Netori: Stealing The Hero's Party!

Chapter 478 Aran - The Encumbered

A few days have passed since the departure of his finest soldiers and not a single word had arrived from the vessels. No pigeons, no letter, nothing but quiet disappointment had taken over his mind. Assuming the Djinn queen had cast some spell on his soldiers, Aran turned to his council only for them to sit quietly with only Maryline the eldest blabbing on about her mind.

"It has only been a week my lord, you worry too quickly," her cackling bounced off the walls and echoed through the halls, all the while, the other wise men and women scorned her with curses behind sealed lips.

Pacing about in the hall, Maryline kept tapping her stick on the dark tiles veined with gold. It was her way of warning the dissents to keep their thoughts to themselves. She'd used the same method to berate and beat the confidence out of the young wise men and women, and even in their adulthood the council couldn't break out of their fear for that woman.

The king was no longer ignorant of the woman's hold on his council, even thus he held his tongue as did the other, but not for the reason as the cowards he'd surrounded himself with.

"Bring me my sword..." He uttered and the council gasped.

Maryline turned quickly to the king and almost slipped on her cane, but keeping herself up somehow, she gazed up at her king with a horrified quiver in her eyes.

"B-but my lord!"

"SILENCE!" He ordered, Aran have had enough of cowardice in the halls hosting the souls of their ancestors. Slamming his fist on the armrest, he glanced across the many cowards before bringing his gaze back to the withered witch. "Consider this mercy Maryline, I now know how you've crippled these could-be prodigies, these descendants of our ancestors!"

"Wh-what?!" Letting go of her cane in fear, the old woman tried to step back but fell on her bony bum. Panting as her eyes stared into his bloodshot silver gaze, she reached towards the light beaming from behind the throne. "But I-I...I helped you so much! I made you who you are! How coul–"

Unable to shake the feeling of doom from his head, Aran knew that his soldiers had perished in one way or the other, leaving only him as a renowned warrior in his kingdom to defend his ancestry's dignity by putting a rest to whatever it was that had taken them down.

'I'll strike them down before they set a single foot on our land.'

Making himself that promise, he walked into the armory with burning vigor strong enough to strike down a horde of steel dragons. And speaking of the kind, downing his armor, throwing his great sword over his shoulder, and seeking deep within for the power drawn from the souls of his enemies, he walked through the passage in the royal armory that led deeper into the treasury vault.

There she rested, seated on a crown of riches–the steel dragoness, Galleria.

"Here to bring me another treasure to guard, Mathew?" Said the dragoness with an elusive smile and in a whisper. Seated on piles of gold, other riches and a ruby-scaled throne, the dark-horned dragoness with a hint of violet running along her spiraling horns, knew exactly why Aran was there and yet she loved to push him around.

Walking into the treasury with the silver vault behind Galleria, Aran dragged his sword along the diamond tiles–a warning of sorts for the steel dragoness, the very last of her herd left alive. Seeing how easily the tip of his sword cut through the diamond, the dragoness hopped off of her seat and whistled playfully.

"Aye~ Aye~ Captain, go ahead it's all yours anyways, am I right?" Tipping a small top hat in the image of a jeweled crown, she let Aran browse through the treasure and whatever world-shattering artifacts his ancestors and he had locked inside that vault.

Watching him pass with a smile on her face, the dragoness couldn't help the thought.

'I wonder which species he'll turn extinct this time?'

Being the last of her clan, she knew all too well how this was about to end.