Netori: Stealing The Hero's Party!

Chapter 682: The False Queen’s Plans

Hit with a splash of magma pouring through the cloudy sky, the city of Elenaris suddenly erupted into a crisis. Houses went off in flames, and although Elenaria took away the pain of her people just as Athenia had, the faithless objects like house and property still burned and there was little she could do about it beyond hoping that her chosen would do something to protect her city.

’I can’t talk to her anymore?’ Her words refused to reach the queen’s ears; instead, they were being diverted elsewhere before disappearing into thin air. Something was still off about the situation but with the lingering presence of something divine other than herself at play, she couldn’t find out the cause by herself. ’What’s going on?’

Lacking foresight as clear as Athenia, Elenaria was struggling to comprehend what was happening. What she gained in power through the stars and her army, her divinity in turn had to compensate by sacrificing versatility. A goddess as good as her followers who commanded an army large enough to strike fear in the hearts of elders, truly, there should’ve been little for her to fear, but life always finds ways to strike fear into the fearless.

The queen’s automatons moved with haste. Incapable of anything beyond defensive combat and a hint of offence, they were barely managing to control the fire, but little by little, the number of houses on fire was getting smaller and smaller. Some were burnt to a crisp of course, while the rest persisted thanks to the community and the unusual automatons working together.

As time went on, Elenaria’s attention turned elsewhere. From the streets of her burning city to the insides of the dark castle. Expecting to see Mono working on something, perhaps even her crab-like death machine, she was shocked to find her simply sitting at the ivory throne and staring at nothing. Her eyes were hollow, and the only person around her was the clone of Avarice.

None said a word, and yet the tension was palpable between them. Trying to peer into her chosen’s mind, she was quickly pushed away by an invisible force. Even as Mono’s lips moved, she couldn’t hear a thing, and the sound of Avarice’s retreating feet was also silent as if the world itself had gone mute.

’What is happening?’ Anxiety stormed through her heart, making her more and more uncertain about what was to come. For a thousand years, she has sat on her throne of stars, clad in the souls of every person that had died on this land; even gods added embellishment to her garments, for she was the keeper of souls, the goddess of absurdity, progress, and most important of all, the muse of the man who had kept this place and many beyond it, safe in Athenia’s absence.

Now more than ever, she wanted her late chosen back. But his life had been spent, and it was time for another. And from the looks of it, Mono was doing nothing but throwing mud on the legacy of her predecessor. Proud, nihilistic, and lacking trust in everyone and all. She was her own prisoner without realizing it, and even this farce being put up by her clone was no different.

Lost within herself, not knowing how to bring the magus and the god of time with her to her world, she sat quietly on her throne, trying to scheme and plot out a kidnapping. But kidnapping, right now, was far from a wise choice; however, lacking that knowledge, she had already set a plan in motion with Avarice.

”I’ll take him first and then negotiate with the god...” The clone said to herself, her expression neutral as ever.

Her plan wasn’t the brightest, but still, she had one more ace up her sleeve. Tucked close within her bosom, there was one last piece of her masterful engineering. A bomb of sorts, collecting mana at every waking moment and holding it deep within the clone’s shell, ready to detonate the moment her heart ceases to beat for any reason whatsoever. Having expected the god of time to stop time and deal with her as well, she had ensured that the apparatus went off the moment he tried and killed everyone in at least one-fourth of this world.

However, her body was no vessel of infinite capacity. The time was ticking, and with every passing day, the tragedy grew closer and closer. In spite of that, she felt it was better to die if she failed than live on with her tragedy.

Finally, getting off the throne, she made her way towards the lab once more. Keeping up the facade of innocence, she kept working on the death machine, but instead of working on it itself, she was breaking it down into smaller, much more capable machines. A set of three giant crabs, soon to be used by none other than the magus she wanted to kidnap.

But before that could happen, a message had to be delivered. A message to Raven and his party, being invited to the mansion to claim the set of three automatons that could potentially help them a lot during their fights. Or at least that’s what they’ll think, when in reality, the clone had no intention of letting them get away with even a single one of said machines.

A master of creating defensive machinery as well as capable prisons like her own cyborg body, she wanted the magus to inhabit one such machine so that she could trap him within it.

’He’s immune to poisons, isn’t he?’ She thought to herself, and so instead of using some form of drug, she decided to go with yet another deal, a deal with a devil in exchange for the souls of people that she’d turned into machines. Once their task was done and she had both the god and Magus with her, she would have no use for them after all, and thus, writing a contract alongside her letter to the hero’s party, she readied herself for her final act.

By this time, Raven had only just returned to Athenia after putting Helga and her daughters to sleep. But more importantly, the true queen had found a way to get back into the mansion, but whether or not she could get one of her bodies back, as well as her iron core to power the more intricate of protocols? Well, that remains to be seen.