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Brought to you by Valir Scans! To support our team and enjoy the ‌latest releases, please read directly on our official site: valirscans.org
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A Corporate Slave Becomes a Villainous Nuisance in a Zombie Apocalypse
Episode 25
Praha steadied Yusara as she went limp in his arms.
His mind had gone blank.
"A physician, a priest, or a mage. Actually, all three. Or perhaps I should just—"
The Crown Prince, who had never flinched when punishing his own cousin, lost his composure ‌‌‌and began to stammer.
In the meantime, people who had heard the news came rushing over with questions.
"Your Highness! What on earth has happened—"
"Has Consomme not returned?"
"What do ‌‌‌you mean by corpses walking about?"
"If I may ‌‌be so bold, Your Highness, is it not possible ‌‌that you and your companions were experiencing hallucinations?"
"But the blood and wounds are—"
Murmur upon murmur. Chatter upon chatter.
How had this happened, what had everyone been doing ‌‌‌‌while things unfolded, what had he been doing, what was this, what was that.
Can't you see the blood the princess is bleeding right now?
Wanting to scream, Praha turned to Yujein.
"Your Highness!"
"Lady Yujein."
Praha cut off Yujein before she could ask anything.
"If you would be so kind, could you treat the princess's wounds?"
"I was just about to mention that! Is the princess injured?!"
"I'm not certain."
She had seemed fine just moments ago.
'Perhaps she was hurt this time too, but hid it.'
The thought sent a chill down my spine.
Even unconscious, Yusara kept her fist clenched tight, and blood seeped from her hand. When I forced it open, I saw a long gash running across her palm.
It was a mark left by my magical rope.
'I gripped it too hard.'
I had squeezed ‌‌‌‌the magical rope—which responds to its master's will—far too forcefully. The wound had clearly formed in that brief moment as I returned the rope to its coil.
I didn't need to ask what had stirred ‌‌‌‌her will to such intensity.
A trembling palm.
As I carefully cradled that hand, my ‌‌‌‌eyes blinked.
'So small.'
Her hand was far too small.
Was it only her hand? No.
Her scraped forehead, her exposed shoulders, her scarred arms, her feet in ill-fitting military boots, her slightly parted ‌lips, and her blood-stained chin—everything was far too small.
Yusara's height was nearly 170 centimeters, but from my perspective, that was only slightly taller than ‌a fifteen-year-old child.
'This small person.'
Without a moment's hesitation.
An intense surge of the desire to do something for Yusara suddenly overwhelmed me.
I want to take her home.
I want to smooth down her disheveled hair.
I want to lay her safely in the Crown Prince's quarters, summon every physician in the Imperial Palace for examination, and then pace anxiously before the door, waiting.
Once the impulse took hold, it spread without restraint.
"...I'm afraid it's not working. I apologize.... It seems the ‌‌‌Divine didn't grant me healing powers after all."
Damn the Divine.
"It's not Yujein's fault."
"I think we'll ‌‌‌need to rely on physicians or magical power for the rest. ...I'm pathetic. I wanted to be of some help to the lady."
"Please ‌‌don't say such things. We returned alive thanks to Yujein."
More ‌‌‌‌precisely, we returned alive thanks to both Yujein and Yusara.
Praha, who caught Yujein's eye as she grew dejected, adjusted Yusara draped limply in his arms and spoke rapidly to the Attendant beside him.
"Escort Mascarpone and Yujein. Don't forget to bring Dazling as well for treatment. Cyprus will... handle himself."
With those ‌‌words, he left the room.
The aged court physician moved so slowly that I decided to search for him myself ‌‌‌rather than wait ‌‌‌any ‌‌‌‌‌longer.
The Attendants scrambled to follow after Praha as the Crown Prince himself moved to find a physician—an unprecedented occurrence.
Praha spoke as he walked.
