A Korean Office Worker Who Became a Nuisance Villainess in a Zombie Story - Chapter 50

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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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“Can’t the three of us just go together?”
“Absolutely not.”
That irritating Cyprus shook his head.
“Even if we’re the princess’s dog and cat, we can’t possibly be raised in the same bed.”
“What nonsense is that….”
“You have to choose one person, no matter what.”
Yes. He had a point.
It was the protocol of the Empire, after all.
‘So what kind of situation is this, exactly?’
I’d practiced archery, learned combat techniques, toured the Prome Territory during the day.
After spending a productive day, I was changing clothes for tonight’s dinner when—
‘Princess?’
‘Princess! I’m hungry!’
Praha and Cyprus had knocked on my door simultaneously.
To escort me to the banquet.
To become my partner.
Both looked equally flustered, as if this hadn’t been planned.
‘Right, they probably didn’t agree to meet outside the princess’s door and have her choose between them.’
But the most bewildered person here was me.
‘Why are both of you at my door?’
To my question, Cyprus replied:
‘I came to fetch you, like yesterday.’
That’s what he said.
‘….’
Praha remained silent.
In that moment, I understood.
‘Praha’s words about “seeing you this evening” had been a signal to “have dinner together”!’
‘Ugh, how was I supposed to know from just that?!’
The situation had become awkward.
It would have been better if neither had come.
Two people came to fetch me, and now to leave one behind and go with only the other—
That’s not etiquette, that’s promoting ostracism!
How miserable would the one left alone feel!
“Praha, shouldn’t you be fetching the Baroness?”
“I owe no courtesy to discourteous people.”
“But the princess went to dinner with me yesterday. So shouldn’t she go with me today as well?”
“I was never taught such protocol.”
“My, you should have studied harder.”
“….”
‘They really are fighting like a dog and a cat….’
But wait.
“What are you doing here, Yujein?”
I asked the question to Yujein, who stood behind the two men.
Hidden behind their tall frames, she was barely visible.
If she hadn’t cried out “I’m here too!”, I might never have noticed her presence.
Yujein, dressed in a yellow gown that complemented her pink hair perfectly, spoke up hesitantly.
“I, I also wanted to attend the dinner with the Grand Duke!”
“Pardon?”
“I agree with the Crown Prince! Lord Promé has no manners. I don’t want to attend a dinner with someone like that!”
“…Thank you for being upset on my behalf. But we’re both women. It would be a bit awkward to be partners…”
“There’s no etiquette rule that says partners must always be of different genders!”
That was true enough.
‘Creative thinking unburdened by convention. I could learn a thing or two.’
Stop overthinking this.
I surveyed the three people before me with an awkward expression.
‘Sweet as candy, that Yujein.’
When I saw Praha again that evening, he wore a crisp blue shirt beneath a deep navy overcoat. With his dark hair, his fair complexion and bright eyes stood out all the more.
I noticed he wore a blue spinel piercing on his ear.
He seemed embarrassed about it and tried to hide it with his hair, but his skin was too flawless for it to escape notice.
‘I shouldn’t tease him about wearing it because I said it suited him.’
Cyprus, by contrast, looked as radiant as a spring day.
A green tie paired with a shirt and cuffs in coral, differing only in tone.
The way he’d matched his tie perfectly to his eye color didn’t seem like the sense he’d displayed at Promae Castle.
It appeared he’d brought the outfit himself…
‘Coming to slay zombies and still packing clothes like that.’
Impressive.
“What about Tangerine?”
“She said that since she finally caught a bird, she’d skip the dinner and roast it on the castle walls instead.”
“Is that acceptable?”
“It shouldn’t be, but there’s no one who can stop Tangerine.”
“…So everyone attending the dinner is already here.”
Praha, who was to escort the Lady of Prome, and Yujein, who should have been escorted by the Lord, were both standing outside my door.
I wondered how the Lord and Lady, who had been so delighted about hosting distinguished guests, would react to this turn of events.
‘So who am I supposed to go to dinner with?’
Why must I face such a trial?
I looked between the three of them in turn.
Normally, I would have chosen Cyprus or Yujein.
Why?
‘Everyone still thinks I’m fond of Praha.’
I don’t like the Crown Prince anymore! I can’t take out a newspaper advertisement, and no one would believe me anyway.
In truth, my companions probably half-doubted my declaration that I no longer cared for Praha.
If I hastily picked Praha again here, what would that make me?
“Why can’t the four of us just walk together…?”
Cyprus chuckled as he watched me press my forehead.
“You can only choose one person, right?”
“Yes.”
“Alright then.”
So in the end, who did I choose?
The answer will be revealed in 60 seconds.
* * *
“I’m still worried whether our Knight Order’s escort is truly unnecessary….”
At this point, Lord Promé—suspicious that perhaps one of the knights was his child and he was scheming to entangle one of us with them—followed anxiously behind us until the very moment we left the castle.
The jingling of his key bundle accompanied him with every step.
Jingle. Jingle.
That familiar sound of keys today as well.
“Even now….”
“It’s fine. If it becomes too difficult, I’ll descend immediately.”
“Y-you would do that for us, Saint?”
“Of course! If we find it hard enough to come down, the pathetic Promae Knight Order would be completely wiped out!”
In place of Praha and Cyprus, who no longer bothered responding, Tangerine took up the Lord’s words.
“Pathetic, you say…!”
“Isn’t it pathetic?”
‘Normally you shouldn’t speak so rudely to your host, but somehow it feels natural. Maybe because it’s Tangerine doing it.’
