Netori: Stealing The Hero's Party!

What does it mean to be alive? To be human? To have a soul? The questions plagued me; they fueled my wonder throughout my childhood. But then came into the world, the crushing life as an adult. The place I once loved and nurtured me to health was slowly eating away at my heart and corroding my conscience.

So what did I do? Let the tragic flow of life wash me wherever it pleased? No, I’d rather be dead than bend a knee to such inescapable tyranny.

“Shamisha, grab an iron-core isolator for me,” calling out to my student, my hand kept screwing the last bit of my new doll’s chest. It consisted of armor made from a non-plastic amalgam of dragon hides. Aegis, that’s what I called it. The most flexible metal capable of absorbing, hells, even bouncing any blow that comes its way with twice as much power.

“Here you go ma’am,” quickly shifting my eyes to my lovely student, I beamed her a smile before taking the ironcore. About to set it inside the chest, I turned around just as fast, however, before I could fit it in, Shamisha spoke up again. “Ma’am, are you sure that you wanna do this? Isn’t it a bit too much?”

My fingers froze in their tracks, did I hear her, right? Doubts? Me?!

“I don’t have a choice, do I, my cute bunny girl?” Turning around in my chair, I glanced up at the always uptight demi-human. She’d been a great help to me for a long time, but it was time for her to move on from me as her teacher. “I’ll die soon enough, you know that better than anyone.

Working with chemicals, toying with fumes not fit for humans, I’ve been doing that since I was a kid, and the king? Well, as selfless as he is, I believe he has chosen me as a sacrifice for his army.”

“BUT!” Watching her white bunny ears flopping around with worry made me chuckle.

“Oi, go find a boyfriend or something, I was never going to be with you forever sweetheart,” turning back to the desk, I picked myself up along with the Ironcore Aegis. “Now, please go and ready the picking maiden.”

The very mention of the doll’s name had Shamisha shuddering. She hadn’t had a chance to build a relationship with the delicate beauty, otherwise, I’m sure she would be fascinated by the craftsmanship in her dicing and slicing.

“S-sure…” Hearing the confirmation, I pressed the only button on the iron ball. Blooming open like a flower, it was lit with blue light that ran along its surface like veins. Inside it were multiple chambers for every artery as well as sections for inferior and superior vena cava.

‘A soul, the only thing that was lacking in my dolls, to turn them from mere puppets that adhere to commands, into soldiers that could live forever.’ I never wanted things to come so far, but death wouldn’t take me so easily. ‘I wanna stare it in the face and laugh!’

“You’re not gonna beat me Murdok,” whispering to myself, I finally set the iron-core isolate inside the living doll. It still needed some adjustments, a few tweaks here and there, but before that, I could hear the slicing maiden cranking up her cranks.

Turning to the sight of an abominable horror–a great canvas of absurdity, my eyes numbed to the sight of her struggling yet moving her body for me. Crawling out of a hole in the walls, she climbed down like a spider. As thin as bones her frame resembled a giant’s skeleton, and going along with her was her mask–torn off of a giant’s carcass by herself.

“You need to do something about that hunched posture maiden!” Walking closer to the hunched-over giant, I couldn’t help but notice heavy signs of self-neglect. She was supposed to be an autonomous creature, capable of treating herself right. Yet ever since she’d learned of my plans, she’d been acting up a little. “There’s blood all over you, needles too!”

The rotting giant’s face aside, her body looked like an upright gorilla with a slightly more gruesome charm. Blood was often splattered all over her in her line of work, and though I’d never instilled it in her protocols, she liked to chew on prisoners sent here as test subjects.

“Show me your hands,” grabbing her claw-like fingers, I reached for a cleaning cloth and began wiping the blood off of them. But instead of being wiped clean, the claws simply split the cloth and nearly sliced my hand open. “Fuck! Shit!”

“HSSHH?” Lowering her head, she tilted her head beside me.

“I’m okay, no need to worry,” hiding my cut hand behind me, I instead led her to the table so she could start with the procedure.

Soon after as we were getting ready, Shamisha came back from the room where Maiden must’ve hid. And even as I lay on the operating bed, she made one last attempt to make me reconsider.

“Ma’am please don’t do this!” She pleaded, but eyeing Maiden, I ordered her to start with my gaze alone. “Wait! Let me talk!”

“I’m dying sweetheart, it could be now or three days from now,” though I understood her frustration, but this was my and my choice alone to make. “And if I’m dying anyways, then I wanna give myself the best chance to say fuck you to that skeleton bastard.”

I tried to calm the tension with a laugh, but unsurprisingly it didn’t work.

“Who are you even talking about?! And why do you care to go to such lengths to just say a fuck you! Everyone dies ma’am, but not everyone makes fucked up decisions like this!” Storming up close, she grabbed me by my arm and tried to yank me out of the bed. “Dying once to live forever, my fucking ass!”

“Don’t force me to hurt you…” Holding my hand by her chest, I gave her one last chance to back away. “You would make the same choice if you were in my shoes. Perhaps, you won’t. I don’t know how demi-humans think or believe in things, but let me tell you something Shamisha darling.”

“J-just get off, please?” She begged again, but I had already made up my mind.

“We have a soul–one that screams for us to fight life’s tyranny, and I for one, won’t let it take me so easily!” Blowing Shamisha away with a blast of wind magic, I spoke my very last words in life.

“When this world ends I’ll still survive.” And that’s how the name Avarice came about, not from me but from my maddened student who deemed me too greedy for life.