Chapter 278: Silence before a storm (2)

Back in the chambers prepared for the foreign royalty, the trio sat on the edge of the king-sized bed.

Claymore sat in the middle with Zombie on her left side and Cranberry on her right side.

"Alright. First things first. How is it possible that you remember how things were before the reset? Up until now, everyone we've met had their memories altered by the system."

Cranberry asked, leaning down and looking into Claymore's face.

*sniffle*

The petite girl wiped her eyes one more time before she opened her mouth.

"Are you sure? Because I think that you are just making things up to cover for the fact that you didn't even try to contact me after it all happened - and I was worried sick when I've learned that you two had gone missing! Hmph!"

Claymore scoffed at her with accusation and then pouted at the end of her declaration.

"Hey, you little punk, who the hell do you think you are? The only beings that could remember things how they were before the reset were monsters. What are you telling us that you were secretly a monster all along?"

Zombie scoffed back at Claymore while leaning down to see her face just as Cranberry was already doing, which resulted in an image of two thugs shaking down an innocent girl.

"Ha! No way!"

"...?"

Suddenly the red-haired girl gasped and put her hand to her mouth, making Zombie and Claymore look at her.

"Yes, that makes sense...! All the legends are more or less true. Lusts are actually the descendants of the god of chaos, Love! And since the so-called gods were in fact administrators, it makes sense that you have at least some immunity against the system's influence! All members of the Lust family are like that too, right? They remember everything?"

Cranberry straightened her back and nodded to herself before turning back to the petite girl.

"Ooh...! I get it now! That must also be a reason why I don't feel as much hate towards her as I do towards the other living!"

Zombie raised his brows and nodded his head vigorously towards the red-haired girl.

"...administrator...? Not a god-class monster...?"

Claymore tilted her head and asked with suspicion.

"Answer the question."

The blue undead squinted his eyes and poked at Claymore's puffed-out cheek.

"...! Y-yes! We all have both sets of memories, the ones where the world got suddenly engulfed in darkness for system knows how long and the other one where everything is slightly altered and things about Cranberry and you are straight-up changed. And also, I haven't realized before but... YOU CAN TALK NOW?!"

Claymore gasped and jumped on her spot staring in utter confusion at the blue-skinned undead casually ordering her around.

"Ha? Oh, right, I keep forgetting that we haven't even met once after the reset... yes. As you can hear, he can."

Cranberry furrowed her brows taken aback but she instantly realized the problem and nodded to herself.

"That's right! You haven't even tried to contact me! What is the meaning of that?! I thought we were friends!"

Claymore pouted and turned to Cranberry, glaring at her with accusation.

"..."

Cranberry looked at her and then turned away to stare at the ground without answering for a while.

"Eh...? We're no-umpfh...?"

"Shhh. Give her time."

Claymore's eyes widened and she started to tremble but before she finished her sentence, Zombie blocked her mouth with his left hand shook his head from right to left.

"...haa... well, I didn't contact you because I was afraid that you won't remember me. Since everyone else didn't remember the real me, I didn't want to hear you ask me why did I come to see you as if it was our first real meeting."

Thanks to that, Cranberry could properly gather her thoughts and explain it.

"Pretty pathetic for a Pride, isn't it?"

She added with an awkward smile and instantly looked away.

"Cranberry!"

Zombie took his hand away so that Claymore could throw herself at the red-haired girl and lock her in a tight hug.

"It's not pathetic at all! Just because you're a Pride doesn't mean that you can't have doubts or normal feelings! I'm sorry that I've said something so mean!"

The petite girl sniffled and apologized, nuzzling her face against Cranberry's shoulder.

"...thank you..."

The red-haired girl smiled softly and leaned against the petite girl.

"Haa... that said. Tell us more about that vision of yours. Future sight is a powerful tier 3 skill... I've read about it before just because I thought that it could be useful but the process of acquiring it was just too much."

After a minute or so, Cranberry straightened her back and began talking in a matter-of-fact voice.

"The problem with it is that... well... apparently the future it shows is something that cannot be changed even if you try. Or rather, even if you try to change the future you saw, it will turn out that in the end, you were doing exactly what was necessary to make that very future happen."

She frowned and tilted her head to the side while making a sour face.

"That... that sounds horrible! So what, we can't do anything to stop that thing from appearing?!"

Claymore gasped and trembled, letting go of the red-haired girl.

"I've said apparently, what I've just said is simply something I've read in some old books. It might just be something that happened a couple of times when the user was unlucky and it's not an actual rule."

Cranberry raised her hand, stopping the other girl, and added, though truth to be told there wasn't much conviction in her voice.

"What I'm more interested in is the appearance of that monster. You said that it was made out of red and black smoke, right? And you looked really shocked when you saw Zombie's right hand."

The red-haired girl added and pointed at the blue undead - who raised his red and black smoke right hand and waved it at the petit girl with an innocent expression.

"..."

Just one look at the constantly swirling smoke that somehow continued to keep itself in a shape of a humanoid hand was enough to give Claymore goosebumps all over her body.

"This might prove to be problematic..."

The red-haired villainess sighed and started massaging her forehead.

"Tell us about that vision. What exactly was happening and where. Every detail that you can remember."

She asked with a serious expression.