"KIWI! Get back down here! Don't you think that I can't see you!"

Nectarine, Zombie's mother, called out after him when he failed to run up the stairs fast enough.

"...!"

The young brown-haired boy flinched and slowly turned around to face the woman glaring at him while crossing her arms.

"...I was going on a walk..."

Zombie mumbled without even attempting to make eye contact.

"It's barely past five in the morning, what does a three-year-old have to do outside so early?"

His mother asked with a stern expression, pointing at the large clock standing nearby the staircase.

"...I just wanted to get some fresh air..."

Zombie shrugged his shoulders, looking away with a frown.

"Fresh air? Tsk..."

Nectarine stared at his wrinkled, disheveled, dirty clothes and clicked her tongue.

"I want you to know that your behavior is very concerning! You are constantly bullying your poor sister, you disappear in the middle of the night and return in the morning... Do you know how much your father and I are worried about you?! Recently something has been killing Melon's chickens and Caramel told us that she saw you sneak around Melon's chicken coop!"

She sighed while closing her eyes and massaging her forehead.

"Wha..?! I would never do something like that! Are you an idiot?! Believing that filth's word!"

Zombie flinched and snapped back at his mother, sounding so furious that he made her back off taken aback.

"Kiwi! How dare you speak like that to your own mother and about your own sister! Where did you even learn to talk like that?!"

Nectarine quickly realized that she actually got intimidated by her three years old son's outburst and got angry to hide her embarrassment.

"...why do you care? You'll forget my existence if your beloved system will as much as suggest it..."

Zombie scoffed and turned away and started walking back to his room as he originally wanted before getting stopped.

"...you...! Go change out of those dirty clothes and come right down! Your father and I need to have another talk about your terrible behavior!"

Nectarine trembled from anger and shouted at her son's back in an attempt to make it seem like she was the one who sent him away.

*Creak*

The silent sound betrayed the short light brown-haired girl, with bandaged hands and bruised face, peeking at the whole scene from the safety of her room.

"..."

*STOMP*

"HIIIIIH...!"

*WHAM*

Zombie glared right at her and took an aggressive step in her direction, which made the girl completely lose her head in panic and hurriedly shut the door while squealing in fear.

"KIWI! IF YOU DO SOMETHING TO CARAMEL AGAIN I WILL PUNISH YOU FOR REAL!"

Nectarine's furious shout from downstairs clearly showed that she heard everything and wasn't happy with it either.

|If you act like that towards your parents just because I told you that on your first playthrough they didn't even try to look for you because I made the system show them a message about it, then I'm sorry, okay...?|

Patience spoke awkwardly inside of Zombie's head, sounding less than comfortable.

|Don't bother with that. If you have time to worry about my familiar relationship with some living, you better use it on coming up with a better way to level up... Or on how can we get that damn monster that keeps on killing Melon's chickens! We've been looking for it for several days all in vain!|

Zombie shrugged his shoulders and scoffed internally while getting changed from the clothes that got dirty while he was searching through the nearby forest in search of the new predator that showed up out of nowhere.

|...fine...|

Patience sighed and sounded as if they nodded.

|It's annoying, that's obviously just some minor monster that isn't connected with any event, but it does kill the domesticated chickens which we are using to awaken your beast master affinity early on, making things really inefficient... And it seems that you were spotted even though we were trying to keep it a secret... The failed savior seems to dislike you about as much as you dislike her now...|

They pointed out.

|No. Comparing our hatreds is stupid, how can you even measure up an ant to a living-mountain titan-class monster...?|

Zombie snorted and smirked mockingly while folding up the dirty clothes that he actually wanted to use the next day since they finally lost the foreign smell and would allow him to set up an ambush the next day.

|One would think that you lose some pride since you got reverted to a weak child, but damn... Someone has been drinking a lot of sassy juice recently, huh...?|

|For me, it sounds like someone has been getting overly familiar just because they are sealed inside of me.|

|Wah! So cold!|

The banter inside of Zombie's head has already become a normal part of his life.

Soon, with all fresh-smelling clothes on, the boy exited his room...

"...?"

To spot the short six-year-old light brown-haired girl sneaking towards the staircase still in her pajamas that managed to hide most of her injuries.

|Zombie, I know what you are thinking – and don't. You will end up eventually killing her, and she is needed alive for the special true ending to happen.|

Patience instantly warned his host before the boy could even make another move.

|She has been training her skills in her spare time too, right? Not as efficiently as we are, considering the benefits of level-ups, but still – she ought to have either toughness or some other damage mitigation skill at level 1 at least...|

Zombie shook off their warning and out sneaked the sneaking girl who was definitely trying to hide from him.

He got behind her back and...

*shove*

"KYAAAAAAH!"

*rumble*

Caramel screamed after being pushed down the stairs by a pair of thin arms and tumbled all the way down.

"U-ugh... Uuuu...!"

The girl twitched and sobbed while her brain wasn't caught up yet with the full extent of her new injuries.

|See...? She's alive.|

|…|

Zombie grinned while descending the stairs, making Patience speechless.

"WHAT WAS THAT?!"

Nectarine's voice carried from the kitchen, and Zombie knew he had little time – he could have run up the stairs and hide, acting as if he had nothing to do with the 'accident' or...

*WHAM*

"UG-HUGHU...!"

A full-on anime-style soccer kick landed on the unguarded stomach of the reincarnated girl, causing her to choke up on her own vomit.

/proficiency level reached

hidden affinity unlocked

leg power

"Ah! Isn't that perfect? Hey, filth, you're so useful today!"

"Wha...?! GET AWAY FROM HER!"

A message that Zombie honestly didn't suspect to see for a long time showed up with perfect timing – making him cheer out loud exactly as his mother arrived at the scene...