Netori: Stealing The Hero's Party!

Late at night, it was time for Regalia to check on the ship's repairs. It had been two days since the repairs had started, most of the broken planks had been replaced and the remaining damage was minimal, even so, the hull's interior needed more work–something Regalia had to go inside the ship to check.

'Shouldn't Reina be the one doing this?'

She thought while walking up the ship boarding plank. The blacksmith was more versed in shipbuilding than her, but tired of work back in Athenia and on the ship already, Reina didn't even want to look at the thing just yet.

"I'm a fighter, not a quality inspection officer…"

Heaving a sigh deep in her thoughts, she walked across the ship's deck before reaching the stairs that led into the hull. Climbing down the stairs while still distracted with her thoughts, she failed to notice that none of the workers were present inside the ship, much less working on it. They could've just gone to sleep or gone into town for a meal, but Baylee hadn't allowed that yesterday–something Regalia would've noticed in an instant had she not been so distracted.

Deep in thought, she arrived at the door where the gunpowder and the scrolls were being kept locked behind. Finally, pulling herself out of her thoughts, she looked around at the place and grew slightly concerned by the lack of workers. Instead of standing by and doing nothing, however, Regalia decided to move further and check the room just in case. But the moment she grabbed the lock on the door, it dropped open in her hand without a key.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

Holding her shock behind bated breaths, she dug into her palm with her nails and conjured a shield of her blood in one hand and a morningstar in the other. Slowly unhooking the lock from the door, she gently placed it on the ground without making a sound. Inching closer, she placed an ear to the door and listened in silence as someone's footsteps echoed inside for a but a spell.

'Someone's inside? I thought Linkle locked this place with a rune…shit.'

Cursing in her mind, she stepped away from the door and pondered whether to flee for now and get everyone else or simply move inside and check who it was rummaging through the black powder and scrolls.

'Are they stealing our shit? Can I actually get to Raven and come back before they steal most of the stuff? How much have they already stolen? Is that why the workers are missing because they're gone with the items?'

Question upon question kept piling up inside her head. She had no clue how long the robbery had been going on, and whether there was anything at all left inside the room. Glancing down at the latch on the door, she cursed once again. Had it been a knob instead of a latch with a detached lock, she could've seen inside through the hole and wouldn't need to step inside at all.

'One quick look, that should be enough.'

Keeping the shield close to her chest, Regalia moved closer to the door again and gently lifted the latch off its hook, then with a quiet move to the side, she opened the door and rested it against the door.

"I know you're in there! Just stay put or else you'll be swimming with the fishes soon…" Pushing the door open, Regalia was met with the same dimly lit room as it always had been, but the barrels, every single one of them were gathered around the back.

'Only yellow circles on those barrels no white cross, the ones with the scrolls are missing.'

Deducing that information in an instant, Regalia took a step inside–hoping to check the marks on the barrels hiding behind those in the front.

Knowing someone was inside, however, the wolf-girl kept her guard up. Watching even the slightest flicker in the lamp's flame and the rampant movement of rats as she approached the barrels, she kept a close eye on everything at once, thanks to the many blessings granted to her by her patron. Their strength, however, felt fleeting at that moment–suppressed by something much closer to her than her master.

"Are you alone?" The sound of the door clicking shot Regalia like a canon.

Quickly turning around to face whoever it was calling out to her, she saw Baylee walking out from the shadows with the room's door locked behind her. For a moment, Regalia's shoulder dropped, and a false sense of relief washed over her. It was just the girl taking care of the repair. That's when she noticed, the silver aura outlined by darkness oozing out of her.

Clutching her weapons again, she lengthened the shield to cover her entire body with a slot for her eyes to still be able to look at her enemy. Although a bit dizzy from the loss of so much blood, Regalia began charging at Baylee with the shield as her weapon.

"I'll tell you if I'm alone once I'm done taking you down!" Letting go of the morningstar and instead turning that blood into spikes on the end of the shield, Regalia ran like a bull and punctured Baylee's chest with the spikes.

An agonizing scream left the puppeteer's mouth, but that wasn't the end of the woman's torture for having been a general at war, Regalia knew not to stop when the enemy was crying but rather only when they stopped breathing completely. Tearing through the door, the warlock kept slamming Baylee through the many walls inside the ship's hull, and the only reason she stopped was that there was no footing underneath and the two were flying out of the ship.

Falling into the water, the wolf-girl's blood quickly diluted into the dark sea. Tired, she swam up to the surface and through strokes rampant made her way towards the shore. Coughing out water and breathing heavily, she laid down on the bay for a moment just getting her breaths in.

"Fu-fuck–" Coughing out more water, Regalia slowly lifted herself to look at the sea. "Fuck you b-bitch…"

With no signs of Baylee, she thought the woman had drowned, but the moment she tried to rest her head again, she saw the puppeteer hunched over and looking into her eyes.

"WHAT TH–" And this time, it was Baylee who gave Regalia no chance to react.