Netori: Stealing The Hero's Party!

Chapter 225: A Day Beyond Tragedy

The day past Lilith's death crawled every second, it felt much longer than usual as if every minute was twice as long. Everyone in the party already knew what had happened, and from the dejected look in Raven's eyes, they knew it had affected him a lot. Why wouldn't it?

Watching a person they knew turn into a monster, how could one not be in mourning especially after being forced to kill the creature that was taking over their body?

He was in no mood to talk much and it was much apparent, and thankfully for him, the convoy had arrived and was taking away the prisoners of the elves. He didn't have to do anything for a few more hours but keep an eye on the situation, and that's exactly what he needed before attempting to fulfill Lilith's last words.

'I'll finish the rest of the job, don't worry.' Reminding himself of that promise again and again, he wanted to sunder the monster clans as soon as possible. However, being no stranger to the deadly consequences of being underprepared, he didn't wanna take any action while enraged.

A few more hours, that's all that he would need to calm down for now. He'd tried regulating his emotion through the gift but the rage would quickly return, thus letting himself simmer through those emotions, he wanted to be naturally calm.

Watching over the automaton crowd mixed with some demi-human soldiers, Raven's eyes landed on Shamisha who'd come alongside the convoy. She was slowly approaching the party with a binder in her hands, and stopping a few steps away, she leaned to the side and stared into Raven's eyes.

"Hypertension?" Sensing disruption to his body language alone, she reached into her pocket and tossed Raven a locked bag filled with headache meds. However, explaining nothing at all, she began looking around at everyone. "Anyways, do you guys still don't need any help from the kingdom? I can always spare an automaton or two to aid you."

"No," Shifting his head to the side, Raven matched Shamisha's gaze. "I don't want you or your kingdom to later debate who actually pulled the most weight. Besides if the goddess wanted us to prove our worth for–"

Feeling a hand on his shoulder from the back, Raven stopped and turned to look. It was Amedith with a knowing gaze, reminding him not to let the deal between goddesses turn into common knowledge.

So far the people only knew that a new goddess' church would be established if the hero's party accomplished the task, but they had no clue about the much greater deal of Elenaria forming an alliance with Athenia against the will of the other gods.

"For what?" Shamisha inquired, frowning.

"Nothing," turning back to face her, Raven took a deep breath and sighed. "And if you're done we'd like to keep moving."

Although visibly curious with her head declining sideways, Shamisha rolled her eyes and scoffed the matter off.

"Fine, you guys can keep doing what you're doing, I have loads to do myself anyways," turning around the bunny girl began walking away and while the sight of her cotton-ball tail and hips swaying side by side was enchanting, Raven was in no mood to add another woman to his harem just yet.

Instead, focusing on the task at hand the party once again began their journey. The next clan to visit was supposed to be the Arachnes, however, since nothing was yet known of their kind or the traps lying inside that cave they lived in, Raven had decided to go up against the centuarians first instead. However, unlike the dark elves–this time the mission was supposed to last much longer.

"We need to infiltrate their city and learn more about them first," with the centaurs not being as brutish as the elves, their prisoners were often spared tortures and instead were worked until their bones would crack.

"Amelia, you'll be our guide," Raven asked the only centaurian in their group who was currently inside the red jeweled bracelet.

"NO! I can't fight!" She yelped, her voice tinged with anxiety.

"Well, you're gonna have to pretend at the very least," continuing to lead the party through the forest, Raven's mind was still racing with thoughts about Lilith. They were plaguing him, especially her last moments. The others were obviously unaware of this. Even so, they still knew that something was wrong.

'All she wanted was a hug…And I kept pushing her away until that monster took over.' More than the promise, his own actions bothered him. Had he known what was about to happen, he would've kept his mouth shut and let her have her moment.

Deep in thought, Raven was rushing through the forest, and being the fastest of the group the others were left behind in the dust. They tried to call out to him, but the mage only stopped upon hearing a rustling sound from the bushes right next to him. Conjuring a blade in his hand he jolted to the side to face whoever it was on the other end.

The rustling continued for a while until his party caught up to him and he felt confident in looking for what it was on the other end himself. To his surprise, a half-torn body of a dark elf was crawling in their direction with his hands alone.

"Hatiz…The last one." Just one look at him alone, and Raven knew exactly who he was.

He might not have seen him before, but the description of him by Lilith matched the body perfectly. However, the thing apart from the lack of a lower half that stuck out to Raven were the tiny holes drilled into his face.

"The fuck happened to him," Aria mumbled, cringing at the sight.

Worms were crawling in and out of his face holes almost as if his body was rotting yet it continued to move.

"An undead zombie?" Liliyana added, and everyone simply agreed.

Moving closer to the crawling corpse, Raven gritted his teeth and stomped Hatiz's face into the ground. Stomping it over and over again without stopping for an entire minute, the mage was taking out all of his frustration and the party stayed quiet. But as it was over, his eyes caught the trail of blood left behind by the crawling zombie.

'The cave, it should be there.' Having heard everything about the kidnapping plan from Tymaan, Raven knew exactly why the dark elf was there. And so came a decision, whether to abandon the initial plan to check out the cave or follow it and risk Arachne's reinforcement while trying to fight the centaurians.

"Nobody goes into their cave, not even the leaders of centaurs, right?" On the same train of thought as Raven, Erika walked up beside him. "If what Lilith told us is true, then the centaurs have a way to contact the queen in there, but even if it's vice versa, we won't have to worry about them marching into a death trap to save the spiders."

'A death trap.' Every one of them knew that that was exactly what it was, and yet their curiosity was drawing them closer. The Arachnes could leave the cave but nobody could enter, making it a perfect pincer if and only if the party could somehow slaughter them without triggering any traps. And there was one–no!

Two people in the party who could pull it off, yet their eyes only gravitated towards one of them–Raven.

"Been a while since I've pulled anything like this, but I guess there's a first time for everything." And so, abandoning the plan to infiltrate the centaurs first, the mage got ready to do what a dark mage does best–spying and killing his enemies before they could realize what had happened.