Netori: Stealing The Hero's Party!

The cooing of a child echoed through the silk-laden tent. It was the very first of the king of centaurs at that time and yet there was no fanfare. For the child had no hooves but rather human toes. Infidelity was the first rumor to drift from one lip to the other, but the queen knew it not to be true as she begged her husband to trust her.

However, what she got was his iron hooves stomping on her head, all the while her newborn suckled on her breasts. Curling up on the ground, she endured countless lashes and other torments, all so she could protect her first child.

It was human, how could it be? Neither she nor the father was one themselves. Looking for answers the moment she was spared torture, she turned to the wise men of their clans but they refused her any answers, leading only to more and more speculations until the night her blood-soaked husband came onto her one night.

By the time her next son was born, Isaac was already five years old. His attempts to mingle with the others hadn't been quite that successful, but with his shrewd mind, he often managed to do things the others would seek him out for. However, his creeping popularity was quickly squashed the moment Gara was born.

The king alongside the rest of the clan rejoiced and before long Isaac was forgotten. To his mother, it was a boon as he would no longer be pushed around, but in the eyes of his father, the very sight of him disgusted him. Isaac knew how he felt about him, and the contrast in his behavior towards Gara only pained him further.

After all, while the centaurian was allowed to do anything and everything with no limits or reprimand, even the slightest missteps by Isaac were met with death threats by his own father.

With time, the human learned to stay in the shadow of his younger brother and help him shine so he could take the attention away from his pitiful existence. At first, it seemed to work, but as Gara's actions grew gruesome, from murdering other children for sports to even raping women in adulthood until they were corpses, changed Isaac's thoughts towards his brother but he kept it all to himself.

His mother, however, wasn't so quiet as she much like many other women of the clan weren't so dismissing of the girls being raped to death by Gara. But alas, being his heir, the king brushed their complaints off and instead decided to punish the complaining women by chaining them in the dungeons to later be used as his son's joy toys.

'And then it happened…' Thought Isaac, his brown eyes grayed with the images of the past. He could still see himself standing before his father to complain, but it ended up with him bleeding on the ground. Squinting his eyes to the memory, he kept walking further and further down into the dungeons where the wandering man had been kept.

'Then came the poison and the knife my mother used to commit suicide after killing father.'

In the end, his parents never knew why he was born a human, even though it only took a few weeks past their deaths for Isaac to figure out how genetic dissension works.

'Mother never knew but she was born of a human and a centaur's union.' As burly and strong as they've been, centaurs weren't exactly known for their intelligence, or else they too would've figured out the reason for Isaac's birth. 'But…That doesn't matter now.'

Bringing his attention to the front, Isaac found himself looking at the man who'd identified himself as Greg. His eyes were gray and so was his hair, he looked dishelved and wrinkled. However, slowly raising his eyes to meet Isaac, the mortal immortal beamed him a smile.

"Back to considering my offer, huh?" He said.

Glancing sideways at the guards, Isaac gestured to them to head out, and only after they were gone, did he approach the prison cell and respond to the man.

"The demon general? Of course, I want her gone," letting go of the ledger in his hand with one hand, Isaac grabbed the iron bar and pressed his face closer to the cell. "But I don't believe you can do it even now."

"Your brother will die if you do nothing," the man responded, crudely.

It took Isaac but a moment to recover from the warning and speak again.

"I don't care anymore…"

"Then what the hell do you want?!" Jerking his body forward, Greg rattled the chains binding him to the walls. Shocked, Isaac stepped away from the cell's door and just stared at the man in front of him for a moment. "You know it's wrong and yet you do nothing! You want to see your brother alive and yet you won't stop that monster from murdering and plundering!

And worst of all…You're a human who thinks he can be accepted in a clan of monsters just because he was born into it!"

Tugging more and more on the chains, the mortal immortal pulled himself off the walls. Then crushing the binds with his grip, he freed himself completely before turning his attention back to the coward in front.

"You know your brother deserves to die like your father, and if you have self-respect, you will die fighting that evil like your mother," bending the cell bar with his hands, he walked right out and extended his right hand to Isaac. "I usually don't help just anyone, but I know what happens if I don't in this situation."

Already being able to see what was about to happen while Isaac still contemplated shaking his hand, the mortal immortal smiled at the future.

"Consider yourself lucky, partner," he said laughing to himself.

Just a second later, Isaac's shifty eyes focused on the hand and he finally gathered enough courage to go ahead with the offer.

"I…Would've preferred if I didn't have to turn against my brother, but I don't think he can be saved anymore, I've given him too many chances–twenty years worth of chances to be exact," even though his heart ached at the thought of betraying his brother, after what he'd been forced to see, Isaac finally realized that he could no longer be an accomplice to a tyrannical centaur.

'Mother was right, I can never be a centaur but that doesn't mean there's no value to my life and morals.' Accepting himself as who he was instead of trying to fit in, Isaac was more than ready to fight against the Centaur king.

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