Netori: Stealing The Hero's Party!

Chapter 752: A Friendly Blade Against Allies

With blood-stained hands, Regalia sat in front of the gore. Her eyes lingered on her bruised knuckles, all the while, silence took hold of the small tent. A handful of soldiers had been accompanying her for a while, but everything changed once she dragged the guts out of the traitor’s bellies with her bare hand and somehow still managed to keep them alive.

Sitting in a pile of their own bile and intestines, the traitors screamed and howled until their throats bled until they choked themselves. And now, with their voices drifting into the underworld, their tormenter’s rage was finally sated.

Her anger at the giants, her frustration from being reprimanded by Raven too many times in recent days, Regalia had given in to her beastly side, and coming out sated on the other end, her humanity was now making her slightly upset with herself.

”Maybe...I went a little too far.” Lifting her head, she peered at the mangled corpses of Felix and Astra. Their limbs were torn right at the joints and cauterised quickly to prevent them from bleeding to death before they could answer the ex-general’s questions. Their eyes dangled from their sockets, and as for their lower side, they were forced to sit on cactuses until the unearthed plant burst into their rears.

’You put on quite a show...’ The voice of one of her three patrons echoed inside her head. ’I thoroughly enjoyed it, but now, you should probably rest.’

As if bewitched by those words, Regalia fell in her chair–thoroughly unconscious. Her new patron loved torture, but to keep the experience going, Regalia needed to be of sound mind and body, and by putting her to sleep, the very same patron had spared her from feeling regret–regret that would haunt her otherwise.

At the same time, Raven and his group had just returned with the unconscious body of the killer of saints. However, to everyone’s surprise, no one from Frazer’s party had come back with them. At first, many eyebrows were raised to question what had happened in the forest, but then Raven cleared things up as Mercedes and the Twin approached him.

”Before you ask, those bastards are still alive and in the forest. ’Staying behind to keep the area secure,’ at least that’s what that dryad said.”

”And you trust her?”

”Of course not, but what’s happening here?” Looking to the very tent from where the two had walked up on him, Raven narrowed his eyes. ”Everyone seems tense. Did something happen? And where’s Regalia? With Mono or Aradin perhaps?”

As soon as Raven turned his attention back to Mercedes, she quickly got up on her feet to get closer to his ear. Meanwhile, moving into the group, the Twin walked over to Felix and Astra, both of whom were standing beside Hilma.

”Regalia killed Felix and Astra; they were the traitors helping the poisoner.” The moment those words hit Raven’s ears, a sudden tussle happened behind him. But since his mind was caught up with the reveal, it took him a moment to respond, and in that time, the only thing he noticed was Hilma’s scream followed by deafening silence.

Turning around slowly, Raven noticed Hilma frozen in place like an idol. Her hand was grabbing the Twin’s back, while the Twin herself seemed like she was shaking a little from a dose of adrenaline. A coward she may have been, but it was she who had choked the clones out of their mana with her touch, much like how she’d used her version of Avarice to disarm Mono a while back.

”Wh-what the hell happened?!” Finally snapping back into her head, Hilma flipped the twin’s body and forced her to look up at her. ”What did you do?!”

”Let me go! I didn’t do anything to them!” Struggling to remove Hilma’s vice grip, the Twin looked around for help from the rest of the hero’s party. ”They were magic clones, damn it! Help me!”

”What...” Struck by her words, Hilma finally let go of the cyborg woman. Pulling her hand away, she just stared blankly in front, wondering how she couldn’t notice such an obvious trick; that too cast upon her nephew at the very least. ”Then where’s the real ones?”

Her voice barely a whisper, Hilma looked into the shaken cyborg’s eyes. But to that, the Twin didn’t respond. Instead, she glanced over to Mercedes and started moving away from the entire group.

”What’s going on?” Turning her gaze to Mercedes as well, Hilma’s expression dropped completely. Pale as a ghost, she could feel her heart pounding along with taking rampant breaths that made her slightly dizzy. ”Will anyone tell me what happened?!”

”Regalia–” And so, Mercedes told everyone the entire truth. Even the findings from the torture that had taken place inside Regalia’s tent. Blood and viscera were all that remained of her nephew and his friend, but of course, a guardian couldn’t take mere words for the truth, not in this case.

Thus, with her right hand clenching her chest, Hilma huffed and puffed her way into the tent. Then came a scream, a scream only a parent who’d lost a child could muster; followed by mournful cries and hissing. The last of her siblings’ blood was gone, reduced to mud on the soil. Traitor Felix may have been, but beyond that, the young man was still her only living family.

With it gone, she cried with her head rubbing against the dirt. Her eyes were red with tears, grief and even anger, but just for a moment, she wanted to mourn her nephew’s death.

At least, that would’ve been ideal had Regalia not begun mumbling as her consciousness slowly returned. Eyes as wide as an owl, Hilma gripped her great axe and brought herself back on her feet. Turning around, she towered over the slumping demi-human like a giant and in her rage, the axe, she swinged.

But alas, her blade was met with retaliation. Not from Regalia, but her Raven instead.

”Put the axe down, Hilma,” he said, pushing the axe back with a conjured darkness blade.

Struggling against him for a moment, Hilma let out her frustration with an ear-piercing scream, loud enough to scatter the birds taking refuge in the shadows of the tents. Falling to her knees, however, she cried once more and asked to be left alone, and that’s exactly what everyone did.