Netori: Stealing The Hero's Party!

On the cold tiles of Aphrodite's church, Erika spent her night. Her body was aching the moment her eyes opened, yet somehow she was dripped with bliss. The light peeking through the broken windows of the nun's dorm basked her skin in melancholy for a time that had passed long ago.

Turning to her side, she saw a distant door across the room, broken off the hinges and barely held up by a sharp piece of its frame sticking into the ground.

'The children's stay.' It was the very room that had once separated her from the rest of her friends. The priestess's vow had temporarily snipped their attachment; she wasn't allowed to talk to them, even when it was time for them to gather in prayer. 'I hate that place…Maybe I should burn it.'

It was a passing thought at first, but then as she got off the ground, the allure of the vengeful act became harrowingly real. Her steps had a mind of their own, and her lips began breathing a spell, but as it came to cast the spell, she came to her senses for a moment–leading her to abandon the spell.

"I would've burnt it," the voice of a devil speaking from her peripheral, made Erika reconsider burning it still. She let the thought simmer, bathed in its gratifying promise, even clutched her fingers and let out a sizzle of satisfaction through her lips.

However, in the end–she felt empty; for at the end of the promised joy lay the realization.

"Burning the past, won't change it…" With a deep breath she sighed, then opening her curled fingers and eyes, Erika turned to the devil. "You'll still be here, and so will I. I'm just better off accepting it."

The last part of her dialogue struck Asmodia as a bit odd for a while, but as the priestess began marching to the front church building, everything quickly began to make sense. The past didn't need burning, but it had to be left as what it was–the past. Trying to drag it along through wishful thinking or even trying to burn it through contempt was no real solution to the problem.

And so, with that realization, Erika stood before the idol of her dead goddess–one of the many things that was best left in the past.

"Help me, will you?" She requested, her eyes glued to the idol that she would soon dethrone from its spot.

"Help you to take down an idol to a god?" Glancing over to the idol of Aphrodite, a smile crept up Asmodia's face. "Darling, you're gonna get me wet if you're not careful."

"I don't need to hear blasphemy, Asmodia. Just help me if you wish," still aggressively hetero, she didn't wanna hear the devil's teasing.

"You don't have to ask me twice sweetheart," stretching her hands forward, the devil of seduction summoned horned cupids made of crimson mist that her own body consisted of as well.

The curious sight as the cupids began grabbing Aphrodite's idol in secure places, made Erika wonder what the devil actually looked like as she'd never seen her true form, just a false impression of an angel or the crimson mist illusion.

'I'm bound to find out sooner or later.' Chalking the matter up for later, Erika turned her gaze to the front and directed the cupids to lift the stone idol. For a moment they struggled to get it off the ground, but with a bit of effort, the idol was finally moving. Guiding the cupids to take the idol into the back garden, Erika led them through the back door where they struggled for a while.

Asmodia, however, lagged behind in the main building. The moment the idol had been moved, she saw something slipping underneath–it had her curiosity and as she grew closer, it had her complete attention.

'A letter?' A dark envelope wax sealed with an emerald skull laid on the ground where the Idol had been standing. Getting to her knees, the devil picked it up in her hands. Breaking the wax from the paper, she reached inside the envelope, but to her surprise–the letter was mostly empty with only a few visible words at the very bottom.

'Asmodia, don't make a habit of reading letters that don't belong to you. Why don't you take this to the person whom it concerns.'

Signed underneath those sentences, was the name of a dead god.

"Murdok…Even after a millennium, your humor is just as dry as your bones." Asmodia muttered to herself before making the letter disappear so she could later give it to Athenia. "Still, out of all the godly fucks, at least you were what you were, the god of death and that's all."

A god who rules his domain rather than tries to expand in all directions–it was a rare sight to behold as even today the elder god's children, including Athenia were doing much the same. Expanding more and more without a care if they could even handle such influence. But warnings against such expansions were Pathfinder's job and not Asmodia's and so she brushed it off the very next breath.

Not long after she'd pocketed the letter, Erika was done putting the idol in the garden with the help of the horned cupids. Returning into the mist of their master, they disappeared, leaving the two to think about how they would replace Aphrodite's idol with that of Athenia.

"So? What's the plan?" Asked Asmodia.

"I have no clue," Erika responded, just as lost about getting a new idol as the devil.

Neither knew Athenia's true appearance or one that she was particularly fond of. For Erika, it was a matter of not enough visit and for Asmodia, the goddess was born much later than her imprisonment.

"I guess I'll go talk to her right now, after all," Asmodia suggested.

"You can just go talk to her any time?" Erika asked, scowling.

Shrugging her shoulders, the devil set rest to Erika's doubt.

"You go find someone who can make her appearance into a statue in the meantime," and with those words, the devil disappeared, leaving Erika to wonder, to whom she should turn for a stone idol of the city's new goddess.

Note: We reached 300 chapters! Can you lovely peeps drop your favourite gif in the comment to celebrate? Plz? XD