Netori: Stealing The Hero's Party!

"So they find out about the Mistress, huh?" In the middle of changing their clothes in Helga’s room, Aria had been lost in thought and the Valkyrie had read through her expression. Turning her head around at the bruised and marked back of the Valkyrie, the dark elf stared at her confused, not knowing how she even managed to figure out what she was thinking.

"Don’t be so shocked, I heard the party raided the maze last night, hence it was shut–something like that was bound to make news."

"You know everything?" Aria asked, turning around completely.

"I do, and since the Mistress is still alive and so are your friends I can only imagine that they struck a deal or that the demoness revealed everything and they knew they couldn’t do anything," her eyes glaring at Aria from over her shoulder, Helga noticed a slight look of surprise taking over Aria at the second part of her statement. "They retreated then, I assumed as much to be honest."

"Wait wait wait…" Taking a step back with her hands firmly held between them, Aria glared into the Valkyrie’s eyes and asked her the burning question. "You knew what the Mistress has been doing? Selling children as slaves? No way that’s true!"

Just uttering those words, Aria wanted to claw her own throat out, but when Helga’s stern gaze refused to budge, that feeling of disgust quickly turned to anger. Squinting her eyes in rage, her hands moved on their own and grabbed the bruised back of the Valkyrie. Digging her nails into her skin, she tried to hold herself back, but something in her refused to just let that matter go.

Even so, biting the inside of her mouth she glanced down to the ground and drew long deep breaths, and as her eyes lifted up Helga’s body, they stopped at the names carved into the back of her flesh. The next moment, however, a film of new skin rippled over the wounds, covering the names and the bruises entirely.

"I told you to stop staring before!" Helga complained, shoving Aria away with a nudge from her shoulder.

Mostly unbothered by it, the dark elf looked back into the Valkyrie’s eyes and pressed her further, demanding an answer.

"What are those wounds exactly? Why don’t you just heal them away?" At first, she’d wanted to ask about her inaction towards the Mistress, but the marks had taken over her mind and thus the questions slipped through. But as soon as she was done letting them out, she didn’t wait for Helga to answer before piling more on top.

"And why didn’t you do anything about the Mistress if you knew she was trading children as slaves!"

Ignoring the elf for a while, the Valkyrie simply put on her sundress before turning around to face her. Staring into Aria’s eyes, Helga moved close enough until their chests were bumping each other. Glaring down at Aria with her nose all scrunched up in anger, Helga gave the dark elf her answer.

"Between the entirety of Athenia falling and a couple of children that aren’t my own, I think the choice was pretty clear," being the one to place her hand on her shoulder this time, the Valkyrie squeezed until Aria could hear her shoulder snap. But clenching her teeth, she tried drowning her hurt and continued to stand her ground in the Valkyrie’s face.

"As for those bruises, you don’t need to know everything about me, so kindly fuck off and just focus on the training…"

"If they were your children would you have stayed quiet still? Tell them to fuck off too?!" Bashing her head onto Helga’s chest, Aria forced her to step off and to her surprise it worked, and she even managed to heal her own shoulders.

"I’m not their mother and I won’t pretend to be, so stop screaming in my house before you alert my daughter…" Her fists clenched tight, Helga held back from punching Aria right back. She wasn’t hurt–not in the least, but if her daughter heard a word of what she was saying, the Valkyrie wouldn’t hold back on smashing the elf’s teeth in.

"Look…Someone dies every other second, you’d be a fool to try and prevent it. And tragedies like the ones that take place in Athenia are even more abundant and far less feasible to contain any of it."

Taking yet another step back, Aria stared at Helga–her head shaking side to side with visible disappointment.

"I can’t believe you’re trying to justify this–"

"I’M NOT TRYING TO JUSTIFY IT YOU MORON!" Losing her calm, the Valkyrie screamed at the top of her lungs, but quickly darting her eyes to the shut door, she covered her mouth from running off on its own again. "We’re done talking about this, you can go back to that mansion of yours for now…"

Lifting her head, Helga stared at Aria for a while before walking closer to her and shoving her to the ground with one hand. Stay updated through мѵʟ

"What the hell?!" Complained the dark elf, more offended than hurt.

As their eyes met again, the Valkyrie said to her in parting words.

"Get off your high horse and just accept that you can’t fight everything. I never claimed to be an angel so stop treating me like I am some saint…" Walking towards the door, Helga gripped the door handle tight. "Besides what do you think, how would a fight with that devil end with? Trust me, every parent in Athenia–if they knew what that would be like, they’d beg me to let the Mistress do her thing."

And with those words, the Valkyrie walked away–leaving Aria sitting bare on the hard floor and thinking to herself.

’What the fuck are we fighting for if we’re allowing shit like this?’ But for now, she could do nothing–nothing but return to the mansion and come back another day to train with Helga while pretending as if they never had this conversation.