

"...that's it for the elven solidarity, it really isn't much after all, I guess..."

Zombie shrugged his shoulders, getting reminded about the elves from the hidden forest village who he decimated.

They too, once the things got dire, tried to leave someone behind.

Or was such an action supposed to be called a noble sacrifice?

Zombie honestly didn't have enough brains to figure whether there was a difference or not.

So instead, he unhinged the basement's door, put them aside, and blocked the way for anyone who would be trying to get out.

After a while, the sounds of someone sneaking upstairs reached the blue undead.

It sound like the elves were carefully climbing the spiral stairs, stopping from time to time to use some kind of detection skills, most likely the hearing-enhancing ones, to check whether it's safe to escape or not.

There was nothing wrong with that, it was an understandable decision.

They must have gotten really surprised hearing all the groans of pain, of the defeated Envys mourning the loss of their beauty.

The only problem with that particular detection type skill was that it didn't work against Zombie, since if the blue undead remained completely still, his body produced no sound whatsoever.

Why would that be a problem for the elves...?

Well...

...Zombie didn't have a particularly good impression of them.

Lairs was good, but during the previous meeting with a larger group of elves, he and his master got welcomed by a shell from the artillery cannon from a point-blank range.

Speak about a bad first impression...

All things considered, that action proved to be both correct and horribly incorrect, but either way, it certainly left Zombie with a bad aftertaste.

And this new approaching group of elves went ahead and left Lairs - the main reason aside from the optional quest for Cranberry and him arriving at the Envys' mansion - behind to fend for herself alone.

"...wouldn't it be better to just kill them all, just in case...?"

Forgetting about the detection skills, Zombie crossed his arms and sighed.

"...!"

Which caused the elves to stop dead in their tracks right before the first one in the front of the group would become visible from Zombie's position.

"...ah..."

Zombie realized his mistake and gasped trying to figure out what to say next.

It turned out that being understood by everyone isn't such a good thing after all.

"I... I meant the Envys..."

He added awkwardly looking to the side.

"...?"

A single elf carefully peeked from behind the cover of the staircase.

"You can come out, my Cranberry and I have received a quest to find you. I mean no harm."

Zombie rolled his eyes and beckoned the elves.

"...is that the corpse puppet that the black-haired one talked about...?"

"...corpse puppets can talk...?"

"...is this a trick...?"

The elves whispered amongst themselves.

"Hey. The quest only mentioned finding you - and was already completed, by the way. Since my Cranberry never specified what should I do about you, you can just go wherever you want."

The blue undead scoffed at them and step away from the passage.

"Shoo. If my Cranberry will need you, I'll find you later."

He waved his hand dismissively and even looked the other way to make the elves feel a bit more secure.

"..."

Which kind of failed and only added to their anxiety, and not even a single one took another step.

"...or do you want me drag all of you out of there myself? MOVE IT! My Cranberry will be using those stairs to return, so stop blocking it."

"...!"

Only when he threatened them directly the elves decided to move and rushed out from the basement.

"Hmph...!"

Zombie frowned glaring down at them with his reddish glowing eyes.

They weren't weak.

Even though they were visibly malnourished, the strengths of their life signatures revealed to Zombie that they were stronger than the Envy clansmen.

Honestly, they were on the stronger side amongst all the living that Zombie saw in the city since he and his master have arrived there.

But those very elves were acting as if the unconscious people sprawled on the floor pose an actual threat to them.

"Just go already, and if someone will try to stop you - kill them. What's the big deal anyway?"

Zombie shrugged his shoulders and shook his head irked by the complete lack of pride in the freed elves' act.

Overconfidence was something that both Cranberry and Zombie abhorred but excessively humbling yourself was just as annoying - if not more.

After the last elf of the group passed him, the blue undead blocked the passage once again, without looking back to check on the running elves.

"...seriously... how much longer will that dumb que... HUH?!"

While mumbling under his breath Zombie glanced at the timer that should be in the upper right corner of his vision but...

Since the timer disappeared the moment that Cranberry killed the administrator, nothing occupied that spot anymore, and the realization caused Zombie to loudly gasp.

"...!"

Without wasting any time on questioning why it disappeared without any system message informing him about the success or a failure of the quest, the blue undead instantly kicked off the ground and dashed madly down the stairs to rejoin his master.