Chapter 146: In the basement (8)

When she killed Saint, Cranberry didn't hold anything back and used all of her power and available skills to ensure a one-hit kill.

She succeeded splendidly, but at the same time, she caused the part of the cave to cave in at almost buried herself alive at the same time.

Her body almost broke down on her, but somehow, she managed to stay conscious.

If she didn't use blink to teleport back and follow it up with thrash in succession with counter, she would have undoubtedly died under the pile of dirt or the falling rocks.

But even after surviving the major threat, she found herself in a rather peculiar situation.

All the roots covered with the fluorescent mold got buried by a cave-in, and the light of the torch she left by the staircase vanished too.

At that point, the red-haired girl couldn't be sure whether the fire got blown off by the gust of wind caused by her own attack or did the passage got blocked by the rocks...

Neither of those options was good since she didn't have the night-vision skill and deep underneath the surface the darkness was absolute.

Cranberry couldn't even tell a difference whether her eyes were opened or closed.

She tried activating various skills to illuminate her way but the light of the skills couldn't be used as a reliable light source.

"..."

The red-haired girl clenched her fists so hard that her knuckles turned white - though that wasn't really visible for anyone right then and there - and gritted her teeth when a wave of pain coming from her muscles crushed against her brain.

It hurt.

It was so damn painful!

Using the full extent of her monstrous strength increased by the inhuman multipliers of the overleveled skills was too much for her disproportionately low defense to handle.

It was already a miracle that she could move her arms - but maybe, after all, she did subconsciously held back at the last second or something...

In any case, she stopped herself from cursing loudly and focused on calming her breath.

Her current situation was bad.

But screaming and wasting precious oxygen was probably the worst idea she could have in her position.

...she wasn't sure whether the cave in its current state had any airflow and therefore couldn't be reckless after all.

First of all, she started wandering around in search of a wall.

If the passage didn't get buried, that was probably the best course of action.

Even so, completing that goal took her surprisingly long - she must have done a fair share of circling around since she couldn't be even sure that she was walking in a straight line in the first place.

Not to mention all the fallen rocks littering the ground making her trip, further adding to the confusion about her position.

"...!"

When her fingers finally met the cold surface of the rock wall, she had realized something.

Her hands were going numb.

That couldn't be a good sign.

"..."

But staying in one place helplessly waiting for the rescue wasn't an option when the safety of the location she was in wasn't assured.

So Cranberry slowly breathed in the stuffy air and begun walking alongside the wall.

...in the depths of her heart, she hoped that Zombie will come for her, but dark thoughts in the back of her head were telling her that dying alone trapped in the darkness was what she deserved...

"...as if...!"

The red-haired girl gritted her teeth and increased her peace.

*clack* *clack* *clack* *clack*

"Ha...?"

Cranberry's ears picked up a new sound - silent and far away at first, it was getting closer with an astounding speed.

She recognized it...

It was the sound of high heels hitting against the stone floor!

"Zombie?! I'm here!"

She turner around and called out towards the direction that the sound was coming from.

"Cranberry!"

In the next moment, the clacking stopped right in front of the red-haired girl and she felt a gust of air hitting against her as her eternal servant suddenly stopped.

"Cranberry! Are you alright?! Did you seriously fought an administrator?! What happened?! What was it about that weird quest with a timer that disappeared without any message?! And what were you looking for here in the darkness? You don't have a night vision like I do!"

Zombie was asking questions almost as fast as he could run, and overwhelmed Cranberry with his words.

"...haa... so I picked a direction that would take longer..."

She sighed, ignoring the barrage of questions, and wiped the sweat off of her forehead.

"...tsk...!"

...and clicked her tongue when the electric-like pain pierced her numb hand.

She almost dropped her black baseball bat-like stick.

"Your hands...! What happened?!"

Zombie gasped and Cranberry felt him gently grabbing her hand and lifting it up.

"Well... haa... I did found a half-dead administrator, who had power over the elves, and had some of that power stolen by the Envy. That whole administrator wanted to kill me to regain freedom so I killed them instead."

Cranberry shrugged her shoulders with an indifferent expression.

"..."

"But they seemed like a big deal so I used all I had to finish them as fast as possible and well... you know..."

She smiled awkwardly in response to Zombie's silence.

"I should have ignored that weird quest and come for you..."

The blue undead sounded regretful.

"Ha? No, don't worry about that. I was the one who taught you to prioritize the quest completion whenever possible, so it's fine. I've crushed him just fine on my own."

Cranberry laughed, reassuring her servant.

