Netori: Stealing The Hero's Party!

Avarice, a strange name extremely on the nose, especially for an automaton who had great potential to grow stronger the more she fueled herself with magic. But alas, the humanoid girl was no fighter for the battlefield, but a simple maid to the young prince who would one day take the throne of his father.

"Remember your task, okay? Keep the prince safe." Those were her first orders given to her by her creator–a female wizard with an iron arm. The bubbly face of her creator was still fresh in her mind, giant goggles on her eyes, a wooly pink hat, but what set her apart from the rest of the engineers working for the king, were her tank top and jeans with nearly a hundred different pockets.

"Why did she never give me pockets?" Avarice mused, her cheeks puffed up with annoyance.

"Maybe she thought you wouldn't need them," replied the young prince, his hand scribbling through some notes on his desk

"As if! I'm a maid, of course, I'll need pockets!" Avarice retorted, glaring at her master's back.

"Maybe you can ask her later?" The prince added. Having forgotten that she was dead, he posed the question in a carefree manner, but the moment Avarice heard it, the always caring maid sparked her first flicker of annoyance.

So far she'd been growing alongside the prince and shared only compassion and love, however, a simple nudge in the wrong direction made her angry at him for the first time. Her maker was dead, how could she ask her anything? And if that wasn't a sign of disrespect Avarice didn't know what would be.

Time passed, and she continued to serve the young prince, although at times she would trip on purpose and splash him with steaming drinks. Growing into an arrogant narcissist from the moment he learned he would one day be king, Zeil would shower her with insults which only soured their relationship.

It wasn't just her either that he was a loud-mouthed moron to; even to his teachers, he would bad-mouth until he couldn't and even tried to use his authority to punish them for no reason.

Driving everyone away with his foul mouth and arrogance, the only girl around him was Avarice and his sisters–something the maid took note of, and decided to change her course of action to torture him for his behavior. Instead of hate, she showered him with love, instead of letting him work, she did everything for him which essentially crippled him without her assistance.

'He can't do anything without me anymore, ehehe~' She would relish over such thoughts as his head laid on her thighs and she caressed it until he fell asleep. At this point in time, she knew that she was no longer a doll or his maid, but a potential lover in his eyes.

His blushing face as she leaned into him, her breasts touching his sides as he studied, was proof enough of his attraction to the automaton. To make things worse, she even did his studies and solved the papers as well as read through policies, just to cripple him more and ruin any chance of his independence from her.

Eventually, the time came for her to make the move–the last hurdle in keeping him leashed to her, being a shy virgin, Zeil laid down on her lap with nothing covering his body. But of course, how could Avarice let him have what he wanted? And so instead of letting him feel her artificial body, she used her fingers to edge him countless hours without orgasming.

The cycle continued day and night, until the once bright prince, although just as arrogant and narcissistic, was wrapped within the mono-doll's grasp. She would give him comfort, pleasure without release, and make him anything he wanted so long as he didn't try to escape from that leash.

Now years past, a conspiracy began brewing–one that she overheard and couldn't help but see as an opportunity. The head maid and the prince's three sisters were planning to slowly poison the king, for they knew that the prince was within Avarice's grasp and so long as they could convince her, the new king Zeil would be forced to rule as the sisters demanded.

He would simply be a front, a shallow vessel for the sisters to control through the mono-doll, and eventually, Avarice was pulled aside and told everything about their plans.

Being under the command of the head maid who also happened to be a mono-doll, she pretended to be surprised at first, but then quickly agreed to play her part. Not because she wanted to help them, or that she respected the head maid, but because her very nature as a doll feeding on power was to grasp as much of it as she could without raising any suspicion from the others.

'I'll kill the sisters if needed, and Zeil won't lift a finger to do anything without my permission…' All alone inside her overly decorated room, a creepy smile crept up her lips. Walking over to the mirror, she settled in front of the vanity and began brushing her lush dark hair. Peering into her red eyes, she couldn't help smiling. 'A whole kingdom…And I get to control it!'

Chuckling at the thought, she imagined herself a queen with the sisters licking her feet alongside Zeil. Power–a force that could corrupt even an iron heart, she wondered if it was a trait her maker–Mono, the iron-armed wizard intentionally placed in her? She had to, right? A master of her craft that can breathe life into metal, how could someone like that be mistaken?! There was no way!

She wanted her to rule this kingdom, and eventually everything!

Or at least that's what Avarice thought, and it served as justification for what she was about to do. The first order of business was to ruin the timeline over which the sisters planned to kill the king because once their plan was thrown off, she could put her own ideas in motion.

"Your father, I'll up his dose so he'll die sooner, and when you realize, let's see how you handle a real murderer within the castle walls," she whispered to herself, intending to ruin their plans to spew chaos into the mix.

Will the sisters simply assume it to be their father's age that killed him sooner? Or will they suspect that someone spiked him more than what they'd planned? Either way, suspicion was bound to rise, and when that happens, all Avarice had to do was turn the sisters against each other.

'And then they'll die!' Covering her mouth, she held back her laughter. If anyone heard her laughing like a maniac, then her facade of an innocent maid was bound to be over. 'Once the sisters are gone, I don't have to pretend anymore.'

"They might already know a speck of what I'm capable of, but they're still so so so ignorant!" And that night, a month before the king's death was when the mono-doll Avarice lost any empathy that she had left.

[Note: Characters mentioned in this chapter will be better described later]