Netori: Stealing The Hero's Party!

Chapter 853: Arriving Home One By One

With Erika, Mel, and Aira back home, the rest of their companions and friends were not too far behind them. The first to come after them were Amedith and Liliyana, both of whom had taken a small detour to clear their heads before arriving at the mansion. Moxy and Choux soon followed their scent. Shutting their business for a day, the girls came with the dragon and a chilled wooden ice box full of expensive ale.

Sitting in the open air with the hero’s group, Moxy started opening the bottles and passed them around. Staying by the front gates, they watched the paved road for signs of anyone else they knew coming back home. Bottles were toasted, and stories were shared, but they were mostly confident in what the party had seen and not what they felt and had experienced. The threat of Nerva was already a cloud looming overhead, and to share it with someone like Moxy and Choux would be like sharing a curse to damn the other person for no reason at all.

Thus, with some secrets trapped in their chest, the party drank and drank some more until the sun was high and food was served to them by the maids on trays. Midway through their lunch, however, a flash of blue bloomed before the gate, and out came Maria, with Hilma, Ophelia, and Amelia standing right behind her.

Wasting no time at all, the ex-queen motioned Tan to come close and take her bag. Doing just that, the butler handed the items gathered from the rest of the guests as well to the many maids and informed them where to set them. For Ophelia and Amelia, the mansion was more of a home than the rest, and so quickly walking in, they did a few gestures of the hand, and the servants instantly knew what they wanted.

”We’ll wait here in the meantime,” sitting on the grass with Ophelia, Amelia’s head was still at the same level as the rest. Looking around their faces, she gave them a smile and said. ”Been a while since we all gathered and just relaxed, hasn’t it?”

”It sure has,” Maria responded, pulling herself a chair at the table.

Leaning back with her eyes roaming all over, she was about to ask for a bottle when Amedith decided to ask her a question instead.

”You didn’t bring Hannah?”

With a shrug, she eyed the bottle in front of Amedith and snatched it for herself.

”No, Mono will bring her to the banquet,” she said, taking a quick sip.

”Melenai will come by then with her companions and the city’s hero’s family around the same time. Raven asked us to inform that shop keeper, dark elf, and Elowen too, but can’t say I’m positive about that man arriving.” Nodding at Ophelia’s words, everyone wondered just who else they might be forgetting to invite for the reunion. Aria, however, was thinking something else entirely–a plan which she had to abandon thanks to the chaos that had spurred in Eclanor during the war against the demon general’s army.

’Dandy, was her name right?’ Taking a sip from her bottle, she leaned back in her chair and tried to think of a way to have the girl join Raven’s harem as the second dark elf girl. They’d bonded over other people’s hatred of their race, after all, and if the word sister had any meaning when she’d said it, she wanted the young dark elf to be the hero’s second dark elf wife right after her. ’I will try to talk to her again.’

Unbeknownst to her, however, Raven and Dandy had already gotten intimate. Thus, her plan had a much greater possibility of succeeding than she expected.

”Hey, now that we’re all here,” leaning forward on the table, Erika tapped the end of her bottle against it. As all eyes turned to her, she pointed a finger at Maria. ”You still have that red devil’s potion? The one that the crimson witch gave you? I almost forgot about the things she sold to us, never got to use them, but maybe now that we’re here, we might get a chance?”

For a spell, nobody was sure what Erika was talking about, but then it crossed their mind–the crimson witch, the very same who’d saved Hilma from dying.

”Yes, I have the potion,” tilting her head, Maria passed the bottle back to Amedith. ”It’s in Eclanor, though. I don’t want to carry that strange thing everywhere.”

”Whatever, I was just curious.” Turning her head to Mel, Erika smiled but only faintly. ”I bet you forgot to wear that bra that she sold you–the one that can help you change the size of your chest? The lingerie that makes your skin seem and feel like a layer of oil is lathered all over it, that too.”

”Oh shit...” Staring at the ground, Mel faintly remembered putting everything she’d bought into the bag with endless space–the very same she’d also brought from the witch, as did the rest of her group. ”Fuck, I might have to check where it is.”

”Gods, Meimei’s items too–” taking another sip, Aria peered into the sky. ”I forgot that we had them; I never got to use their skill, so it’s in the bag with the dark earrings.”

”What else did you guys forget? All of this sounds important,” though she had no idea what the girls were talking about, Moxy couldn’t help but wonder what other important information they’d forgotten simply because of their stressful journey. ”Maybe this rest was more necessary than you folks realized. Especially if you’re forgetting these things.”

Despite not being involved in their chaos, Moxy had just made more sense than their own thoughts did. Somehow along this journey, the party had come to know the new and had forgotten about the old. And to that effect, Erika raised her bottle and roused a toast.

”To resting our souls and healing!” She declared, and with the clang of glass, the drinking fest continued while the rest of the group members and guests arrived one by one and across many days of the week. Until finally, the hero came, and so did the preparations for the banquet begin.