"That's not really what I meant."

"...?"

Zombie shook his head and Cranberry tilted her own, though only the blue undead was able to see that in this situation.

"That administrator didn't show up for me when I was checking up on your life signature, so either they weren't alive in the first place or..."

Zombie glanced to the side.

"...or there was no need to hit them that hard in the first place because they were barely alive... haa... damn it, you're right..."

Cranberry picked up on what her blue undead was implying and sighed in defeat.

"Oh well, with the HP regeneration skill that I got as a reward, this shouldn't take too long to heal, don't you think...? Kyaah!"

She shrugged it off as if it was nothing but then suddenly got pushed against the wall by her servant and made a sound like never before.

"...what are you doing...? Haa... the optional quest is still not completed, what if the avatar of envy will run away...?"

She asked raising her brow.

"Cranberry, can I try to heal you right away?"

"Ha?"

The red-haired girl exclaimed in shock after hearing the question.

"Alright, I hope it will work with my normal head too."

Zombie took her confused sound as permission, then nodded to himself and gently touched Cranberry's face, rising her head by her chin for a better position.

"Normal head...? Wait, you don't mean... mhpfh?!"

Her next sentence got interrupted by Zombie's cold lips locking with her own.

"?!?!?!?!!!"

At first, Cranberry was so shocked she forgot how to breathe.

Without thinking she grabbed onto Zombie's shirt and pulled him closer.

"...nha...?"

"Wait, the damage drain skill isn't activating... Maybe I should do it like this...?"

Cranberry made a silly little sound when Zombie pulled his head away, but the blue undead only frowned in confusion and muttered something under his breath.

And then he leaned in for another kiss...

"!!!!!!!!?????!!!"

*clank*

The sensation of his cold tongue penetrating her mouth almost made her faint, and she ended up dropping her weapon.

When she met it with her own tongue, her body got pierced with wild bursts of pleasure causing her to tremble.

She had to be closer, she had to get even closer...!

She wanted him too much!

After climbing on her tiptoes, Cranberry - ignoring the pain in her damaged arms- wrapped them around Zombie's neck going into offensive, her leg involuntarily raised up alongside Zombie's leg and wrapped around his waist.

"Zombie...! My Zombie...!"

Giving herself only the bare minimum time to breathe Cranberry yelped in between the kisses completely losing the track of time.

"Cranberry... I think I figured out how to activate the skill...?"

While Cranberry head went blank from the outburst of passion, the dense as the surrounding rocks Zombie exclaimed happily and tightly embraced his master.

"?!?!?!?!?!??????????"

The next kiss was completely different than all the previous ones.

With the feeling of something going inside her and spreading through her body, Cranberry momentarily lost control over her limbs and hung limply in Zombie's arm, to the slight glow of dark red aura.

The blue undead raised her up and pressed against the stone wall for better support.

Unknown energy was sipping into her bones, muscles, and skin, but she was only focused on the cold sensation of Zombie's touch.

And then suddenly, just as fast as the feeling came, the mysterious energy got sucked out all at once leaving her body - restored to a perfect condition - and even cleared her head.

/Warning

/Servant became damaged

Servant has insufficient mana to heal

Permission to use Master's mana required

"It worked~"

Zombie hummed happily and put his master back on the stone floor.

"..."

Even though her body got restored to its perfect condition, Cranberry freshly out of Zombie's arms was just as unsteady as a newborn lamb and kept holding on to Zombie's shirt.

"...that... that was a skill...?"

She gasped still feeling very weak in the knees.

"Yes. Damage absorption. Convenient, right? You can heal me and I can heal you!"

He confirmed clearly overjoyed.

"Haa... I see... system, heal my Zombie..."

She nodded and gasped.

/Permission received

/Healing in progress

/Healing complete

"What level is it...?"

After the dark red light flowing from Cranberry got absorbed into Zombie, the red-haired girl asked.

"What level is what?"

Zombie tilted his head in confusion.

"Your damage absorption skill of course!"

Cranberry rolled her eyes in disbelief.

"Um, well... level 1."

The blue undead answered honestly.

"We'll definitely have to focus on practicing it... but not now...! After we complete the quest."

Since she knew that Zombie could see in the darkness, Cranberry looked away to hide her blushing face.

"I see! Yes, you're right!"

Zombie realized and nodded vigorously.

"Ah..."

But then he looked up and gasped.

"...if we want to complete the quest and save Lairs while we're at it, we should better hurry up. She's in trouble."

He reported while observing the three life signatures pushing back Lairs's life signature that was getting weaker and weaker.