Netori: Stealing The Hero's Party!

"Shield!" Blocking Amedith's blade with a basic mana shield, she coiled a tentacle of darkness around his hips and flung him towards the walls. Before he even hit the surface, however, another arrow from Mel was shot in her direction. However, unlike Avarice, Mono knew how to use that iron vessel of hers to counterattack.

Instead of trying to block it with the shield, she lowered her body and grabbed the arrow with impressive speed. And since the bulb-like bomb never touched anything, it didn't go off and the arrow was simply being held by Mono. That's when Amedith's body finally hit the wall and Mono faked throwing the arrow back at Mel before chuckling at her flinching reaction.

"Ahaha! Oh my god, you're so fidgety!" Fanning her hand in amusement, her head hung low as she continued to laugh. Unintentionally letting off the arrow, however, she blasted her own foot and began coughing out a lung from all the smoke.

"What's happening with her?" Raven mumbled, gesturing for everyone to get behind him.

"With me?" Wiping the smile off of her face, Mono looked directly at Raven. "Oh, I'm fine, just a little giddy from…"

Taking a deep breath, Mono couldn't help but smile again.

"I don't know why. Maybe because my experiment worked? Maybe 'cause I just came back to life?" Slowly moving closer to the cautious group, Mono stretched her hand forward to shake it with their leader. However, before doing so she noticed Regalia still bleeding without mana of her own to heal herself. "Lemme help."

Directing a finger towards the wolf-girl, Mono formed a bubble of mana and it began floating towards Regalia. Popping against the fur on her hand, the mana seeped into her body and began healing her wounds. In a matter of seconds, the bleeding had stopped and so did the pain, which in turn lightened the tensed expression on Regalia's face.

"Now, where were we?" Holding her hand still towards Raven, she put up a smile and decided to introduce herself. "I'm Mono, Mono Aurarelia–the maker of this vessel, or as my stingy assistant used to call it automaton."

The name meant nothing to Raven and the others, but Regalia who knew the history of the city was left dumbfounded. Her eyes were stretched wide and her brows frowned with doubts. Even so, looking behind at the mess she'd–or rather her vessel had made, she knew it was no time for an introduction.

"This stupid vessel of yours killed the young king," moving forward, she slapped the sorceress's hand away. "Who the fuck do you think is gonna replace him?"

"The princesses are still alive, no? Besides just from Avarice's memory of him, I'd say it best that she weeded out incompetence from our lovely kingdom," her sharp words cut Regalia deep, but when attempted to retort she had no clue what she was trying to protest. After all, even in her eyes, Zeil was incompetent and the kingdom was indeed better off without him.

"Anyways, how about we stop fighting and try to figure out what to do next? I'm not exactly too keen on unpragmatic dwelling in the past, I'd rather we just focus on the future."

"We have no fucking clue what's happening," turning to Regalia, Raven tagged her on the arm. "So we'll just leave you to deal with this, but the deal still stands as long as Elenaris runs on a monarchy. And that is Athenia's orders."

Relaying the goddess's thoughts to the only person there with any control over the matter, Raven turned to the rest of his party and decided to leave the mess for now. He wanted to come back to check how things transpired inside the castle, but for now, as things stood it was best for them to rest up, and make sure that they could handle the clans of monsters soon enough.

"Remember, even if this place is run by rats, you're gonna owe your faith to Athenia, especially since we took care of not just this mess, but also that festering on your kingdom's edge!" Parting with those words echoing throughout the castle halls, Raven and the party were on their way back to the inn to get some rest.

Left behind in the meantime, Regalia had no clue what to do, while Mono was already planning out her next moves with multi-thought processing. After just a few seconds of thinking, she had a pretty good idea of what needed to be done, but before she could do just that, there was one thing she thought was more important.

"Do you know if my lab is still there?" She asked Regalia.

Frustrated about the whole thing, the wolf-girl wanted to scream in Mono's face, but instead, holding herself back, she took a deep breath to calm herself.

"No…Now fuck off, before I lose my mind," turning her attention to the king's corpse, Regalia shook her head and took her leave from the room to get the maids to clean up the mess.

Usually, the king was given a grand farewell past his death, but since Zeil was never crowned and his body was beaten to a pulp the only place he could end up was the damned dungeon corpse pile.

'So much for a king…' Regalia complained, her mind made up to leave the castle once and for all. 'Fuck the princesses, fuck this place, fuck every goddamn thing about being a royal fucking guard! I just need…'

Wheezing through her teeth in anger, she took another deep breath and whispered.

"Some goddamn booze and a dick." Heading for the same Inn as the others, she wanted for once, to fuck up her mind and body both with booze and a competent dick.

Leaving the place with Amelia as the only surviving royalty and Mono wandering free, she gave up on her duties as a royal guard.