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A Corporate Slave Becomes a Villainous Nuisance in a Zombie Apocalypse Episode 22 "Kyaaah!" "Get it together?! Stand up! Push properly!" I grabbed the thrashing Mascarpone and shoved her upward without hesitation. Her panicked feet slid frantically across my bare shoulders and chest. After a few attempts, she ‌‌‌seemed to grasp the situation and began struggling to find her balance. "Ugh!" The problem was that my skeletal frame could barely support another person's weight. "Aaaah!" "Erk! Hey! My fingers! My fingers!" To make matters worse, the cloth slippers Mascarpone wore were ‌‌filthy from treading through blood and corpses. When they slid across my right neck— My breath caught. "Kyaaaah!" "Kieek!" "Ugh!" I braced myself against my trembling thighs and forced every ounce of strength ‌‌into my legs. I have to stand. Somehow! If I can't get up, we both die! Swaying, swaying... "Argh!" Turn back! ‌‌‌"Grab the wall! The wall!" "I'm trying!" Build muscle! "Did you grab it?!" "Y-yes!" Mascarpone's toes ‌‌pressed against my collarbone as she ‌‌‌‌pulled herself up the wall. It felt like my bones might shatter, but I felt no pain. Let a zombie chase us from behind! This is nothing! "Step on my shoulder! My shoulder!" Turn back! "Ugh! Wait! Don't let go!" "Hold on!" Muscle! "Ugh!" I gripped ‌‌the fence with my quivering arms. I held firm, practically ‌‌pushing against it with my forehead. Unable to overcome the weight, my body threatened to collapse, leaving me no chance to look upward. "Kieek!" I couldn't look back either, where the zombies were surely closing in. I grabbed Mascarpone's ankle to support her as she exerted every last bit of strength pulling herself up. "Kyaaah!" As I lost my balance and swayed side to side, Mascarpone wavered along with me. Gritting my teeth, I pressed my forehead against the wooden wall again. "Is it far?!" "I'm working on it!" "Hurry!" "Grrrrrowl!" They're chasing us from behind! I was so anxious that I felt tears welling up for real now. "I got it! I got it! I grabbed the protruding part!" "Climb up! Now!" "W-wait, the height isn't enough! I can't reach!" "Step on my head and climb! My head!" "How can you say that!" ‌‌‍‌"Ah, just step on it!" You're already stepping on my shoulders anyway, so what difference does it make if you step on my head too! "Your stepping on me won't break my neck, so just do ‌‌‌it!" You need to get up so I can get up too, so please hurry! "Quickly!" At my desperate cry, Mascarpone's foot finally pressed down on the crown of my head. There was a moment of pressure, then a ‌‌‌‌leap. "Ugh!" The instant the weight lifted from my shoulders, I collapsed backward as if rebounding. My eyes met Mascarpone's as she cleared the fence. ‌‌'My neck really could have snapped....' Too exhausted to speak, I managed a bitter laugh. "Mascarpone!" "Mascarpone!" Thud! "Kyaaaah!" Damn it.... "Now it's the lady's turn!" At the same moment, my body was hurled upward. Praha, gripping my forearm, threw me up the wall. The Grand Duke, already atop it, caught me mid-air and pulled me over the fence with him. "Kyah!" "Ahhh!" In the ‌‌‌final moment, a zombie caught my heel. Thud! Crash! "Ha...." Thanks to that, I landed in a pathetic position. "Kyaaah!" Bang! Bang! Bang! 'See? A difference of 0.1 seconds can mean the difference between life and death....' If I'd ‌‌‌‌been even slightly slower, it would've been a disaster. Looking back, Praha was ‌‌also safely rolling across the floor beside me. In that moment of relief, I exhaled. "You look even more charming from below, my lady." The Grand Duke, who'd fallen with me in his arms, laughed from beneath me. "Eek!" I scrambled to my feet. The Grand Duke remained sprawled on the ground, grinning wickedly. "Isn't your reaction a bit cold? I even cushioned your fall with my body." "Some cushion! You were rock hard!" "That's because I'm a man in ‌excellent ‌‌‌physical condition...." "Is this really the time for jokes?!" First I was pinned under the Crown Prince, now I'm on top of the Grand Duke—is this some kind of possession perk? 