The girl looked at Alkayne for one second and just started crying, the zombie's jaw went slack at the offence and he brought one hand against his chest.
"I said, I wanted to ask a few questions- Don't make me use force, you little brat" he flicked her forehead, a small gesture that hurt a whole lot considering his strength and armoured fingers.
"Ouch! That hurts! Please be gentle with me…" she rubbed her forehead, a clear red mark already appearing upon its center.
"Just answer my questions, let's start simple, who are you?" still holding the girl up by her collar, he looked at her more closely, apart from the singular ferocious teeth upon her, she looked just fine, her hair were long and possessed a pale-blue colour, her eyes coloured like frost, in fact, the look of the pupils and irises were very reminiscent of ice.
She was dressed in a black robe of some sort, the fabric was rather solid as it wasn't even being deformed under Alkayne's grasp and her struggling, so despite not appearing very thick it seemed to be capable of preserving one's body temperature pretty easily.
Though, that probably didn't matter as her head, hands and feets were completely uncovered.
'Mmh, it is true that the inside of this place is suspiciously warm for no clear reason…'
Finally coming to halt as all this struggling was tiring her out, the girl caught her breath and responded.
"M-My name is Jiji, I am nun in the church of Dame-Sommer, also I am of marriageable age but you must offer a Heissbloom to Dame-Sommer before consummation! Otherwise I'll be cursed!" she explained as seriously as it gets.
"Calm down will you? I don't intend on marrying you…"
"Argh! You would ravage me without the proper ritual?! Oh, Dame-Sommer bear witness and have some pity on my soul-"
"I do not intend on 'ravaging' you either! Just keep answering the questions, what are you and other people like yourself called?" he knew with just the way this nun was looking at him that she was not convinced by his words.
"We are the Kalt… Excuse me good sir, but how come you do not know this already? Did you sprout from the ground or fall from the sky? Are you not one of the accursed?"
"I am not, are the accursed the guys like these?" he pointed to the creatures his soldiers had killed and piled up nearby.
"I presume that they used to be Kalts as well?"
"Well… It seems so but apart from this one teeth nothing else has happened to me, unlike these poor souls"
"Do explain how one is cursed" he asked, but the nun only shook her head.
"I have no idea! I had already transferred to this lonely church when the curse fell upon us all, I used to be a nun at the grand monastery but…"
"But what?" Alkayne saw her fidget around.
"...But I began getting a weird vibe from everyone, from the place itself and even from the people outside the monastery, so I packed my things and came here! This tooth had already grown by this time and the other nuns had already begun transforming because of the curse… I guess I count as cursed too because they wouldn't attack me" she looked at the corpses "Was it… Was it really necessary to kill them? They haven't done anything wrong even after transforming, in fact, they have kept on praying diligently…"
"They shall soon ascend to the one true state of being, their fate has moved in the right direction" spoke the minor lord "Now, speak more of your Dame-Sommer, is she the goddess here?"
"Dame-Sommer is the mother of green fields and warmth, she is the one who will bring back the weather spoken about in the ancient scriptures! But we must have displeased her, the snow only piles up more and there is no end and the accursed have to roam the mountains without goal, those who show signs of the curse are captured and thrown away from the villages, left to wander forever, in the cold…"
"How would you know that, I thought you've been here since before the curse fell?"
"I have seen it happen with my own two eyes! Oh… This is certainly why Dame-Sommer does not answer our prayers, the people are fearful and would throw away their own family at the slightest of signs… I have seen some untouched be thrown under mere suspicion, no matter what I did, they would be frozen to death by the time I reached them…"
'Mmh… So my instincts were correct, they aren't actually monsters, or at least, they used to be people…'
"How have you survived here alone? How long have you even been here for?"
"Huh? How long have I been here? I have no idea, one year perhaps? And I have just been catching hares in cages to eat, and using snow to drink" the second part was sensical, but Alkayne couldn't help but notice that she seemed to genuinely have no clue how much time had passed.
"Very well, one last question, why is this place warm exactly?" he could not quite pinpoint a good reason for it.
"She may be mad at us, but places where Dame-Sommer is worshipped are always warm! Which is why everyone dearly prays to her still, the warmth she shares to those with faith will never falter"
"Really?" Alkayne was doubtful, he did not sense an ounce of holy or divine energy within this church, only Jiji and the transformed nuns had held some holy energy, the building itself, or the heat did not at all.
Moreover, he knew that all godly influence had been pushed away a long time ago, The Great Silence it was called, the power divinities could wield had severely diminished, at least outside of their divine realm, he found it odd that the goddess of such a realm, with what he assumed was a rather small amount of believers, would somehow be able to send warmth to all of them, constantly.
"Let's go then, you're coming with us-"
"Wait! I'll freeze without my stuff! Can I at least get it?" the zombie examined her expression and shrugged.
"My room is this one…" she pointed, Alkayne, still holding her in the same manner, took her there and finally put her down, his large frame blocking the door.
"Huh… You won't grab and deflower me the moment I turn my back, right? Right?"
"What is your obsession with this?! I have no interest in your living, juvenile body!"
"Juvenile?! I am of marriageable age! An adult! I am not juvenile, I am just short because my parents preferred my siblings over me, alright?! And I know that ugly men prey on virgins, I heard it at the monastery!"
"Hurry up, lest I take you there by dragging you through the snow"