Netori: Stealing The Hero's Party!

Chapter 582: Time Marches A Cruel Hyme

Note: From next week, regular 2 chapter updates. Sorry for the chaos, now enjoy~

As Raven arrived at the Borethooth Inn, he found it as barren as a desert. No adventurers had gathered inside and the rooms upstairs sounded empty as well. No screaming of drunks, and no racking of loose beds as lovers made love on creaky beds. And it wasn’t until he heard the sniffling of a familiar voice that Raven realized what had happened there.

Following the voice, he walked inside the kitchen. There the stoves had been left running and the whole place was in disarray as if someone had left cooking halfway through the process. Upon moving closer, however, Raven saw Moxy sitting on the ground with her legs folded close to her chest. Holding herself tight, the fox-girl had been obviously sniffing for a while in that same position.

”Moxy?” With a gasp, she looked up and stared at Raven.

For a spell, she was stunned almost as if she’d ghost instead. But as she realized what was happening, she jumped up to her feet and leapt into the mage’s embrace. Holding him tighter than ever, she pressed her face against his chest and cried even louder. Muffling her cries against his chest, she gasped, groaned, and burst into a raging fit of coughs, all in less than a minute.

”Hey, hey…what’s going on?” Placing a hand on her head, Raven lightly brushed her hair and ears and pulled her further into his embrace. ”I’m here alright, what’s the problem, I’ll find a way to–”

”My father’s sick–I think he’s going to die soon…” And with that, the illusion that he could help shattered. Raven already knew that Dune was getting older and that his strength had waned quite a bit, but for Moxy to be crying this much, it was obvious that he was in a severely critical condition. ”I-I told him that I would bring us an in-house healer, but he won’t let me–I still tried but he refuses to take his medicine!”

”What?” Slowly moving Moxy away from him, Raven held her by the arms and looked into her eyes. ”Why is he refusing a healer?”

Taking a heavy gulp, Moxy wiped her tears. Grabbing Raven’s right hand she pulled it closer to her face and pressed her face onto it.

”He wants to die a natural death…he’s always been a nut about his demi-bloodline, but I never thought he would do something like this!” Her cries broken by hiccups, Moxy continued to brush her cheeks against Raven’s hand. In the comfort of his warmth at least she could think straight, otherwise every waking moment thus far had felt like hell. ”M-my mother–he says she died a natural death too so…he wants to follow her otherwise they won’t be united–not with her or the rest of his family.”

”T-that’s…” Raven had no clue what to say. He did not believe what Dune believed in, but to deny a man the way he wanted to die–he couldn’t do it and neither make Moxy do it either. For all they knew, they could end up trapping his soul as a restless ghost that died a death that he said he didn’t want. ”I’ll try talking to him.”

Although he knew that nothing could change Dune’s mind, Raven was willing to give it a try even if it only ended up in him getting yelled at.

”Y-you will! Thank you!” Grabbing both of Raven’s hands, for once Moxy held in her eyes a lively shine. ”Please! Please do! Talk some sense into him! please!”

Nodding back at her, Raven decided to follow her lead to Dune’s bedroom. Upon arriving there, he noticed Choux blowing cold wind at the demi-wolf’s head. Meanwhile, her drake sat in a corner, sleeping soundly. Lifting her gaze to match Raven’s, the old girl with a deceptively young look, stared at him for a moment.

”You are here to help, right?” As much as she trusted Moxy for being part fox like her, Choux was still dubious about the rest of the group despite having gotten her rifle back with her. ”I don’t want you to wake him up–”

”Enough kid…” Placing a hand on Choux’s head, Dune lifted himself into the bed with a grunt. His face red as a pepper was burning with a fever that was beyond anything normal. Choux’s cold breaths had helped him thus far, but the old man didn’t need a kid to look after him for so long. ”I’ll talk to him, you go outside and get yourself something to eat.”

Leaning back while pushing Choux out of her chair, Dune stared at Raven and kept patting the fox girl’s back until she finally began to walk to the exit. Once she had disappeared in the background, he took a deep breath and finally spoke up.

”You here to convince me to see a healer?” He asked, his eyes darting between Raven and his daughter.

”I can bring Erika here as soon as she wakes up, there’s no one better than her to heal your sickness away,” Raven responded, but instead of gratitude, he was met with a scoff.

”PAHH! AHAHAHA! As if…” Taking yet another deep breath, Dune felt his eyelids fluttering to the fever. ”I am old, you children. I don’t wanna live in a body that requires me to be bedridden forever.”

Opening his jaws, Dune moved his jaws around and the crackling of his bones could be heard.

”Hear that? My kind did not survive once their jaws grew weaker, I wanna die in tradition–I wanna join them in whatever hell that meets us.”

”DON’T SAY THAT!” Moxy yelled before quickly clinging on to Raven and pressing her face against his arm. Hissing with cries yet again, she stammered through her words. ”Y-you…you’re not dy-dying! How can you e-even think ab–about leaving me?!”

Wetting his mouth with what little saliva was left thanks to the fever, Dune cackled at her daughter’s tantrum and laughed as he spoke up again.

”Stubborn like your mother…When we moved here from our tribe, she was still carrying you in her belly. A fine demi-fox woman, her people did not like that she loved me and neither did my tribe like her.” Reminiscing about the past, his eyes grew dreamy. ”I told her our daughter will take after her, but she would insist that my feral genes were too dominant, ahaha…but look at you now.”

Lowering his head to look at Moxy, Dune laughed some more and spoke one last time.

”You look just like her. If only she didn’t die during…well that doesn’t matter. We both love you, Moxine.” Turning to look at her father at the confession of his love, Moxy’s eyes numbed once more. She wanted to speak, she wanted to tell him to hold on, but before she could, his eyes went cloudy as he spoke his final peace. ”Take good care of my Moxy, will you…hero?”

That night marked the last for Dune Boartooth, a father, a refugee, and a stern believer in one’s might. And in his death, being a demi-human he would not cherish the luxury of heaven but the woes of hell–that is if Athenia had not witnessed his passing. For the moment he had died, she ordered Raguel to grant all innocent demi-humans a grand passage into heaven.

Thus, uniting Dune and his wife, along with many families that had suffered through the infinite passage of time…