If there was one thing that they never expected Miyuki to have extensive information on, it was zombies.

"Well, I find them very interesting. The zombie originated in the African-Caribbean belief system of Voodoo, which told of the dead being brought back to serve as workers for a powerful sorcerer. The word 'zombie' itself is called 'zombi' in Haitian, which means 'spirit of the dead.' According to legend, a zombie is someone who has disgraced his or her community to the degree that they can no longer stand to live with this person. The community then hires a sorcerer to turn this person into a zombie."

Konata found this quirk incredibly amusing, at first. A love for gore would normally take away from the Moe factor, but the innocent face Miyuki had while she was describing eating habits was just too precious for words.

(The information itself, though, was not as fun to hear as she thought it might be. It was all about mythology and history and biology, not the good stuff, like dismemberment. Her disinterest was to be expected, of course—the only zombies that Konata had ever known were the kind that she would slay with her Level 90 Fire Ranger.)

Kagami, who was a bit of an enthusiast herself, enjoyed the discussions she and Miyuki could now carry about the undead. One of them, in fact, she was able to use as a subtle revenge against that damn otaku.

"I've been thinking, those chocolate cornets you're always eating…"

"What about them, Kagamin?"

"I'm absolutely certain now that the fat end is the head."

Miyuki covered a smile with her hand. Konata noticed this, and was not too sure she liked where this was going.

"Yeah, because it's like a caterpillar, right?" Somehow, she doubted it.

"Nope. I'm starting to think that it's like a fresh zombie." Kagami said.

For the first time in her life, Konata did not understand an inside joke. This was not a pleasant feeling.

"Why? Because it's delicious?"

"Because when the chocolate leaks out, it kinda reminds me of oozing brains."

"Ah, actually," Miyuki piped in, "The thin end is more like the head. It looks to me like an overweight zombie that's been chopped in half at the waist. Only… there are no entrails, it's all been blended together."

"I think that's going out on a limb, Miyuki." Kagami said. "Besides, it would need another chocolate-filled bulb above the thin end for that to work. The thin part looks more like a neck than the whole head. Zombies need their heads in order to eat brains, and it would be a pretty boring zombie if it couldn't at least gnaw something. The poor thing would starve to re-death."

"Wrong," Konata said. All attention turned to her. "You're both wrong. They don't bleed or chop in half like that, they just flash red and fall over. Then you get 10 XP points."

"Those are your stupid video game zombies! We're talking about real zombies here, Konata! The kind made with, with…"

"Solanum."

"Thank you, Miyuki. With Solanum!"

"But didn't you just say that zombies were made by powerful sorcerers?" Konata asked.

"Oh, that's not how they're actually made. The Voodoo sorcerers put the people into a half-dead state with a powdered neurotoxin, whereas real zombies come from a virus called Solanum, which uses and destroys the cells of the frontal lobe. After a Solanum infection, all bodily functions cease, and the victim completely dies before the corpse is reanimated as one of the undead."

Tsukasa, who had been sitting there for the whole conversation, finally pushed her food away. Her face made it quite clear that she would not be sleeping tonight.