【Two of the world's most handsome men and thrilling skinship: Buy one, get one free】 Something like that? Wait, not the Crown Prince. Praha. Crown Prince Praha. "Stop spouting nonsense." Praha approached and extended his hand. I thought he was helping the Grand Duke up from the ground, but his hand came toward me instead. "Wait." Praha's fingertips brushed across my forehead. "Ow." My forehead, ‌which had been scraped raw from bearing weight against the wooden wall, was bleeding profusely. 'I'm definitely getting a bump right in the middle of my forehead. Can't be helped. I'll just pretend to ‌‌be ‌‌‌‌Buddha.' Praha spoke quietly. "That must hurt." "My entire body aches." From clenching my teeth so hard, it felt like I'd damaged all my teeth too. "But why...." Bang! Bang! Bang! Praha's words were cut off. The ignorant zombies, who knew no way to ‌‌‌open a door except by ramming their bodies through it, were making a racket behind the barricade. "Let's talk later and get moving, Praha. That barrier could collapse any moment." The Grand Duke interjected with a cheerful smile. Praha, who seemed to have more to ‌‌say, eventually ‌‌gave up and took the lead. Mascarpone asked. "Is everyone here?" "Yes. If we follow this path, we should ‌reach the Artificial Lake. The portal is right beside it." "Right, that's true. Hmm... even though I came this way just a few hours ago, my memory feels hazy." "You've been through so much." "Besides, we arrived by carriage earlier." "Precisely. Our dear Lady Yusara didn't even remember that ‌‌this Villa has a Maze Garden." The Grand Duke chuckled with one eye ‌‌squinted, directing his jest at me. 'That's because I possessed this body, you know?' It wasn't that I forgot—I simply had no memory of it. "Then let's hurry. Before those creatures break through the walls and come over again." Consomme, who apparently had abandoned all pretense of dignity, snorted into her dress skirt and urged us forward. I formed a formation again and walked toward the lake. As I walked, I took a moment ‌‌‌to assess my own condition. 'A beggar would chase after me saying "big sis!"' My ‌‌palms ‌‌were torn open and bleeding again, my nails were broken, and every exposed patch ‌‌of skin was a mess of sweat, blood, and raw abrasions. My throat and lungs felt constricted, and my ankles throbbed with pain. Looking down at my ‌‌‌neck and shoulders, I could see slipper marks. From being stepped on with those ash-covered shoes, perhaps. The skin felt warm. ‌‌‌'Is it a burn?' I was brushing it off halfheartedly when— "Hey." Mascarpone, who had somehow moved to my side, called out to me. I glanced over while coughing. 'Now that I think about it, I spoke informally to her earlier because of the rush. ‌‌‌What's she trying to say?' But what Mascarpone said was something entirely different. "...Thank you." "Huh? For what?" "What happened just now. For pulling me up." "Oh." "If you weren't a lady, I wouldn't have made it over ‌‌‌‌before those corpses caught up. ‌‌I really ‌‌‌am grateful. I owe you one." "No, I mean... there's no need to talk about owing me anything. We're in this escape together." In a crisis like this, we help each other. What debt is there in that? I'm taller than Mascarpone and in better physical ‌condition. It just made sense for me to pull her up first. If it had been Nuisance Man standing beside me instead of Mascarpone, I would've done the exact same thing. "It's more rational for me to pull you up than for you to pull me up, so that's what I did. There's nothing to thank me for." "Still." "Lady Mascarpone is right. You gave up your turn for us as well, my lady." "That's true. It was so remarkable, even in such urgency!" They almost cried, didn't they? Yujein and Consomme, who had drawn near, chimed in. "But Consomme was crying earlier too...." They were moved, it seemed. Because I'd let them go first. 