"Effective ‌immediately, the Empire enters wartime readiness. Inspect the body of everyone entering the palace. Focus on bite marks and scratches. Isolate anyone with wounds, and if they resist, apply imperial law. And...."
Praha's pace was so brisk that the Attendants following him nearly had to run.
"Summon Marquis Diane."
I can't hold her too tightly. She might break.
Was she always this small? ‌‌‌‌
"The Marquis's youngest daughter, Lady Consomme Diane, has died. This fact must be conveyed to him."
What had I been thinking of the lady before?
"The lady has sustained injuries and lost consciousness, so she will receive examination at the Imperial Palace ‌‌‌first. Send someone ‌‌‌to the Duke's residence as well."
So I...
hadn't thought of her at all.
Lady Yusara was ‍‌‌outside my sphere of concern.
Praha cradled Yusara's limp head gently.
* * *
When Praha looked back on it.
The lady had been strange from some point onward.
I couldn't pinpoint exactly when. I'd never paid her much attention to begin with.
'Are you alright?'
'Yes, I'm fine.'
She'd insisted on attending the gathering, but then remained silent throughout the afternoon.
'The lady was injured too, weren't you? When you fell with Yujein earlier.'
She was so quiet that even after being hurt, she said nothing.
Praha was curious.
'You could have at least mentioned an injury. Why didn't you say anything?'
The answer came as soon as the question formed.
'She must have been afraid of being abandoned.'
Everyone in the group disliked Consomme—she knew it better than anyone. If she became troublesome, she'd be cast aside.
'I'll only trust Dazling. He's the only one who worried about me here.'
There was no way I could refute what Consomme had said earlier.
What had left an impression on Praha was ‌‌this:
A person who had suffered injuries without uttering a word for ‌‌fear of abandonment had unhesitatingly thrown herself into someone else's crisis.
'Hey!'
Consomme had returned without hesitation to retrieve me when I fell behind alone on the Second Floor of the Villa.
'That's why let go! I'll do it!'
She had ‌‌‌helped Paprika, who had been causing friction with the group since earlier.
The tightly clenched jaw of Consomme as she wielded her shield bare-handed without a single glove, striking down ‌‌corpses.
She didn't expect others to save her life, yet she saved others without hesitation.
'The weak come first!'
When Consomme had screamed those words with her face twisted in determination, Praha felt as though someone had cleaved the back of his skull with an axe.
"...."
Praha, his brow furrowed, tilted his head as if gauging the condition of the back of his own head.
'Ever since then, it feels ‌‌‌‌like an axe is lodged in my skull.'
From the moment Consomme had screamed those words.
In Praha's life, where being weak meant being trampled—such a person.
Someone who spoke such words as though they were obvious....
'Did Consomme really just shout back then?'
Didn't she cleave the back of my head in two with an axe in that same instant?
As if someone had declared they would forcibly carve this person into my mind.
As if ‌‌‌they had split my head in half, commanding me to remember this moment for the rest of my life.
'This is strange.'
Something feels off.
This was completely different from the affection I held for Yujein.
If what I felt for Yujein was curiosity about a saint, reverence, intimacy, and tenderness, then this was like....
'Flame.'
No. Wildfire.
Burning endlessly, consuming everything around it.
And ‌‌I was throwing myself into it.
Even knowing that once the fire catches, there's no stopping it.
"Your Highness! Is it true that Consomme has met with an accident?!"
The Knight Commander ‌‌‌came rushing after Praha, who was striding purposefully toward the physician—if one could even be found.
"If that's the case, Your Highness, if I may ask... that...."
"There is no corpse."
"But, Your Highness... his daughter died in a single night, yet there's no body. The Marquis Diane won't accept this."
"That's precisely why I'm summoning him to ‌‌‌‌the Imperial Palace."
Praha's brow twisted in displeasure.
My daughter is dead.
Just yesterday, she was alive and well.
There isn't even a body.
They simply tell me she's dead, and I'm supposed to believe it.
How could anyone accept such a thing?
