The Sequel to the Romance Fantasy Was a Zombie Apocalypse – Chapter 19

“…Senpai. It’s not a good time right now, so let’s talk about it later.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“That’s…”

I casually looked around.

One of the butlers glancing at me from a distance quickly averted his gaze when our eyes met.

“Don’t mind it.”

The person sitting across from me said that and calmly scooped a spoonful of pilaf into his mouth.

“The ones giving you side-eyes right now have no idea how serious the situation is since they haven’t dealt with any zombies. Among the servants who fought those things at the mansion entrance yesterday, no one thinks you did anything wrong.”

He spoke loudly as if he wanted everyone in the restaurant to hear, without bothering to lower his voice.

“…Thank you.”

I softly expressed my gratitude to him.

“Geez, you seem to handle things well, but then you can be a bit frustrating sometimes.”

He let out a deep sigh and this time impaled a sausage with his fork and started chewing it obnoxiously. He was Helinante Ritz, the butler of the House of Herta for six years.

If I had to put it that way, I guess he was somewhat like my mentor.

Two years ago, on the day I first entered the House of Herta.

“Hey, you’re the promising one that the young lady brought herself?”

Amidst the grandeur of the majestic Herta estate, the head butler, Zikhaim, brought in a dashing young man dressed in a black butler uniform.

With a height around 180 cm and neat navy blue hair, the confident handsome man introduced himself as Helinante Ritz, the second son of the Ritz family. While shaking my hand, he grinned and looked me up and down, saying,

“Kid, you look good enough for the young lady to be smitten.”

That bombshell of a statement left Zikhaim flabbergasted.

After lecturing Helinante for over ten minutes right there, Zikhaim explained that he would be in charge of my training and would stick with me until my probation period was over.

Considering his looks, he seemed like someone who would likely waste his time fooling around, and the fact that he blurted out such stuff on our first meeting made his first impression pretty shaky.

However, as I lived with him, I found out he handled his duties as a butler quite neatly and diligently guided me, showing he was actually a decent guy, contrary to his appearance.

And after he had saved me a few times from being bullied by other butlers because I was a commoner parachuted into this position, I decided to completely drop any preconceived notions about him.

“Hey, are things going well with the young lady these days?”

…Even after that, he would still casually drop remarks that could get him burned to ashes by the Flame of Herta if Zikhaim or the head of the house happened to hear, but honestly, it’s a mystery how he has remained a butler until now without losing his head.

“Right, that was indeed something that happened.”

Realizing the conversation might get long, I briefly summarized my experiences from the wedding venue all the way back to the mansion while taking a stroll in the garden after our meal.

“First, I’ll say one thing.”

After hearing my story, he suddenly got serious and glared at me.

“What is it…?”

I couldn’t help but feel a bit tense from his sudden demeanor.

“You had the chance to carry the young lady like a princess and run with her, but instead, you blew it off because you were out of breath. Are you out of your mind?”

He maintained a serious tone yet was spouting nonsense.

“…Geez.”

Yeah, that’s typical of him.

“Enough with the jokes.”

“Half of that is serious.”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it.”

I brushed off his joke as usual and returned to the main topic to ask him a question.

“So, didn’t the young lady tell the servants anything about yesterday?”

“Well, the guards and the stablehands got overwhelmed before they could join her, so later they’ll search for the corpses and hold a funeral. Then on the way back from the plaza to the mansion, the Saintess saved her from an ambush by those zombies. The young lady only shared that much about her experience and just explained to be careful since those things are swarming the entire royal capital.”

He looked up as if recalling what had happened yesterday while talking.

“I see…”

That sounded just about right—Esmela had only summed up the necessary information for the servants.

Helinante, even after hearing that, had come to dig deeper and ask me for fine details.

“Geez, and zombies… it’s hard to wrap my head around how something unheard of suddenly seizes the royal capital. It feels unreal.”

He complained in an easygoing tone while clasping his hands behind his head.

“I feel the same.”

I agreed with him and looked up at the sky.

