Netori: Stealing The Hero's Party!

"Why not save him yourself?" Asked Athenia to herself, only to be reminded of her plans to lay low. If she moved so much as a finger, the gods would strike the boy down themselves, and unlike Raven, the youth had no way of defending himself.

'A futile death…' Brushing her hand across the screen, she gazed into the near future, and there it was crushed under the raging fists of the minotaur queen as she stood there with her head lowered. Behind the shadow around her eyes were traces of glistening tears. Mino had no clue why she felt the way she did, and yet the transformation of innocence into an abomination had affected her dearly.

"As expected," brushing the screen out of her sight, Athenia leaned into her throne. Closing her eyes, she peered into the future–as far as she could considering the way everything had built up.

It wasn't that she could predict what would happen, but rather being a creature existing as much in the past and the future as the present, she could deduce the outcome with near to no room for any contingency. Unless of course, any creature of eternity tries to bend the future in their favor.

'The party will die, they're not ready.' Their death was what the goddess saw, each one of them consumed by some horror far more expansive than their imaginations. And yet, she could do nothing for the gods had forbidden her.

Fiddling with time would only end in disaster, especially when everyone else wanted to lead the world into a timeline where the faith of the people was entirely theirs to leech off of.

Each god nudging the future in their own different direction was the very reason there was so much discord on the soil of Nerva. One man killing another in the name of their gods, not realizing in the least that their faith was nothing more than fuel for a tyrant that didn't care for them at all.

'Even if I help him now, how should I do it?' Athenia wondered, her mind racing through the cosmos of her expansive thoughts. Trapped inside the mind of a god, she was limited in her knowledge, but thankfully her father had taught her well for such a time. 'Tolerance, build it up as they march. Get them on a path that slowly grows more treacherous.'

Mapping the word of Nerva and parting it into sections depending on the difficulty of the monsters, Athenia held her finger in front of her and tapped the air to manifest the map from inside her head. Opening her eyes, she quickly snatched the floating map and glanced through it a few times. Making sure that she hadn't forgotten anything, she checked it thoroughly before rolling it into a scroll.

"About time I had a talk with him," leaning back into her throne again, she snapped a finger and instantly slipped into slumber.

Walking on the other end, her consciousness formed into a pale specter of Athenia's body and wandered into Raven's mind. Dark as far as the eye could see, the place was no different than Nerva's mind, yet instead of being all alone, Athenia was sitting across a table from Raven with just a blink of her eyes.

Before the mage even realized what was happening, she quickly wore the facade of her mother–which is to say a jolly simpleton, though Athenia left the insatiable hunger for cock out of the act.

'If only she hadn't birthed Nerva, I wouldn't have to pretend.' Keeping her complaints to herself, Athenia forced a smile while looking at Raven.

A bit disoriented by the sudden dream visitor, the mage shook his head trying to determine if what he was seeing was real or just fantasy. But when Athenia didn't move or disappear, he cautiously leaned forward and asked.

"This can't be real, right? Where am I?" Moving her hand across the table, Athenia placed the map in front of Raven.

"It is, but uhm…I kinda needed to talk to you so–"

"So you decided to get in my head?" He asked, interjecting.

"Ahhh…" Nervously scratching her cheeks, Athenia nervously smiled. However, quickly driving the guilt away, she turned her head back to Raven and slammed her palms against the table. "Forget that! I came here for a reason, okay? And if you're so bothered, then fine! I'll give you your next gift, just tell me what it is?!"

A brief pause later, a smile crept up Raven's face. He tried to reach for Athenia, but the goddess slapped his hand away.

"Oi! Don't play with me!" Puffing her cheeks, she glared at him with rage.

Chuckling to himself, Raven played it off as a joke. Leaning back into his chair, he kept looking at Athenia with a wicked smile.

"I want the power to control–no! Alter minds, change people's memories, shift their emotions one way or the other!" Tired of the constraint of his charm, Raven wanted more control of the ability so he could not only make anyone like him but also inject anger, disgust, as well as other negative emotions in them, however, instead of it being directed at him, it would be towards other people.

'With how he fights, with traps, cunning, and his speed, being able to control the enemy's minds would surely help the party in the long run.

Especially if he can use it on himself to overcome fear, pain, and anything that might hinder his ability to keep going.' Even though Athenia knew that Raven wasn't exactly gonna use the ability for what she had in mind, lifting the constraint on his charm would not only help him drive away the forces of evil but also allow her to continue her pretentious act of being her naive mother.

"You're gonna use it to have sex, aren't you?" She asked, her face contorting into a strange mix of shock and fear.

"We had a deal to help each other, so if I can help you while also building that harem of mine, then does it really matter?" Raven replied, smirking as always.

'You're naive, but not for long.' Having witnessed the future, Athenia knew that while his quest for the harem would continue, his cheekish nature was bound to be reeled in by the horrors of reality.

"Ahh, I guess you're right," faking an awkward chuckle, Athenia agreed to his terms before moving on to other matters like his party's next stop as well as what was happening with Mino.