A Korean Office Worker Who Became a Nuisance Villainess in a Zombie Story - Chapter 142

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Cyprus spoke thus.
“Go on ahead. I’ll take a look around here first.”
★☆If by chance you ever encounter a zombie, murderer, or ghost while living your life, you absolutely must NOT make statements like that↑☆★
Why, you ask?
‘Because it’s a classic death flag statement…!’
In horror films, anyone who says something like that always dies…!
‘I’ll follow right after. Go on up and prepare a bath for me!’ If you add dialogue like that, it’s 120% guaranteed.
So I answered.
“Do you really have to check it out?”
“It feels unsettling.”
“Fair point….”
That was a valid argument too.
Ignoring an ominous sign right before your eyes with a “surely it’ll be fine” is just as much a death flag as “go on ahead.”
“Then let’s all three go together and see what it is.”
Just by keeping everyone together instead of letting one person wander off alone, the mortality rate drops dramatically.
With that thought, I pulled Praha and Cyprus toward me.
I gave a light tug, and they followed obediently as if I’d grabbed them by the collar.
The three of us huddled together like a single mass.
Squeezed between two tall men who might as well have been walls, I felt as compressed as a hamburger patty….
“Let’s think positively. The feeling of being cramped is something you can only experience while you’re alive…!”
“What did you say, Yusara?”
“Nothing. Let’s go.”
The Sodom Castle Dining Hall is a rectangular, open space.
A long table finished with silver trim occupies the center, and around it are arranged decorative items—empty birdcages draped in purple cloth and cocktail trays.
Aside from the lack of a door, it was a typical guest dining room of a noble household.
I muffled my footsteps and approached cautiously.
“….”
A woman sat alone at the far end of the table.
Light spilled from a lantern she had placed on the table in front of her.
The glow seeping through the paper-shaded lantern flickered across the woman’s golden hair and pallid cheeks.
Showing us only her back, the woman sat perfectly still and silent.
At first I thought it was the Lord of Sodom… but it wasn’t.
‘She looks like the castle’s Maid.’
But why was she sitting alone like that in the middle of the night?
Like an office worker staying late in an empty building, quietly contemplating resignation….
Weighing whether to quit because it’s filthy and petty?
“Is she a ghost?”
“Could she be a ghost…?”
I jabbed Cyprus in the ribs for his carefree chatter.
Praha, who had moved the obstructive birdcage aside, carefully circled to the side and approached the woman.
Praha, who had been alternating his gaze between the woman and Cyprus, signaled just before she entered her field of vision. Upon receiving the signal, Cyprus called out to her.
“Excuse me, madam…?”
The woman, who had been sitting motionless like a statue, slowly turned her head.
Turning with obvious reluctance—slowly.
Her head rotated with tedious, agonizing sluggishness.
A full 180 degrees, until she faced Cyprus and me.
Spiral-like wrinkles twisted across her pale, elongated neck as if wrenched by force.
Her body remained facing forward, yet only her head turned toward us.
In that grotesque posture, she opened her mouth wide and clicked her teeth together repeatedly.
Without warning, she launched herself from her seat and hurled herself at me.
Crash!
The dining table slid backward, and the lamp that had been standing on it clattered to the floor.
“No…!”
Cyprus had called her—so why was she coming at me…?!
Before I could even dodge, Cyprus thrust his forearm directly in front of me.
Snap!
“Grrk!”
The woman’s—the zombie’s—teeth clamped down mere inches from Cyprus’s wrist.
Praha, who had deftly snatched the lamp away to prevent a fire, rushed over and pulled me into his embrace. Without missing the opportunity, Cyprus seized the zombie’s neck and snapped it.
This time, the zombie’s cervical spine shattered completely, and it collapsed limply to the side.
Beside its fallen form, I could see a broken front tooth and a severed piece of red flesh.
Had she bitten off her own tongue when closing her mouth…?
How gruesome….
But more importantly!
“Are you alright?!”
I grabbed Cyprus’s arm.
“Are you insane? Why did you put your arm there!”
What if she had bitten you?!
If the timing had been even slightly off, the zombie’s teeth would have sunk into his forearm—the very limb I now gripped tightly—and he whimpered, “Ow! That hurts!”
“It hurts? This hurts?”
“It does hurt…. You must work out quite a bit.”
“If a zombie had torn into you, it would hurt far worse than this!”
“Zombies don’t bite me.”
“They could have this time!”
Even my Junior Colleague, who is perfectly lucid, makes mistakes roughly once an hour—so why would a zombie be immune to error?
It was as if Cyprus had deliberately placed his own arm into the zombie’s gaping maw, and if something had gone wrong and she’d bitten him—!
“You don’t get attacked, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get infected!”
I struck his back repeatedly, insisting that even he would become a zombie if bitten, pleading with him to be more careful.
