บท 16: The first kill party - crushed!

/Master levels up

Level 10 »»» Level 14

All skills level up

Base status points increased\

/Title received

Dragonslayer\

/Shared skills upgrade

Enraged (level 3) »»» Dragon rage (level 1)

Empower (level 3) »»» Dragon power (level 1)\

/Master receives a skill

Stack (level 1)\

/Master receives 28 new quests

(56 active quests in total)

(For quest details use the show quests command)\

/4 quests completed

Rewards granted\

/Servant's bond increased\

/Error\

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

/Servant's affection increased\

/Error \

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

/Servant levels up

Level 10 »»» Level 14

All skills level up

Base status points increased\

/Title received

Dragonslayer\

/Servant's skill upgrade

Corpse venom (level 3) »»» Dragon corpse venom (level 1)\

/Servant's affinity upgrade

Leg Power (level 2)\

If someone dropped a pin in the area, a noise it would make by hitting the ground would sound like an explosion.

That's how silent everyone in the audience had become.

"It... died..."

The blond prince muttered under his breath and fell on his butt, his face frozen in utter shock.

"The handlers must have overdone it while weakening it..."

Someone sighed and few people nodded.

"Ah! The dragon must have been poisoned with corpse venom!"

"What?!"

"Corpse venom?!"

"Ah! You're right! That bloody foam looks exactly as the one caused by corpse venom!"

After someone loudly shouted their suspicion, it instantly got picked up and in the blink of an eye, everyone was talking about the dragon being poisoned.

"Whatever happens, act like a dumb corpse, I'll handle everything."

Cranberry squeezed Zombie's hand and made an indifferent expression.

"Corpse venom...? So, a corpse puppeteer?!"

Young prince Roan stood up and he turned right towards Cranberry.

"You! It's all your fault, isn't it?!"

He shouted pointing at the red-haired girl.

Cranberry looked at him with cold eyes and raised her brow.

"Haa...? And where did you get that idea?"

She asked in a bored voice which made Roan's face turn bright red.

"Don't mess with me! You are the only corpse puppeteer here, aren't you?! So it had to be you!"

He shouted.

"Haa..."

Cranberry sighed deeply and looked down on the prince with a hint of pity in her eyes.

"Prince, whoever told you that I'm a corpse puppeteer, is an idiot and you should fire them."

She waved her hand dismissively.

"Stop lying! You have a corpse puppet right there!"

Roan pointed at Zombie.

The blue boy was staring blankly into the distance, giving his best into looking like a dumb corpse.

"Prince, accuse me of lying one more time and I will challenge you to a duel."

Cranberry picked up her bloodied baseball bat and declared, her voice chilled the hearts of many onlookers.

"This one here is my eternal servant, and it just so happens that the eternal servant magic is a name of the unique magic I've awakened to."

She explained.

"Unique or not, if that puppet of yours can use corpse venom then it means that you are guilty!"

Roan exclaimed and stomped his foot.

"...Say, prince, how long ago had your family obtained that dragon?"

Cranberry tilted her head.

"Wh-wha...? Why does that even matter?!"

The prince suddenly became very defensive.

"Let me guess, some of your people stumbled upon a weak, poisoned dragon around... let me think... three years ago...?"

"Huh?! How did you...!"

The girl asked but the prince's reaction was the best answer.

"Haa..."

Cranberry sighed deeply.

"You know, prince, there's a huge difference between greed and idiocy, you know?"

She spoke and continued talking without waiting for the offended prince to even respond.

"You all just assumed that the dragon ate something poisonous and then you used magic to preserve it in that weakened state... But since you didn't bother to check or ask around, you never realized that the very poison that was affecting it was actually a skill of a living, well, an undead, person!"

"What are you eve...! Oh...! oh..."

Even though Roan tried to undermine Cranberry's statement, he realized his mistake and his voice became quiet.

