Netori: Stealing The Hero's Party!

Chapter 808: A Poisoned Deal

Upon his arrival back at the inn, Raven was met with worried looks all around. Masked as regular people, the party was gathered in his room, with Garcia also being present. Having kept their lips shut for the most part, the elf still assumed that Erika was the mistress of some noble line and the rest of the group were her entourage. But why were they here, and what were they doing besides trying to cross to the other side of the tower? She had no idea. Fortunately for her, her mind was occupied by more important matters.

"All of this..." With a stilted expression, she stared at Raven. "It’s not that I don’t trust you, but Fortuna herself giving you and the others an audience, not to mention Mesmerazia too. What deal would they even have to make with you? It’s not like you’re a chosen or a hero or anything."

Seeing no point in hiding the truth anymore, Raven looked to the others and gave them a nod. Moving their hands over their faces, the entire party, except Erika, took their masks off and turned back into their original selves. Blinking with surprise, Garcia recoiled out of her chair. With a hand on her chest, she felt her heart pounding, for it was her first time realizing who these people truly were.

As her gaze returned to Erika–the only one that didn’t require a mask, she shook her head and asked herself just how she could’ve not realized sooner. A noble lady that nobody had seen before, accompanied by people who’d also never been spotted in town. It should’ve at least been suspicion, and now that she’d seen everyone’s true faces–faces that matched exactly with the rumored party of heroes.

"A-Amedith...now I remember," slowly turning her head towards Amedith, the elf tried to swallow her angst. "You said his name before."

The moment her eyes turned to Raven, he was already looking back at her. Fear and anxiety had taken hold of her already anxious heart. The elected were one thing, but to land in the hands of a potential enemy? Made her feel like a mouse who’s walked into its own deathtrap.

And yet, as Raven held his hand up in her direction, she feared him but not as much as those assassins from that night. Somehow, deep within her mind was trying to rationalize everything after all, if he truly wanted to kill her, it would’ve happened by now already.

"Y-you’re all monsters." Slowly coming back to her senses, she looked around at everyone’s faces. "I mean, monsters that fight other monsters, but still, monsters..."

"We just need passage across the tower, that’s it," Raven said.

Turning towards Raven once again, Garcia wondered if her decision to trust him was the right one after all. However, instead of relying on conjecture, she took out her coin and gave it a toss. As it landed back on her hand with a blackjack on top, she heaved a sigh of relief before speaking up.

"Our deal stands then," placing both of her hands on her hips, her body pumped up for a second and then fell back down. "I didn’t expect to be working with the dread dark general, and umm..."

Glancing over at Erika, she gulped.

"The priestess that sank a city to the hells," looking over to the others as well, she added. "To be honest, all of you seem relatively normal. From the rumors, I was expecting horned beasts and monsters."

"Hey!" Liliyana retorted while reaching for her horns.

"A-apologises, I didn’t mean any offence."

With a light nudge from Amedith, the devil girl let the comment go. Still a bit rattled by the whole thing, however, Garcia tried to pat her heart into calming down. In the meantime, the others settled back into their chairs, and Raven told everyone what kind of deal had been offered by the goddesses.

A key to the other side, as well as the recruitment of one of the most influential goddesses. The elusive luck that could help them in a pinch, or cold, hard resources, and a weapon straight from a goddess’s personal collection. A hard choice to make for the party, but an even harder choice for Garcia for a different reason entirely.

Sitting on her chair, her mind raced with troubled thoughts. If the goddesses were finally breaking their truce, that meant that the city of Inktaus would probably fall into one of their hands, while the other would be cast aside or exiled. Voted in by the faithful of those very goddesses, she knew that blood would flow and so would riots, plunder and the most heinous of acts under the pretence of the riots.

"You...you can’t take their deal. None of them!" She exclaimed, her eyes lifting from the ground and looking right at Raven.

"What is this now?" Too tired of playing pretend, Erika leaned forward and glared at the elven woman. "You’re mostly already proven innocent. We go there tomorrow, and you’re done. We held our end of the deal doesn’t mean we can’t also make a deal with someone else. Besides, you have no idea about the kind of stuff that we have to deal with out there in the desert and beyond!"

"But the people here! If the alliance between the goddesses breaks, they’ll massacre each other!"

"Can’t the winning goddess do something about that?" Amedith asked.

Shaking her head in response, Garcia placed a hand on her chest and protested further.

"You already know that gods can’t directly meddle with mortal affairs. Blessing and small stuff like giving magic items like my coin are fine, but to prevent us from killing each other? If they could, couldn’t they have prevented so much suffering and death by now?"

"I guess you’re right..." The magus whispered back, his eyes turning towards Raven.

Heaving a heavy sigh, he tried to think what to do next, but since a lot had happened, he decided.

"We’ll think about this in the morning. That gives everyone some time to mull it over."

"That’s...better than nothing, I suppose," Garcia whispered, and with that, the night grew darker, but it was far from over...