“Do I look that slow to you? I’m more than capable of dodging on my own—so why are you inserting your arm into danger like that, for heaven’s sake!”
If you get bitten, you’re the only one who loses!
Does it hurt?!
You’re the only one who’s hurt!
“Haha.”
“Why are you laughing!”
“Sorry. For a moment, I couldn’t see anything. If I become a zombie, will you have to put me down yourself?”
“Don’t! Say! Such! Inauspicious things!”
“Ow… I’m going to die from your beating before I ever become a zombie.”
“Ugh!”
This is infuriating!
I glared at Cyprus, who was laughing even as I struck him, and lowered my arm. Only then did Praha, who had been holding me from behind, finally release me.
I’d thought he was embracing me from behind to protect me, but it turned out he was actually restraining me from behind, holding me back.
“Praha! Are your hands alright?!”
Now that I thought about it, Praha had grabbed the lamp bare-handed too.
“You didn’t get burned?”
I pointed to his right hand, which was facing downward.
Since Praha’s hands weren’t quite as rough and calloused as Cyprus’s, I hesitated before carefully grasping it with just the tips of two fingers.
“Fortunately, it seems fine….”
“Yes. Fortunately, it is fine.”
“….”
“….”
Suddenly, this felt oddly awkward….
“Yusara, Praha. Look at this.”
“Huh? What?”
Cyprus spoke up just in time, and I quickly turned my attention toward him.
“This zombie has no bite marks on its body.”
“No bite marks? What about scratches?”
“Nothing. It’s clean.”
“…You’re right.”
Just as he said, the exposed skin of the woman was unmarked.
To be sure, I asked the deceased’s pardon and lifted their clothing, but there were no bite marks or scratches on the inside either.
“It wasn’t a woman—it was a man….”
“Eh….”
“But there really are no bite marks. I have no idea how they became infected and turned into a zombie.”
The crimson stone glowing on the chest was hidden behind the chair’s backrest, so if not for the head twisted 180 degrees and the pale, whitened eyes, I would never have realized it was a zombie until the very end.
It was no wonder we had initially failed to recognize it as a zombie and attempted to speak with it.
“And one more thing. Where did the zombie that infected this person go?”
When and where did the zombie appear, and how did an infected person end up in the Dining Room, gazing at the lamp and chewing on their solitude alone?
And if zombies are wandering about, why is this castle so quiet right now?
By now, there should be chaos….
“We need to go find Yujein and Tangerine quickly.”
It’s not just Tangerine and Yujein there—Muffin and Cheese are with them too. And Cheese’s Younger Sibling, who’s only four years old.
I draped the tablecloth over the zombie’s face to hide it, then pushed myself to my feet.
‘Perhaps I can learn something from this.’
I extracted the crimson stone from the zombie’s chest and pocketed it, then moved ahead before Praha and Cyprus could notice.
“Let’s go.”
* * *
“Your Highness! You’re safe!”
“Sister!”
“Why did you take so long?! Did you bring snacks?!”
Fortunately, the others were unharmed.
They had gathered behind the makeshift door fashioned from carpet and rose in a rush to greet us.
I’d come cautiously, keeping watch over the surroundings, but this floor held no zombies.
Not just this floor—the entire Mansion seemed devoid of zombies, save for that man we’d just encountered.
‘Then again, they might all be sitting quietly somewhere, just like that zombie was.’
Docile zombies—what a paradox.
Radiant sorrow of spring, silent screams, warm iced americano, and obedient zombies.
“First, get some clothes on.”
I tossed a shirt to Cyprus, who was still dressed in slave garments.
He grumbled about it being Praha’s tasteless clothing, but he put it on anyway.
“Yusara! We were so worried! But… where is Aspara?”
Yujein, clinging to my arm, peered behind me.
Right. I’d gone to rescue that bastard.
I sighed as I met Yujein’s bewildered gaze.
“He couldn’t come with us.”
“Why? Don’t tell me….”
“No. I found him. He’s fine. It’s a long story. But what about you all? Did anything happen?”
“Quite a lot happened, Yusara!”
“Did you happen to see any zombies, Tangerine?”
“Zombies?!”
“What happened while I was gone? Tangerine, do you know anything?”
“Wasn’t the theft something Your Highness already knew about? But zombies?!”
“We need to compare notes.”
Cyprus buttoned his shirt and produced a handsome handkerchief from somewhere, tucking it into his pocket as he spoke.
“Are you two alright?”
I checked on Muffin and Cheese, their faces drained of color after hearing the word “zombie” again—they’d already fled one city to escape such horrors.
But among them stood an unexpected figure.
“….”
What are you doing here?♪
[Sodom Castle Guest Room]
-Yusara, Praha, Cyprus, Yujein, Tangerine, Muffin, Cheese, Cheese’s Younger Sibling, ???(Alive)

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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