"Hadn't it raised even a hint of suspicion when a few months ago the poison affecting your dragon suddenly got more powerful? That's when my Zombie's venom leveled up, and I was worried sick, wondering how did that happen!"

She shook her head.

"Three years ago I left this rotten brain alone for a few minutes and he ended up almost killing a wild rabid rabbit by pumping it full of his corpse venom."

Cranberry dropped her bat and covered her eyes letting out a tired sigh while pointing at the blue boy by her side.

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

Zombie let out a dumb-sounding groan.

"For the past three years I have lived in constant fear that the venom would kill that monster and I will level up because of it...!"

Cranberry's shoulders started to shake and her voice broke.

Zombie also started to shake, but in his case, it was from holding back the laughter once he realized what his master was up to.

"How will you compensate me for all I've been through?!"

Cranberry screamed in a heartbroken voice.

"...!"

The people around started murmuring amongst themselves.

"Co-compensate...? Wait! Me?! To you?! But...! Even if my dragon ate that rabbit, you just basically admitted that you got the EXP for killing it!"

Roan started pulling on his hair in a fit of anger.

"Haa?! Do you think that some half-dead dragon is worth the three years of constant fear and despair?! Is that how little a royal prince thinks about his subjects?!"

Cranberry turned around and, hiding her face from everyone, started sobbing.

"I think that's as far as we should allow our ten-year-old to deal with this situation."

A calm voice called and Cranberry's father, lord Blackberry, walked over to his daughter and put a hand on her shoulder.

"My little sweetie, I'm so sorry that I didn't notice what you've been going through."

He said in a pained voice.

"...graough...! (No way... he joined in...!)

The excited Zombie grunted under his breath.

"But everything's fine now, your father won't let them wrong you anymore, I promise."

Lord Blackberry lowered his head.

"Daddy...!"

Cranberry trembled and grabbed onto his clothes.

"Wh-what are you even...?!"

Roan was getting more animated, realizing what the Prides' were going for, but he also felt a hand on his shoulder and when he looked up he saw a woman with long blond hair wearing a splendid expensive robe, with a golden crown on top of her head.

"Ah! Mother?!"

Roan gasped.

"Your majesty."

Everyone present bowed.

Well everyone except Zombie, not that he wanted to disrespect the queen or anything, but when he was about to bend the knee, he just so happened to catch his master's face.

"Dumb corpse!"

She mouthed silently while glaring at him, so Zombie stopped himself and resumed staring blankly into the distance like Cranberry instructed him.

"What happened here today was the most unfortunate and we assure everyone here that the situation will be thoroughly investigated so that no one will end up getting wronged."

The queen declared with a benevolent expression, but her eyes were staring daggers into lord Blackberry.

"But...! But mother! That girl killed my dragon...!"

Roan stomped his foot and cried angrily.

"As I've said, everything will be investigated thoroughly, Roan, I ask you to drop the subject."

The queen glanced at her son and the blond boy flinched.

"Lord Blackberry, would you assist me with finding out how this whole situation came to be?"

The queen looked back at Cranberry's father.

"Of course, your majesty, it will be a pleasure."

Lord Blackberry bowed deeply, so deeply in fact that both Cranberry and Zombie could see his face while it was hidden from everyone else.

"Good job."

Lord Blackberry mouthed silently and smirked in an especially evil way.

When the man straightened his back, his face returned to being perfectly composed.

"Ladies and gentlemen, excuse me for the delay, another monster will be prepared immediately for my son's first kill. As an apology for all the children who had to wait even though I'm sure they are keen to return to their territories and start completing their quests, I will cover the costs of the high-level appriser to write down their current status as a commemoration and for the future reference."

The queen announced and the crowd cheered.

"Graough...? (Did everything went as you wanted?)"

Zombie groaned into Cranberry's ear while looking around trying to convey his question the best he could.

"Even better. I crushed it!"

Cranberry smiled proudly in response.