Netori: Stealing The Hero's Party!

"A horror was nesting in you and when Markus pulled it out you lost consciousness," Helga explained as briefly as she could.

"What?" Still a bit dazed it wasn\'t until about half an hour more had passed that Raven understood what had happened to him.

Feeling much better, mostly because of Erika resting his head on her thick thighs while healing him, Raven shifted his attention to the rest as they continued staring at him. Visibly concerned, everyone wanted to make sure he was okay, especially since most of them had no clue about the shadow horror being inside Raven before Helga told them about it.

"Are you okay now?" Mel asked, her eyes drifting to the sides looking at her teddy-bear-like creature summon. Bringing a steaming cup of herbs to her from the kitchen, the creature handed it to her master before wobbling its way back inside. "Here…This should help."

Placing the cup on the coffee table, she put on a weak smile while her heart was left aching from the weakened sight of her lover. Slowly getting up with help from Helga\'s hand, Raven sat upright beside Erika, he grabbed the cup and began sipping on the bitter herbal tea.

The quiet moment, however, only lasted for a few seconds as a sudden knock on the door turned everyone\'s head. Glaring at the front door, their bodies were frozen, except for Helga who put her finger to her lips to hush everyone before making her way to check on the door.

Having changed into her regular clothes, her movement was much easier to mask, however, summoning an ice spear she was ready to break that silence and let her presence be known.

"Nobody?" She whispered, seeing out through the peephole.

Everyone\'s shoulders relaxed for a moment but then Helga opened the door to check further. To her surprise and the surprise of others, the only oddity waiting for them on the side was a handwritten note. One that was inked with the words…

"Run Valkyrie run, the king\'s men are coming for the hero…" As soon as Helga was done reading the note, she quickly looked around before shutting the door and getting in.

Whoever had left the letter knew about the party\'s presence inside that house and that Helga was also there with them. Dazzled by the odd experience even the Valkyrie was left stagnant wondering just who could be this mystery helper, and whether she could even trust them blindly.

"Charm…" Breaking the silence by using emotion regulation on himself, Raven got off the bed and cracked his neck side to side.

With everyone\'s attention now on him, he stretched his arms back before addressing their worries.

"Ignoring that warning even if it\'s fake will be really dumb, but I think I have a better plan than running through this city of sediment," turning his head to the left at Erika, he offered her a hand to get up. Once she had taken his offer and was on her feet, he shifted his attention back to the others.

"Killing them might not be feasible for us right now, but since they\'re all coming here, planting a trap is always an option."

Conjuring a dark slime on his hand, Raven let it fall and the creature quickly made its way to the front door. Crawling up to the ceiling it lay there waiting for anyone to come so it could block their exit as an elastic wall.

"Aria, how many zombies do you think you can handle?" Raven enquired, his hand still conjuring more and more slimes to hide under the furniture and further impede any attempts at an exit.

As for his question to Aria, it took her a moment of thinking and an awkward exchange of glances with Helga before she could come up with a reasonable estimate.

"Ten, maybe twelve at most I think?"

"Didn\'t you control more dark elves than that back at their village already?" Amedith also chimed into the conversation.

Looking at the warrior, Aria squinted her eyes with annoyance.

"It\'s easier to control smaller bodies! I learned that while practicing on insects and smaller creatures!"

The conversation about the matter continued for a while longer, and as midnight approached, Raven had already set up everything that was required to subjugate the coming monsters. However, just in case it was a trap he teleported everyone but Aria, Erika, and one of the monster girls back to Linkle\'s shop.

Hiding as a shadow himself with Arche the Arachne queen in the improved monster holder gem, Raven laid in wait along with the priestess who\'d turned her body into transparent red mist. Unfortunately for Aria, the only thing she could do was get inside a wardrobe and just hope that she wasn\'t found before they could pull off what Raven had planned.

Runes of binding laid all over the floors, as well as the same runes used by Erika to protect Rose\'s farm from intruders. That is, a group of clones that looked indistinguishable from the party and would even fight against the centaurs and attract the centaurs in. The plan wasn\'t perfect by any means, however, it would prove as the most effective if it worked.

\'Any second now…\' Already hearing footsteps stomping on the bridge above the house, Raven knew that the soldiers were about to barge in. And when it finally happened, they didn\'t knock or say a word but rather kicked the door in.

"What the fuck?!"

"WHO ARE YOU?!"

"SHIT!"

Getting off of the sofa and chairs where the clones were sitting, they acted surprised and the centaurs took the bait and charged in. However, their stride didn\'t last long as holy light blasted from beneath them and froze their feet in their tracks.

\'Holy magic won\'t hold long because of that armor, I need to be quick!\' Walking out of the shadow, the mage ordered the slimes to seize the door and even bind around the centaurs\' bodies.

"WHO THE FUCK?!" Yelled the man leading the charge, his hands bound by the elastic slimes.

Unable to help but smirk at the helpless sight, Raven walked up to the battalion leader and looked into his eyes with a look of pure devious joy. Placing his hand on his armor as the monster struggled to move, Raven whispered some words that would even chill a devil.

"Your daughter, your wives, and everyone you know, I\'ll make sure they never give birth to another one of your kind but rather breed with the worst of horrors to fuel a certain witch\'s curiosity…" As the leader realized what Raven meant, his eyes widened with horror but before he could utter anything, he was sucked into the monster-holding gem for Arachne to tear apart and exact revenge for using her clan for experimentation.

"Who\'s next?" Said the hero, smiling ear to ear like a horror himself.

As his eyes met the others, even from behind their helmet, Raven could sniff out their fear and the unfortunate smell of their urine.