"Yeah, after that fucking show, we have no fucking chance of getting a nice cheap accommodation ever again. Fuck..."

Lairs sighed dispirited, looking through the window at the changing view.

"Graough. (Bold words for someone who was crying in panic half of the time in that inn.)"

"Ha ha! Ha ha!"

Zombie grumbled under his breath and made Cranberry burst into laughter.

"Haa... sorry for that."

Cranberry raised her hand and apologized.

"It's just that Zombie completely missed that Lairs is remorseful."

She explained to the rest of the group in the carriage, including the now conscious prince Roan, and leaned comfortably on the blue undead's shoulder.

"I really did miss a lot, huh..."

Roan sighed, rubbing the bump on his head with a pitiful expression.

"Seriously, your bad luck is ridiculous, I half expect you to spontaneously combust at any given moment! What was your DEF and MDF defense again?"

Cranberry's face turned serious, or at least as serious as she could be while smirking mockingly.

"Around 400 mark."

"Isn't that kind of low?"

"I-it's normal for a level 35 knight. No! It's really good for a level 35 knight! What are you making me say?!"

Roan and Cranberry continued to bicker like that for a while.

Truth to be told, Roan's growth speed was on the rather good side.

There were people around his age who were stronger and/or higher level than him, but the ones that were weaker were definitely much greater in number.

"I know, I'm level 62 and my physical defense barely passed the 300 threshold."

Cranberry waved her hand dismissively.

"Your LUC, on the other hand..."

She smirked again.

"Your highness, I know that the LUC stat has a cap different for everyone, but isn't 15... you know...?"

Rotte joined in on the conversation and asked carefully, gauging the prince's reaction

"It's... one of the downsides of being a Gree..."

*WHAM!*

The carriage they were traveling in got hit by a sneak attack and got hurled off of the road into the fields before turning into scrap.

The first one to stand up was Uresha who was outside of the carriage holding the reins.

She shielded up, glanced at her husband, who was getting up while holding on to his bleeding hand with a fierce expression, and then at the dead domesticated monsters that were pulling the carriage up until then.

"We... might be in trouble..."

She muttered carefully scanning the surrounding area.

"...ugh... shit, a long-distance attack like that... Were we attacked by someone from the Sloth family...?"

Shanks groaned, doing his best not to stick out from behind his wife's towering figure.

The rest of the group started getting up from the destroyed carriage pushing off the broken wood and metal.

"Urgh... see? 400 in defensive stats isn't so bad after... all...?"

The prince shook off the dirt and splinters and glanced at his fiance...

...who was securely locked in an intimate protective embrace of her undead servant.

Her furious undead servant.

Zombie's eyes were glowing as he was carefully scanning the area in search of the hostile culprit.

"Haa... attacking the carriage with the royal prince inside? What a bunch of idiots..."

Cranberry - smushed against the cold, rock solid body of the blue undead - sighed while doing her best to both be vigilant and enjoying the moment to the fullest.

"...!"

The prince's eyes bulged out as his fiancé raised her arms and returned the embrace to her eternal servant with a soft smile of satisfaction.

"...ah..."

But then he noticed that Cranberry actually was just taking out the baseball bat that Zombie always carried on his back, and felt kind of stupid for getting jealous over the undead.

Poor naive prince...

"Where's the enemy?"

Cranberry tapped Zombie's back and asked.

Somehow her face was only a little bit flushed.

"Graough. (Half a mile to the west.) Graough. (Four life signatures.) Graough. (One is gathering energy, must be for another attack.)"

Zombie explained while pointing at the exact spot in the closest area where there were still trees and bushes amongst the seemingly endless fields.

Cranberry looked that way and frowned.

"That attack was ridiculously weak for someone from the Sloth family, especially from such a close distance. Haa..."

She sighed and shook her head in annoyance.

"Let me go, for now, we can continue cuddling later."

The red-haired girl rolled her eyes and sighed with a disappointed expression.

"Graough...? (Umm, cuddle...?)"

"!!!"

Confused Zombie tilted his head and groaned while Cranberry twitched and hurriedly pulled away from the blue undead.

"Nevermind that! Let's catch those idiots and learn what's going on!"

Cranberry changed the subject as fast as she could and raised her weapon in preparation.

"Are they about to attack again?"

She asked in a deadly serious voice.

"Graough...! (Ah! It looks like it... the energy got released...!)"

Zombie growled completely missing the point when Cranberry breathed out in relief.

At the same time, a light shone from the spot that Zombie had pinpointed, and a beam of light shoot right at them like a laser.

Cranberry's eyes, body, and the baseball bat, all shone at the same time and, with mana visibly coiling around the weapon, the red-haired girl swung her bat right at the lightning-fast projectile.

"thunk*

A clear sound as if a metal struck against metal resounded in the empty air as the beam of light got deflected and arched back towards the place it originated from.

The sound of the explosion and falling trees was crystal clear even from where the group was standing.

"Tsk..."

Cranberry clicked her tongue, her counter sent the attack back, but it missed by at least thirty feet so the attackers shouldn't have suffered any damage.

"Zombie! We're going! Back me up!"

With a furious expression, Cranberry shouted at her eternal servant while her body began glowing even more intensely than before and in the next moment, she disappeared just to appear a hundred feet away from the forest.

She could already hear the panicking voices of the people hiding in there.

As she activated her charge skill, something moved in the shadow of the trees and two large werewolves rushed at her.

"First attack that looks like Sloths', now shapeshifting like Gluttonys..."

Cranberry frowned and made a sour expression.

"IT LOOKS LIKE MY ZOMBIE HADN'T BEAT YOU UP ENOUGH, PEOPLE OF THE ENVY FAMILY!"

She roared and swung her weapon.