Netori: Stealing The Hero's Party!

Chapter 804: Been A While

It had been a while since Raven had gone out for a scouting mission himself, but with none of the army scouts present, he had decided to pay the tower a quick visit. Sneaking through the shadows, he slipped under the guards’ noses, but when he tried to just go through what appeared like a passage leading to the other side of the wall, he found himself walking through the invisibility barrier again and again.

Eventually, as it became clear that somehow, somewhere, the barrier knew that he didn’t have permission to cross this place, he instead focused on the task at hand. Which was to check up on Justice Dealer and Ditsy. Catching a glimpse of the old judge while making his way up the tower, he followed him into the meeting and remained in the shadow of the old goat beastman.

Closely listening to the entire thing, he learned everything that he needed to know. Even the fact that Ditsy was helping Ironheart and Eren, along with holding an alpha, amongst other horrors, in her basement lab. Her sudden disappearance was unfortunate, too quick for him to figure out how she disappeared and where she went, but once everyone had scattered, he made his way downstairs, hoping to find this lab of hers.

A quick look at the horror and cleansing it of its corruption was all he wanted. Otherwise, it didn’t seem like the vampire cared much whether or not it broke free and caused more chaos in the tower. After all, if that were to happen, then whoever it was whose permission Raven needed to cross the barrier might get affected as well, and their journey forward might come to an abrupt end.

Making his way further and further down, Raven kept to the shadows. Sneaking through corridors under the guards’ noses, a tossed rock, a sudden whistle—he used everything he could to confuse them without raising too much of an alarm. And yet, despite being undetected, he felt a strange sensation washing all over him. A glare, a presence, a devil on his shoulder–whatever it was followed him into an elevator that took him straight to the basement floors.

Much like the spire, the elevator had many buttons; however, the number of underground buttons was far greater than the surface and above. Like the underside of a flower, the tower curled around the city with its petals–the walls coming out of the ground and encasing everything within. Of course, the hero had no clue how the system worked or where he would find the horror that he was looking for. And so, pressing the very last button, he decided to travel up and clear every floor before making it back to the surface.

One after the other, the elevator descended through ominous, red-lit floors. Getting darker and darker as it went further down, to his surprise, the door opened on a floor even though it wasn’t the one he’d selected. As the doors opened, an old man in a cloak with grey, hanging skin walked inside. Then the elevator started working again without him having to push any buttons.

Hiding in the shadows as a shadow himself, Raven kept a close watch on the man, hoping he wouldn’t see him.

”I’m not here for you today, young hero...” Turning his head in the direction of Raven’s shadow, the glass-eyed man gave an eerie smile. ”Your time will come, but I’m here for someone else today.”

As soon as he was finished talking, the door opened in front of him, and the man walked away. Dragging his cloak on the floor and with a limp in his legs, he continued with his match as Raven once again pushed the last underground floor’s button.

’Who the heck was that?’ He thought. There was no sign of corruption in the man; in its place was a hollow divinity. Not a deity or a god, but something close, perhaps even an angel, but how and why could he be here? The only thing Raven could do was speculate.

Upon arriving at his destination, a surprise awaited him. A room lined with massive glass containers with monsters held within lay in front of him. Walking out of the elevator, he noticed a few people in black and white coats busily walking around. Their heads were either lowered to their notes in hand or their eyes were occupied with studying the creatures in the glass. Most, if not all of them, were also as pale as candle wax, and with ruby red eyes and a near identical appearance of a young woman with a pixie cut, the entire place felt like a colony of ants.

Though he walked normally at this point, the ants ignored him. To them, he didn’t exist at all, for they already had a task, and that’s all they had. Keeping up the barrier, draining monsters of their power to fuel the damned thing, and most important of all, experimenting to learn more about the ever-changing nature of the creatures above the surface.

Beyond confused by the whole thing, Raven stood still and watched as the women rushed everywhere. Like clockwork, they came and went to their stations. Registering temperature, mana output and relaying it to the other side of the room through a strange rectangular device held in each of their hands. The ringing and the receiving of verbal messages reminded the hero of his own way of communicating telepathically or through the ring.

’Wrong floor?’ He pondered, and he was right. The very base of the tower was the source through which it bloomed. And it wasn’t the elect whose permission was needed, but rather the manipulation of the apparatus down here to open a pocket through which he and his party could go to the other end. Even so, without permission, there was no way he could manipulate the machines down here.

’Another floor, I’ll come back here later.’ And with that thought, he left the colony of clones, a vestige of the otherworlders that had once settled in this city after the holy war and eventually perished from old age.