4
The moment Grimm utters her spell, the charm disappears with a burst of bright light.
All the fuss around Grimm suddenly stops, leaving only silence.
The dolls that were rampaging immediately stop attacking, and one of the zombies that was approaching us suddenly starts looking around curiously…
“Wh-whaffa? Whaf’s foin fon? Whaf fa feck if all liff…”
Evidently, its vocal cords are on their last legs.
The zombie notices it is the one trying to speak and looks down at its hands.
“…Whoa, I’m a fombie…”
It seems the zombie’s figured out what’s going on and glances around, at a loss…
Eventually, its eyes stop on Grimm.
“Lafy Frimm, Affbiffop off Fenariff… Um…”
Sounds like he wanted to say, “Lady Grimm, Archbishop of Zenarith.” The zombie looks to Grimm and breaks out in a wide smile when she nods wordlessly at him.
“In the name of Lord Zenarith, I forgive your trespass from the nether realm and hereby permit you to return to your slumber.”
“F-fank you…”
Her usual incompetence seems to have fled, and Grimm smiles as if to reassure the zombie, looking every bit the holy woman.
“Now go and resume your rest…”
Grimm, unfazed by the fetid smell of the zombie, reaches over and gently takes its decrepit hands in both her own.
The zombie closes its eyes as if at peace, then silently crumbles back to the earth.
Having witnessed Grimm’s actions, I—
“Emergency, emergency! This is Agent Six! Grimm’s been possessed! Requesting a skilled healer, over!”
“Hold on! If you’re going to nitpick about my current holy state, I’ve got some thoughts of my own!”
Five minutes later.
<Yo, Six, come in. What’s happening?>
I get an intercom message from Alice.
“Impressive, Commander. I didn’t think I’d end up using this ace up my sleeve. This is an evil…er, holy item I’ve been praying to for a long, long time. Let’s put an end to this. Now face the apex of disaster…!”
Faced with an excited Grimm, I suddenly come to my senses.
“We don’t have time for this! Hey, Grimm, get yourself together! The undead are still going on a rampage! You’re the festival organizer! You have no time to be playing around!”
“……?! Y-you’re right! What am I doing?! No, wait! Commander, you were the one who…! Besides, you were responding pretty enthusiastically yourself!”
After returning Grimm to her senses, I report the current conditions to Alice.
“Alice, the city’s a mess! I bought Grimm a necklace after she started tearfully clinging to me, and suddenly a stuffed cat that’s actually Gaddy Lad attacked us, and then a zombie went poof , and Grimm’s gone batshit insane!”
<You’re making no sense. Put Grimm on the line.>
I hand Grimm the small mic and teach her how to use the intercom feature.
However, the receiver for this intercom broadcasts incoming messages directly into the Combat Agent’s head, meaning I’ll have to interpret Alice’s side of the conversation.
“I see you’re carrying more oddities. So I just need to speak into this?”
“Right. Can you explain the current situation to Alice?”
Finally caught up thanks to Grimm’s explanation, Alice starts spitting orders.
<All right, I understand now. We just need to treat it like a terrorist attack on the city. I’ll get Snow to take command of idle knights and Combat Agents and work on restoring order to the city. You’re sure Gadalkand’s heading to the castle shrine?>
“She says she’ll hit the dolls with Snow and the knights. She’s also asking if you’re sure that Gadalkand’s heading to the shrine.”
“No doubt about it. That’s where we’ve been keeping Gadalkand’s head. The only reason he can act is because it’s during the Undead Festival,” Grimm replies with a deathly serious expression, and Alice goes quiet on the other end of the intercom. “Since it belonged to an enemy as high profile as an Elite Four member, we were cleansing the head in the shrine to eliminate any chance of Gadalkand’s return. But Gadalkand harbored so much hatred that we haven’t been able to complete the cleansing. The Undead Festival is when Lord Zenarith’s power is at its peak. My guess is that Gadalkand’s going to recover his head from the shrine and take advantage of the festival to return as a full-fledged greater undead creature.”
I’ve abandoned thinking for myself because of the complicated discussion and ask Alice to give me a summary.
“So what does this mean?”
<He’ll be at the shrine. I’ll bring you a weapon, so make sure you finish him off this time.>
Alice always gives easy-to-understand explanations.
“Oh, that’s no different from what I usually do. You didn’t have to make it sound so complicated; you could have just explained it simply like Alice did.”
“I made things pretty easy to understand! What exactly did Alice say?”
I ignore Grimm as she kicks up a fuss, turning my gaze to the castle.
“Target: hostile undead Gadalkand. Since we’ve got no one else who can fight today, Grimm, make sure you watch my back.”
“You’re going to make me walk barefoot to the castle?! Either carry me in your arms or on your back!”
Once things calm down, I’ll have to figure out an easy way to carry her.
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