One of the palace's chambers suddenly lighted up with a bright violet light once three humanoid shapes appeared out of thin air.

"It's not a prison cell - lucky them."

​​

The blue undead glanced around the room without deactivating his skills while his eyes kept glowing with a reddish light.

"Sir puppet, if the queen had any ill intentions towards you I assure you that she wouldn't send me."

The middle-aged butler, Persimmon, furrowed his brows and shook his hand dismissively looking at the blue undead, slightly ticked off by the undead's tone of voice.

"Yeah, I don't care about what you living are thinking. So? Where's the queen?"

Zombie scoffed looking down on the butler.

"The queen is in the middle of an audience. I'm terribly sorry for the inconvenience but truth to be told, no one suspected that you two will actually agree so fast..."

Persimmon lowered his head towards the silent Cranberry and apologized.

"Since we're such important guests, I'm sure that the queen will want to see us immediately, wouldn't she? Now Percymon, on you go. Tell the queen that she's already late to the meeting she has with us."

Zombie smirked mockingly and clapped his hands together to hasten the unresponsive butler.

"...yes, you are right sir puppet. I'll do just that."

Persimmon flinched but ended up only nodding politely in response before walking out.

A few seconds after he left, the red-haired villainess tugged onto the blue undead's armor.

"Zombie, I have decided to depend on you a bit more."

She declared with a slightly brighter expression.

"A bit more...? Oh well, good enough, I guess."

The blue undead raised his brow and smirked before shrugging his shoulders and proudly puffing out his chest.

"Haa... Anyone hostile?"

Cranberry breathed out and walked straight to the most expensive-looking armchair in the room and sat on it without any hesitation.

"Not openly. No one within my reach is preparing a skill and Persimomomon is talking to someone right now, though his conversation partner doesn't have the life signature that an avatar of sins should... oh... Peroperoromon is talking with the weakling prince."

The blue undead reported with a slightly surprised voice.

"Roan? Oh. True, I completely forgot about him! Wonder how he's been - I think that the charm skill I used on him before has hit him quite hard."

Cranberry snorted, leaning back on the armchair while Zombie walked over to her side.

"Oh, you'll be able to ask him about that in a moment - Pekoreromomon just went straight to the life signature that must belong to the queen since she's the avatar of greed, but it looks like the weak prince is approaching this room as we speak."

He reported while positioning himself on Cranberry's right side and taking on an arrogant, menacing pose.

"Is that so?"

The red-haired villainess smirked smugly, crossed her legs, and observed the door with an expectant look in her eyes.

...

...

*knock* *knock*

Only a short while later a polite knock on the door announced the arrival of the prince.

He didn't bust inside, he didn't loudly call out to the red-haired girl and the blue-skinned corpse puppet even though he could and no one would blame him.

Instead, he just knocked and politely waited for the response.

"Ha. Hey, it looks like the prince had actually learned some manners."

Cranberry smirked grew more smugly and she glanced at her blue undead.

"I had a feeling he wasn't that bad."

Zombie smirked back and nodded.

"Alright. Let's not keep him waiting too much, it is his home after all."

The red-haired girl snorted and faced the door.

"You may enter."

She announced benevolently and observed the door slowly open.

The blond prince entered the room - his face was slightly flushed and it seemed like he had a hard time keeping his breath steady, so maybe Cranberry wasn't just mean with making him wait but rather showed consideration by allowing the youth to pull himself together after he hastily ran all the way there.

"Young lady Pride. Zombie. It's my great pleasure to welcome you to the royal palace."

The blond prince bowed his head deeply and greeted the two without even a moment of hesitation.

"You pass."

Zombie looked at him and nodded with a satisfied smile.

"...? Pardon...?"

Roan raised his head slightly and looked at the blue undead with confusion.

"Hello, Roan. A member of the eleventh unit of the royal guards had passed on a message from your mother. Apparently, she has an offer for us, and since I would have to pay her a visit sooner rather than later, the two of us decided to take up the invitation."

Cranberry tilted her head and gave a sidelong glance at the bowing royalty.

"I-I don't know the details, but I can assure you that my mother does not have any malicious intent towards any of you!"

Roan straightened his back and hurriedly assured with a serious face.

"Of course she doesn't, with how we are now, it would be a pretty stupid move to try to force us into doing anything. Especially me."

"!!!!"

To the blond princes's great surprise the one who responded to him with such overwhelming confidence was the blue corpse puppet!

"Zombie can talk now?!"

Roan gasped in shock and looked between the blue undead and Cranberry as if he expected the red-haired girl to laugh and announced that she's secretly a master ventriloquist.

"Yes, aren't you happy? I liked bullying you even when I didn't have my free will, that's why I expect that teasing you now will be much more satisfying!"

"!!!!!!!"

To Roan's great shock, Zombie declared with a bright smile and approached him with great familiarity.

Even if the blue undead wasn't donning the boots of the phoenix with their ridiculously high heels, the difference in the height between the two was already more than a few inches - since the blond prince was just about an inch or two taller than the red-haired villainess watching the scene play out from her seat.

But with the added height...

"Sorry to break it to you, but the titan-class monsters no longer exist. Following in your grandfather's footsteps and visiting the Sloths territory to fight them is no longer available."

The meaning blue undead stopped a mere inch away from the shocked Roan and stared straight down into the prince's widened eyes.

"But, if you will be a useful living, I'll take you to hunt down some of the other big monsters, like angel-class ot true demon-class. How about it, Roan?"

Zombie asked, raising his hand up to Roan's face and almost touching his cheek, stopping his red and black right t hand just a fraction of an inch away.

"Ha ha! That confirms it!"

"...?"

Suddenly, Cranberry clapped her hands and laughed out loud, making her blue undead to furrow his brow and face away from the absolutely stunned royal first prince.

"You actually remember every name - there's no way that you remember Roan but can't remember Shanks!"

The red-haired snorted and shook her head in amusement.

"Shhh... let me have my fun."

Zombie grinned wildly, put the index finger of his left hand up to his mouth, and winked at the laughing girl.