Chapter 148: Out of the basement

Rambutan Envy flinched and glanced at Lairs, hidden behind the blue undead.

"It's like I've said before..."

He said, sweating nervously.

"...for generations the Envy family did its best to control the spread for the mysterious disease that plagued the elves..."

"Fucking bullshit! You shameless piece of fucking shit! How dare you fucking continue to lie like that with your true face revealed while we all have fucking seen how you paraded around wearing a stolen face! Fucking degenerate!"

Lairs couldn't even hold herself back so that Rambutan would get half of his speech done, and started barraging him with insults over the false information he was still trying to push forward.

"Shhh. Grown-ups are having a serious conversation."

Zombie went ahead and blocked her mouth with his finger.

"...?"

Lairs went wide-eyed looking at him.

"A... I..."

She shook her head and pulled away, still staring at the blue undead with disbelief.

"...I'm thirty-five though..."

She ended up explaining in utter confusion.

"Ha."

Cranberry glanced at her and nodded.

That's the elven bloodline for you, for human standards, Lairs didn't look a day over twenty - and she would stay like that for at least a couple hundred or so years if she won't get killed or die in an accident along the way.

"Yeah, I don't actually care. Just don't interrupt them anymore. Oh, right! Why don't you make yourself useful, and clear the way upstairs in the meantime!"

Zombie added with an innocent smile.

"Fuck... was he always saying stuff like that when he was growling before...?"

Lairs asked, no longer agitated by Rambutan's words.

"More or less. He's not insulting you nearly as much as usual though. Anyway, Envy...

Cranberry shrugged and returned the talk with the short man.

"Haa... Will you seriously keep repeating that lie in front of the elves who know the truth?"

She breathed out in a tired manner and asked.

/Quest progression

*confront the avatar of envy about the elves (completed)

(90% completion - blessing of Saint)

/9th tier reward granted

/Master receives a skill

Blessing of Saint (level 1)

/Calculating...

/Blessing of Saint (level 1) assimilated with the Heretic title

/Servant receives a skill

Blessing of Saint

/Servant skill upgrade

Superbia (level 1) + Blessing of Saint »» Superbia (level 2)

"I am telling the truth!"

Lord Envy trembled from anger and repeated with no trace of remorse.

Zombie only shook his head and Cranberry somehow managed to hold back the laughter.

There was no point in pursuing the matter anymore.

At least, there was no point in doing that for Cranberry.

But actually, there was one little thing that the red-haired girl realized that she should make clear before ending their little conversation.

"Alright. I'll ask you something else then. Unrelated to the elves."

The red-haired girl shrugged her shoulders and lowered her weapon while keeping the skills active.

"The werewolves attack on the Envy mansion three and a half years ago..."

"...!"

Even before she finished talking, lord Envy clenched his fist and stiffened.

"...your people were amongst them, weren't they?"

Cranberry smirked, lightly tapping the floor with the tip of her shoe.

"...the werewolves, I mean."

"Nonsense. You were attacked by the werewolves from the Gluttony family! You got what you deserved for years of decadence and showing off! Trying to blame the Envy family for your terrible defense!"

Lord Envy started hurriedly shouting while visibly perspiring from the stress.

It was hard to say whether that lack of composure was caused by the current situation or simply because lord Envy's previous social poise was all something that he stole from some elf.

Of course, it could also be just a clever ruse aimed to make Cranberry let down her guard, but if so, it had already failed.

"...oh, really? Then how do you explain that the werewolves who died transformed back into their human forms? That's not how their skill works, you know? At least the original one, not a stolen one."

"Big sister Cranberry, there's no way that someone from our family would do that! Seven main families are the backbone of the entire country, plotting against one another would be pure insanity! Only an utter fool would attempt that!"

Mason joined the conversation uninvited, again, but this time Cranberry didn't stop him.

Mostly because it was funny to watch as his father becomes gradually more pale the more his son was saying.

"Hey, Mrs. Fucking Traitor, isn't it time for you to step in and stop your son from insulting his father? What kind of mother are you...? Oh, wait..."

Cranberry asked Salak, but then glanced at Lairs, who actually was using earth magic skill to clean up the passage, and then looked back at Salak, smirking mockingly.

"How dare you brat...!"

The short lord Envy, stood up for his elven lover...

But for the last words that he ever spoke, he could have thought them through a little better.

Without any warning, Cranberry launched at the green-eyed man with enough speed that her charge skill could be easily mistaken for the blink skill, and struck right at her opponent's unguarded head.

"Nooo...!"

By some divine prominence, Salak shouted and managed to push her way in front of her lover.

