Netori: Stealing The Hero's Party!

The guards had not even been informed about the murders as they'd been far too busy near the castle as a result of recent activities. The security had been tenfold but the lack of personnel left the city barren of all guards.

It had just been a few hours since Mono had taken over, and as she was currently busy charting the trajectory of the kingdom, she had yet to be informed about the negligence of her army.

But for the murderous boy Arc and his mother, Kathy, that very negligence was of great relief. Knife still in hand, the boy sat on his bed tapping his feet in angst, and his mother peeked out of the curtains–waiting for the guards to eventually come over and take her young boy away.

"You're an idiot!" She screamed, shutting the curtains again.

Turning towards Arc, she stomped her way closer and grabbed that knife away from him.

"Killing a woman and her child in broad daylight?! What the hell were you thinking?!" Freaking out of her mind, she grabbed him by the collar while leaning towards him.

A flash of her breasts waves under her clothes flashes at the young boy, however grabbing him by the face, Kathy forced him to look her in the eye. Throwing the knife away, she kept glaring at him with her eye bleeding with rage, but the face of her young boy who would soon be taken away from her, ached her heart in a way that instead of slapping his face, she hugged him tight.

"You're an idiot…" She whimpered her tears flowing down her chin before eventually making it to her chest where they brushed against Arc's cheeks. "I told you we would take care of them some other way, why did you have to get your own hands dirty?"

Pushing himself away from his mother, he grabbed her by the shoulder and looked back into her eyes. With a raging face as before, he gritted his teeth shut and aggressively shook his head left and right. Finally, as he managed to contain himself, he took a deep breath and gave her a reply.

"Because of that cunt elf! She was threatening you!" Following his words, his hands moved down her supple frame. A spark erupted throughout Kathy's skin, as it wasn't the first time he'd caressed her so lovingly. "And you know how much I love you. And that slut thought she could threaten you, so I stabbed her wife so she could feel the kind of pain I felt from her words."

"But!" Slipping into his lap, she moved one of her hands under his chin and rested the other on his chest. "You needed that girl, you told me you wanted her, and now that chance is gone and they'll put you in the dungeon. Do you know how much that would hurt me? How much I would miss you day and night?"

With her hands slipping down his chest on its own, Kathy shook her head to bring herself out of the daze. It wasn't the time for such things, especially since the girl who was supposed to act as a cover to mask their deranged love from the rest of society was now possibly dead. Slipping out of his lap, she leaned over to his forehead and planted a brief kiss.

"You need a wife Arc, and she was the one you wanted and I made sure to do everything I could to get their stingy parents to agree with the arrangement," pulling her hands away from her son, her heart raced with anxiety once again.

Turning her head towards the window, her face was illuminated with a strip of light creeping into the dark room.

"We made so many memories in this room," unspeakable acts and memories flooded into Kathy's head. She'd always loved her son, and some would say, perhaps she loved him a little too much. But saying that to a coal smuggler wasn't exactly prime if you wished to live longer than a few minutes.

A sudden knock on the door broke Kathy's chain of thought, acting as a commoner she'd almost forgotten that a handful of her late husband's henchmen always lived inside the tunnel they'd dug right underneath the house.

It led to many places of importance, but unfortunately, none could get her son away without the possibility of a blocked exit or a sudden cave-in since it had been a while since the exits had been checked.

"Any luck?" She asked.

"Ch'ya! Everything's shut off since the monsoon, and the one exit we found is blocked by some damned dark mist that nearly killed us." The news from the other side of the door only made her tension grow.

Ideally, she'd only wanted to go to the Inn and complain to the mothers, and if everything had gone right, she and her son would've been back to their house without having to blow her cover. But now as the clock kept ticking, she was seconds away from ordering her brutes to escort her disguised son through the city streets.

"Shit…Just get the carriages ready! Tell your men you're going on another haul and I'll get my son ready to leave with you guys!" Although the plan was risky since they'd be forced to exit through the city gates, and no matter how thin the army was spread, there were bound to be guards stationed there.

'Taking the train is out of the question, and the front gates are risky when smuggling coal in much less taking something out of the city, but the damned seasons have fucked me over real good!' The passing of monsoon where the caves were flooded and then the intense heat of the summer drying up the choked paths, were both matters of great frustration to her, but since coal was only used for machinery in summer, she wasn't in any hurry to get those tunnels cleaned.

At least, she wasn't until her son stabbed someone–which she already knew was going to blow her cover to the council. The people already knew, except for Zoey's mothers she'd kept a keen watch on the family to make sure nobody oversteps any lines.

"Arc, get up. I'm gonna change your clothes to look like a girl–" To her misfortune, however, the sound of her front door being kicked open shattered every possibility of an escape. Both for herself as well as her son.

"WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE!" The roar of the enraged mage was enough to shake the very building to its core. And the first victims of that anger were the unfortunate henchmen who were there to challenge any kingdom guards.