Netori: Stealing The Hero's Party!-Chapter 646: A Handful Of Guests
A throne of ivory–is not particularly comfortable. Not for the clone of the queen, at least, and the colossal size of the thing made her feel strange about even sitting there. In her own world, she was an inventor, and that's all that she was. Stricken by the curse of mortality, she designed herself a body–half flesh and half metal to keep herself from fading with the passage of time.
Two hundred and fifty years had passed since then, and just until a few years ago, she was helping the hero lead the charge against the demon lord and his army of the corrupted. She provided him with soldiers of iron and every resource necessary and willingly gifted by the monarchy.
'And now it's gone. Only dust remains of my homeland.' Lost in memories, the clone fussed over her past. Elenaris was far from the ideal place to live, but from what she'd seen through the window in her room, it was a thousandfold better than what had remained of the best of lands in her own world.
Squeezing the armrest, her mind drifting about, she promised herself to take both the hero and the god of time with her. However, as a sudden audience walked through the gates of the throneroom–none of whom were the demi-human ministers of the council- her eyes squinted in doubt, for she couldn't recognize even a single one of them.
'Does this world have nothing in common?' She thought, glaring down at the party led by Raven as they walked up to her. Studying their faces, she tried to deduce who they were, but lacking any knowledge of this world, she instead called out to Avarice and told her to keep her army ready in case there came a need to forcefully subdue the visitors through nefarious means.
"So…" Walking up the tall steps, Raven looked into Mono's eyes. Holding her stare, he studied the queen just as much as she had. "What happened here? You seem a bit tense, almost as tense as the goddesses."
"Hmm? You're imagining it," forcing a smile on her face, Mono got off the ivory throne and extended a welcoming hand. Unsuspecting, Raven gave her a handshake, and although the thought of searching her memory lingered, after last time, he didn't wanna do it again and upset her just when the queen was easing up on the chaos. "Forgive me, but I…"
Pulling her hand away, Mono shook her head and grabbed her skull. Gritting her teeth shut, she clung onto Raven's shoulder and whimpered in pain.
"I…I'm having some memory issues. Can w-we talk somewhere private–maybe you can help me refresh my mind?" Although many eyebrows were raised inside the throneroom, and Lilyana could sense something off about the flood of emotion in the queen–the party decided to place their trust in Mono and followed her to an adjacent room.
A small desk with a handful of chairs rests in the middle. The secretive meeting room hadn't been used in a while, so much so that the furniture was still kept to support the late king–a giant of a man.
Taking a seat and offering the others the same, Mono continued on with the pretense and the longer she seemed to ache, the more concern grew in everyone's heart. The throbbing inside one's head, who hasn't felt it with a migraine? And that shared knowledge alone was masking the truth staring Raven and his party in the face.
"Tell…me what you guys have been up to. I'll talk as soon as I feel a bit better." Glancing up with her head on the desk, Mono urged Raven to reveal what they'd been experiencing back in Athenia. The attack from outsiders, the march of the priestess to another god's city as a warning, and finally, the goddess's concern about not being able to see the entire city of Elenaris.
'That's it, I can capitalize on the anomaly.' Hiding a smirk, Mono lifted her head, yet still carried a well-written expression of hurt on her face.
"D-do you think–Do you think, whatever it was, affected me as well? I'm her chosen after all, aren't I?" Having heard of Elenaria and all, the clone gambled on the fact that the queen must be a chosen for a city named after its goddess. And to credit, she was right.
"I can't say but…" Shrugging his shoulders, Raven looked around at the other three. "It could be so, maybe they were targeting you, and that's why this happened in the first place?"
"Sounds about right," Helga added, her eyes not leaving the queen's sight for a moment.
As doubtful as everyone was, there was little reason for them to jump to any sudden conclusion. After all, nothing but the chosen's memories were targeted, and everyone and everything else had been left as is–at least to the degree that they knew.
"What now?" Still confused about what happened in the city, Amedith–still wearing his deceptively feminine clothes, decided to press just a little more. "We head back to our city, and when something else happens here, come rushing here again?"
"Amedith's right, we need to find out exactly what happened before we leave. Who knows, maybe the enemies cried wolf on purpose, to deter us from checking on the city again when this happens?"
'Amedith? That's Amedith?! Dressed as a girl?!' Wide-eyed, the clone stared at the magus. She couldn't believe the contrast in appearance between the hero of her world and this one. Glancing back and forth while everyone was busy talking to each other, she couldn't swallow as there was no way in the hells that the person–or rather the magus-who she'd come to kidnap was sitting in front of her dressed as a gothic spy. 'That's really the hero…but then why is he letting this guy talk? Who is he anyway? This Raven character…'
While the clone suffered through confusion in her own head, the other kept piling up theories about what must've happened, and as farfetched as some of them were, Raven couldn't dismiss them since he had no clue as to what exactly had happened. Thus, pondering in that massive chair, he remained quiet and tried to find a way to discern what to do next. Glancing momentarily at Helga, he thought of leaving her behind, especially since her daughter and her already owned the dark sand beach.
"Can I entrust you with the city for a while, Helga? Just until we figure out a way to find the root cause of what happened?"
"Hmm?" Raising an eyebrow, Helga gave the idea a quick little thought. "I suppose I can get my daughter back to training. I'll send them back at the first sign of trouble, and well…"
Turning her head to Mono with a light smile, she demanded.
"I want a house, a big one in the city. Give it to me and you have yourself a deal." As it seemed that agreeing to her demand would send everyone back to their home, Mono nodded at Helga, and an agreement was reached.
To her dismay, however, the party didn't leave. Instead, they decided to check around the castle as well as the city before leaving for home.
'Just my luck.' Clicking her tongue as she watched the party walking away, the clone quickly informed Avarice to remain in hiding and keep the army of thousands of soldiers ready to kidnap and slaughter the civilians if that's what was needed to make the heroes submit.