Or maybe it was thanks to the power of true love?

*SPLAT*

Whatever it was, it certainly didn't manage to save any of them.

Cranberry's smile only widened as her weapon tore through Salak's neck, beheading her, while simultaneously smashing Rambutan's head open like fresh watermelon.

/Multiple mid-level players defeated

/Master receives EXP

/Master has slain the avatar of envy

/Master receives a title...

/Error

/Heretic title detected

/Calculating...

/System restriction removed

/Title of avatar of envy was deleted from the system database

/The avatar of envy has been slain

/Title transfer impossible

/The envy's throne stands empty

The wheels of fate begin to spin

/Villainess's role secret achievement unlocked 

On the ultimate route

/Master receives a special quest

Road to rule

"UGH...!"

Just the shockwave of the strike was enough to send Mason crashing against the wall and almost knocked him unconscious.

*SMASH*

But Cranberry didn't just stop the attack there - she let her baseball bat get embedded into the wall, right beside Mason's head.

The whole basement shook and the pieces of ceiling and walls started to crumble.

"...haa... well that was unexpected..."

The red-haired girl breathed out, glanced at the incapacitated half-elf, smirked, and looked back at her eternal servant.

"Zombie, when I pull this out, grab me and Lairs and run out of the mansion."

She motioned at the black baseball bat and clenched her fists around it so hard that her knuckles turned white.

"If you say so."

The blue undead shrugged his shoulder and reached for Lairs.

The black-haired elf was staring speechless at the growing puddle made of blood sipping out from her mother's body mixing with lord Envy's blood.

"..."

When the undead wrapped his left hand around her waist and picked her up like a sack of flour, she didn't even make a sound and only continued staring at the floor.

"Ha ha! It was annoying knowing you, Mace."

Cranberry openly laughed at the brown-haired young man struggling to crawl towards his parent's corpses...

"This our final goodbye."

...the red-haired girl said and pulled out the baseball bat from the wall.

*RUMBLE*

"...big sister... why...?"

The whole place trembled horribly and walls and ceiling crumbled and gave way for a massive amount of earth and rocks to bury everything into a makeshift grave, drowning Mason's cry.

But Cranberry was no longer there to hear it.

While she was pulling out the weapon, she was already jumping onto the back of her blue undead who rushed to the cleaned-up staircase leading to the surface as soon as he felt the girl's arms wrapped securely around his neck.

The mansion itself was falling apart - the collapsing basement was causing the destruction to the rest of the building.

/Multiple mid-level players defeated

/Master and servant receive EXP

Just as Cranberry had told him, Zombie was running outside the mansion with all his might, and therefore he wasn't paying attention to what he was stepping on and with what strength...

...many of the Envy Clansmen turned into a bloody paste before the debris had any chance of damaging them.

"Gah...!"

Once outside the outer walls surrounding the residence, Zombie unceremoniously dropped Lairs and carefully let Cranberry down.

"U-u...! Gbluergh...!"

The black-haired elf climbed up on all fours and immediately started throwing up with absolutely no remorse.

"...yeah... you are much faster now, no doubt..."

Even Cranberry's face was slightly green and she had to support herself on her eternal servant.

"Haa..."

Scratch that, she was simply snuggling up to him and even let out a relieved sigh.

"...did... did you really had to kill them...?"

Lairs asked while trembling.

She was so shaken that she didn't even care that her hair is dipping into her own vomit.

"Haa? Are you saying that I should let them live? And what? Allow them to take revenge? Or to give them a chance to start kidnapping some other race with lower magic defense than elves have?"

Cranberry asked and shook her head.

"Nah, just like with monsters, you should never give a chance for a straggler to escape and get stronger, you will eventually regret that."

She declared proudly.

"That said... Zombie."

She pulled away from the blue undead and looked up at his face.

"...?"

Her eternal servant tilted his head like a puppy and looked back at her curiously.

Cranberry raised her baseball bat-wielding hand and pointed at the mansion.

"Cover it all with your venom. The message about killing an essential character didn't show up, so that guy is still alive... or that new title of mine is messing things up..."

Cranberry looked to the side and frowned.

"Oh, who cares. I want everyone inside those walls melted."

She ended up waving her hand dismissively and send out Zombie anyway.

"N-no wait...!"

Lairs tried to get up but she ended up slipping in the puddle she created herself, and Zombie ended up ignoring her completely.

Instead, he walked towards the gate, his whole body began glowing violet and then he stuck his head inside.

*&^%$#@$%^)(^$#(%$#*

The sound of the highly pressurized venom crashing against the ground and who knows what else, made Lairs shudder.