Who could have imagined that a child who went to the Villa with the Imperial Family would return dead?
The Marquis's loss cannot be compensated by anything.
'I shouldn't have let Paprika go so easily.'
Should I drag him back now and throw him into the Marquis's hands?
If the Marquis saw Paprika transforming before his eyes, he would surely understand.
If only there weren't the risk of the disease spreading through the Imperial Palace, I would have done exactly that.
"Then what of Paprika? According to Your Highness's words, the ‌‌‌Artificial Island is now an extremely dangerous zone. Sending Paprika there is no different from ‌‌a death sentence."
"Paprika is already infected. It's the only way ‌‌‌‌‌to safely isolate the source of infection."
"The authority for summary execution of ‌‌‌Imperial Family members rests solely with His Majesty the Emperor. Even for Your Highness the Crown Prince...."
"Paprika defied my orders as the commanding authority during a situation equivalent to wartime, and used the Empire's citizens as a shield to save himself."
"...."
"The Imperial Family exists to protect the Empire's citizens. Paprika has abandoned ‌‌‌‌the Imperial Family's primary duty, so ‌‌‌execution is warranted even if he weren't infected."
The Knight Commander could not refute the Crown Prince's logic.
The Imperial Family sacrifices their lives to protect the Empire's citizens.
An ideology of the Empire that no one actually upholds, yet ‌‌‌‌once invoked, no one can ‌‌‌‌argue against.
The Knight Commander spoke only once more.
"You will bear considerable political burden from this matter."
"I don't care."
'It will only be a fraction of what the princess bears.'
At that fleeting thought, Praha lowered his gaze.
No matter how great a burden I take upon myself ‌‌from this, it could never match ‌‌‌the emotional weight the princess will carry from losing a comrade before her eyes.
'...This will be her first time experiencing something like this.'
"Your Highness."
"Enough. Say no more."
"...."
"I will take responsibility."
I know this well, having rolled through battlefields again and again.
What it feels like to watch comrades die before your eyes, to be forced to witness it.
When you return to camp after finishing a battle, and a comrade who was beside you moments ago is now gone.
What if I had done better?
What if I had acted differently then? ‌‌‌
When such thoughts arise endlessly.
Especially when you cannot even find that comrade's body.
'If the princess blames herself because of this...'
I will do whatever it takes.
Even though I didn't yet know Yusara's true feelings, I desperately wanted to step forward and tell her that none of this was her fault.
"Praha."
Someone approached ‌and stood beside ‌‌‌‌me as I bit my lip.
It was Grand Duke Cyprus.
Cyprus smirked at me with an annoyed glance and held something out.
"You left this behind."
It was a magical rope.
"The Knight Commander was flustered about it. You just walked out without even grabbing the rope. He kept saying, 'What am I supposed to do with this? It belongs to the Crown Prince,' and all that."
"...."
"You seem distracted. Is it because Yusara got hurt?"
"Yeah."
I gave a short reply and kept walking.
Where in the world was the physician? Was the ‌physician injured too?
A stupid rope—was that really the problem right now?
I turned my back on Cyprus, whose narrowed eyes darted between me and the lady, ‌‌‌and headed toward ‌‌the Staircase.
"You're not taking it?"
"No."
You take it.
Cyprus shouted from behind me as I descended two steps at a ‌‌‌time.
"Praha! You must have so much to do!"
"I'm handling it now."
"Should I take Yusara instead?"
"Get ‌your arm treated."
That dangling, grotesque limb of his.
Cyprus didn't chase after me further, but I could feel my friend's gaze clinging stubbornly to my back.
I didn't like it.
[Imperial Palace]
(Temporary) Safe Zone ‌entered.
Survivors: Yusara, Yujein, Praha, Grand Duke, Dazling, Mascarpone

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Brought to you by Valir Scans! To support our team and enjoy the latest releases, please read directly on our ‌‌‌‌official site: valirscans.org
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