The garden scenery was the same as always.

However, looking up from the garden, all I could see was the light barrier Arith had cast covering the entire mansion grounds instead of the sky.

As we strolled through the grassy area behind the main building, chatting casually,

“…Ugh.”

I suddenly heard a woman crying from somewhere.

“Huh? Who’s crying?”

“Yeah, right?”

We began scanning our surroundings to find the source of the voice.

Not long after we started looking,

“Senpai, over there.”

I spotted a maid crouching under a decorative tree, crying.

“Where… Ah.”

Helinante looked in the direction I pointed and, with an ambiguous expression, said, “…It might be better to just ignore her.”

He turned to walk away in the opposite direction.

“We’re just going to leave her like this?”

His attitude felt different than usual. Helinante was the type of person to at least say something when he saw someone in trouble.

“No, man. Right now—”

“Who are you?”

When I turned to look at her, she had already lifted her head and was staring at us.

The maid who had been crying noticed us.

“Uh…”

I cautiously approached her to speak.

With her straw-colored, braided hair and large glasses that held tears in her eyes, she looked like an ordinary girl.

She seemed younger than me, probably a maid in training.

But for some reason, even though I had never seen her before, she felt oddly familiar…

As I slowly walked towards the sobbing maid, suddenly—

“…!”

Her expression changed radically as she stared at my face, and she jumped up abruptly.

“Don’t come near!”

“?”

She glared at me with eyes filled with hatred and shouted sharply.

“Why…?”

“…You killed Gilrot.”

With that single line, the maid dashed away in the opposite direction.

…Right, she was the maid who had worried about Gilrot just before he transformed yesterday.

“Just now, she was Tina, the maid in training who was close with Gilrot.”

Helinante, who had come up alongside me at some point, explained.

Thud.

He placed his hand on my shoulder, speaking calmly.

“It’s not your fault.”

“…”

“…”

After that, we returned to the main building in silence, without exchanging a word.

“I’m heading out now.”

It was time to work.

Esmela was probably busy even now, so I needed to hurry up and help her.

As I began trudging towards Esmela’s office, I tried hard to push the incidents from the dining room and the maid I encountered in the backyard from my mind.

“…Oh, man.”

Suddenly I heard Helinante’s irritable voice behind me.

“Hey, Lanit.”

He called me to a halt.

“What is it?”

“Hang in there.”

“…”

“Like I said before, everyone who’s looking at you strangely has no idea of the horrors of those zombies. I know because I fought those things directly in the garden. Bringing the young lady back safely from the plaza through those creatures, handling things so that Gilrot wouldn’t hurt others when he was transforming, and keeping him in check without relying on the Saintess—it’s all impressive achievements deserving of praise.”

He locked eyes with me seriously, pouring out his sincerity.

“…I’ve said what I needed to say. Now go.”

With that, he abruptly turned and walked away.

I stood there for a while, watching his retreating figure.

“I’m sorry I’m late, Young Lady.”

“Fine, it’s not like I have anything urgent to do right now.”

I bowed my head and walked over to Esmela’s desk in her office.

“You seem to be in a good mood?”

Seeing my expression, Esmela asked, puzzled.

“Really?”

Oops, I must be wearing my feelings on my face.

“You’re so carefree. Do you even realize the state of things?”

Her usual sarcasm felt oddly pleasant right now.

“…You’re really strange.”

“There’s no way. I’m just as usual. So, what should I do?”

I beamed brighter than usual at Esmela and asked for her instructions.

“…Hmm. Then take this list and go to the storage room to check if the items match what’s on the list. And…”

Just as I was receiving my usual work instructions from Esmela,

Crash!

“Ah!”

“What was that?!”

A sudden deafening explosive sound from outside the mansion rattled the office.

“Young Lady, stay here!”

‘What on earth is happening?’

I rushed to the window to check the situation, flinging it open to look up at the sky.

The barrier Arith had placed over the mansion.

Bang!

The light barrier was clashing with crimson fire arrows trying to pierce through it.