I sent silent encouragement to Tangerine, the shameless speaker, and turned my gaze toward the distant mountain.
‘It really is tall and massive.’
Though the Lord worried, our group’s assessment was that there would be no particular danger.
After all.
It’s called the Ancient Labyrinth, but it’s just a ruin that’s had nothing happen in it for centuries, right?
‘I just need to manage my stamina well.’
Because a hellish high-altitude climb was about to begin.
I steadied my resolve and glanced sideways at Praha standing beside me.
“Pathetic! Pathetic!”
“Knight Tangerine, don’t waste your strength on a pathetic opponent.”
“Understood, Crown Prince!”
Even after that banquet that had left people dumbfounded, Praha and Cyprus’s attitudes hadn’t changed much.
Whether they’d reached some agreement between themselves, from the next day onward they took turns coming to fetch me one at a time, and I even partnered with Yujein once.
‘Still, now that I’m a comrade, the treatment is definitely different.’
They even come find me directly to look after me.
Originally, while we would have maintained courtesy as human to human, there wouldn’t have been such tender consideration.
If the me from the first loop had known this, wouldn’t I have abandoned romantic notions long ago and tried to remain a good friend instead?
“Your Highness?”
Noticing my gaze, Praha lowered his eyes to look at me.
“Your Highness? Is there something you need?”
“No, nothing.”
A faint sense of satisfaction bloomed within me.
* * *
After we truly began our expedition, I came to understand something profound.
Being companions was far better than I had imagined.
“It’s cold now that night has fallen. Must be because we’re in the mountains.”
Our first camp was set at a reasonable location, considerate of Yujein’s frail constitution.
Cyprus kindled the fire while Praha prepared soup. Yujein, who was practically bedridden, was tended to by Tangerine, who massaged her limbs with careful attention.
“Starting tomorrow, I’ll gather firewood.”
“Just rest. If you encounter a wild beast while wandering about, it would be disastrous.”
“Then I’ll start the fire. How should I do it?”
I trailed after Cyprus as he worked with the kindling, eventually settling beside Praha to slice dried meat.
As we sat in a circle eating our meal in quiet contentment, my casual murmur about the cold prompted Praha to swiftly remove his outer coat and offer it to me.
“Please wear this.”
“Ah, thank you.”
I received the largest men’s garment I had ever seen and passed it to Cyprus, who sat beside me.
“…Me?”
“Yes. Your Highness, aren’t you cold?”
Your lips are turning blue.
As I pointed to his face, Cyprus’s ears flushed crimson.
“I’m from the south, so….”
I let his unexpected excuse pass in one ear and out the other, sipping my soup with a soft slurp.
“Even so, I was stationed at the Northern Front once….”
“Your Highness, then please wear my clothes!”
“It’s fine. I have something better than clothes.”
A temperature-regulating blanket that Mascarpone had given me.
“I’ll distribute them one by one. I brought several.”
As I retrieved the blankets from my pack, I showed Cyprus the zombie-capture collar I had brought along.
“Like this, see!”
Cyprus laughed so wildly at my demonstration that I worried a tiger might appear from the commotion.
Yet after laughing so hard, it seemed he found it quite useful.
“Your Highness, would you teach me as well?”
“Teach you what?”
“That strange… way of fastening it.”
After we finished eating and dispersed to clean up, Cyprus, who had been teaching me how to start a fire, casually asked the question.
“It’s not strange—it’s a collar.”
“Yes, yes.”
Cyprus, examining the necktie I’d handed him, suddenly asked a question.
“It was your first time, wasn’t it? When Praha asked a duchess for an escort.”
“Ah… at the last banquet?”
“Yes.”
That was right.
“It wasn’t just the Crown Prince’s first time, though. When the Grand Duke asked me, that was also my first time.”
A man I had loved and a man I love.
Both of them waiting for my choice.
If I were my first-loop self, I would have been so thrilled I’d faint.
“Aha, I see.”
Cyprus’s expression as he examined the necktie was peculiar.
It seemed bitter, yet also bewildered.
An expression that even Cyprus himself couldn’t quite pin down flickered crimson in the firelight, wavering and uncertain.
“But you ended up rejecting it.”
“I did.”
“So you truly don’t like Praha anymore?”
“Would you mind keeping your interest out of my feelings?”
Zombies are roaming around right now, and here he is fixating on useless things.
Even as I expressed my irritation, Cyprus merely laughed.
Suddenly, Cyprus lifted his gaze.
His emerald eyes, alight with the glow of the fire, turned toward me.
“It’s strange, so that’s why.”
“It’s not strange.”
“It is strange.”
“Aren’t you going to learn this?”
“I apologize. Please teach me quickly.”
Cyprus laughed and dodged my hand as I reached to snatch the necktie away.
“Still, the fact that all three of them came to see me that day completely changed how the maids treat me…”
With the practiced skill of a seasoned instructor, I fastened the necktie around Cyprus’s neck and spoke as if sighing.
“Were the maids treating you poorly before?”
“That’s what I’m saying. Now that you’ve learned, let’s go. Don’t be so serious about it.”
I unfastened the necktie from Cyprus’s neck and stood up.
Turning away from Cyprus, who was touching his neck like someone who’d just been ambushed with a kiss, I headed toward my sleeping bag.
‘That guy really is something else.’
That happened days ago, and he’s bringing it up now.
‘And that banquet that day…’
Oh, I never did tell you who I ended up going to the banquet with.
As for who I went with—
[Mount Prome]
– Yusara, Praha, Cyprus, Yujein, Tangerine (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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