'It's just the obvious thing to do.' So even a villainess has her good points? Do the bare minimum and get praised for it. "I think I was misunderstanding something." Mascarpone spoke, her cheeks flushed. "Even in a situation like this, I kept picking fights with you because I disliked you... yet you helped me without hesitation. Honestly, I'm not sure I would've acted the same way if I were in your position." "Ah... um." "I'm so ashamed of myself. I want to apologize." "Um. But...." You have every reason to hate me, don't ‌‌you? I humiliated you. We're only cooperating now because of this crisis, and you have more than enough reasons to despise me. Don't feel guilty—once we get out of here, you can keep hating me. That's what I wanted ‌‌‌‌to say. But Mascarpone's expression was so overwhelmed that ‌‌I couldn't bring myself to say ‌‌‌it. Instead, I said something else. "I understand. I apologize for being rude ‌‌‌to you all this ‌‌time too." "...Yeah. Thanks. Oh, there's something on you here." ‌‌‌"Huh? Ugh! What is this bug?!" Somewhere along the way, we'd naturally begun speaking to each other ‌‌‌‌casually. "Don't you hear the sound of water?" "Now that you mention it, the air does feel fresher." "That's probably because we're getting farther from the burning garden... oh!" Sure enough, ahead of us lay a lake as transparent and beautiful as a mirror. And beside it, a portal. 'We finally made it....' Then. Rustle. "Huh?" Whoosh. Whoooosh. "Grrr...." "Grrrrr...." "...." Zombies all the way out here? As if they'd been lying in ambush, dozens ‌‌‌of zombies revealed themselves simultaneously. From the lake I'd just thought was beautiful, ‌‌more zombies waded ‌‌‌‌‌through the water, emerging with squelching steps. Long white worms packed into their deeply sunken eye sockets. Saliva dripped steadily from their gaping mouths. 'Is this seriously too much?!' Behind us, the burning mansion we'd just escaped. Ahead, the ‌‌‌‌portal. Between them, a horde of zombies. =Trapped between a rock and a hard place. This time, there was no curtain ‌‌‌‌to shield us. "Grrrrgh...." Without anyone commanding it, we naturally pressed our backs together and formed a circle. The difference from before was that these zombies weren't ‌‌‌‌‌rushing straight at us—they were slowly closing in, surrounding us. I could sense it instinctively. 'This is the final trial.' If I die here, I die. If I live, I live. The question is who dies and who survives.... That's when Yujein, standing shoulder to shoulder with ‌‌me, began to tremble. "Yujein?" I called her name without taking my eyes off the zombie horde. "...." No answer—only her trembling grew more violent. Unable to help it, I stole a glance at Yujein. Suddenly, she stepped forward. "Yujein!" Her hair whipped wildly as she advanced as if to face the zombie horde alone. Despite the absence of wind. A white and ‌‌blue radiance surged from her entire body.... In that moment, all the tension drained from me. 'The Saint is awakening, it seems.' Right. This is where I need to emphasize the protagonist once more. I'd wondered why zombies kept appearing here. It was an event for the protagonist's awakening. Slowly, Yujein raised her hand. I lowered my weapon entirely. Not that I had much of a weapon to begin with—just the magical rope I'd borrowed from Praha and never returned. I prepared to watch with keen interest as the protagonist's awakening event unfolded, as sacred ‌‌‌‌‌holy magic manifested. "Yujein! Come to ‌your senses!" "Yujein!" "...." It's okay, everyone. Now the zombie horde that's been tormenting us will dissolve into light with a single gesture from Yujein. Holy power. Mysterious, solemn, sacred, and pure white.... BOOOOOM! ‌"...Huh?" BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! "Uh, uh...." The god Yujein serves.... Could it be Thor? [Imperial Villa Main Portal Entrance] - Yusara, Yujein, Praha, Grand Duke, Dazling, Mascarpone, Consomme, Nuisance Man (Survived)

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